Donald Trump Questions Police Shooting in Oklahoma

GOP nominee says police may be at fault; Clinton meets with families of those killed by officers.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who often expresses solidarity with law enforcement, said he was troubled by the shooting death last week of an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Okla., and said the police may be at fault.

“That man went to the car, hands-up, put his hand on the car—to me it looked like he did everything you’re supposed to,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday in Cleveland, referring to 40-year- old Terence Crutcher.

The Tulsa police department and the U.S. Justice Department are investigating the shooting.

In Orlando, Fla., Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who has met with families of African-Americans killed by police officers, invoked the shooting death of Mr. Crutcher as well as the separate shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, N.C., saying the two deaths were “very upsetting.”

“It’s unbearable,” she said on Wednesday. “And it needs to become intolerable.”

In the Tulsa case, video footage showed the moment Mr. Crutcher was shot and killed by Oklahoma officer Betty Shelby, who was responding to a stalled vehicle.

The police department has opened a criminal investigation into the shooting, and the Justice Department is separately investigating whether a civil-rights violation occurred.

Mr. Trump told the crowd that he had watched the Tulsa video, and couldn’t understand why the police officer decided to shoot.

“Now, did she get scared? Was she choking?” Mr. Trump said about the officer. “What happened? Now, maybe people that choke, people that do that, maybe can’t be doing what they’re doing.”

Mr. Trump has aimed to align himself with law enforcement as a racially charged debate has unfolded following police shootings and protests around the country.

The GOP nominee has called for allowing police more latitude in profiling suspects. He won the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police earlier this month and expressed support Wednesday in a town hall organized by Fox News for “stop-and-frisk” police tactics as a way to reduce violence.

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