Tuesday, September 27th 2016, 5:48 pm
Hundreds of people were at the Greenwood Cultural Center Tuesday to see Reverend Al Sharpton and support the Crutcher family before marching across downtown Tulsa.
Again and again, they talked about keeping the peace.
Special Coverage: Terence Crutcher Police Shooting
Sharpton, the nationally known civil rights activist, summed up the entire mission of the movement saying, “We are not anti-white, we are not anti-police. We are anti-injustice."
Speaker after speaker, including Terence Crutcher's sister, Tiffany, reiterated the need to keep Tuesday's events peaceful and praised Tulsa for doing so.
"This isn't a war against police, we're not anti-police. We honor our men and women in blue. We honor them," Tiffany Crutcher said.
Tulsa police officers were on-hand when protesters across the street started chanting on a loudspeaker with anti-Islam banners to disrupt the rally.
Speakers at Greenwood told marchers to ignore them, keep the peace and respect their right to freedom of speech.
Finally, Sharpton talked about how transparent Tulsa has been, calling it an example for the rest of the nation.
"They put the video out right away, which they will not do in other cities,” Sharpton said. “So Tulsa is a model, and I congratulate you for the first step. Now you got to go on to the second step and the third step."
This rally, National Prayer and Call for Justice, was sponsored by Sharpton's civil rights organization, the National Action Network. And while they appreciate they transparency so far, they're calling for an investigation into all of the police officers on the scene during Crutcher's shooting death.
"So we have some questions we going to raise while we in town," Sharpton said. "Man asked me when I got off the plane - 'Why you in Tulsa, Reverend Al?' I said, 'I heard y'all lookin' for a bad dude.'"
Sharpton was referring to a police officer's comment made from a helicopter flying overhead saying Crutcher looked like a “bad dude” before he was shot.
September 27th, 2016
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