In reports on the Crutcher case, I couldn’t help but notice a certain detail I haven’t seen anyone else remarking on, which is that some of Betty Shelby”s distrust of Terence Crutcher appears to have been based on his lack of eye contact, on his shifty eye-gaze:

Wood said that Shelby then said to Crutcher, “Hey, is this your car?”

Crutcher didn’t respond, simply dropping his head while continuing to look at Shelby, “kind of under his brow,” (“which she thought was unusual” according to the video at the link) Wood said. Crutcher then began to put his hand into his left pocket,

Another description of the same exchange is this:

Her attorney said the man’s head lowered but he locked his eyes on Shelby “so he’s looking right out underneath his eyebrow which she thinks is really weird.”

“It’s like a thousand-mile stare,” Wood said his client recalled.

Later:

Shelby tried to get Crutcher to talk to her, but he simply mumbled something unintelligible and stared at her, Wood said. He then turned and walked to the edge of the roadway and turned to look at her, his hands still in the air, Wood said…

The eyes are one of the ways we judge people’s character—the way they look at us is a basic part of human interaction. Is their gaze straightforward or evasive? If the latter, maybe they’re hiding something. We respond to a thousand cues, subtle and not-so-subtle, often without even realizing it, and they help shape our view of someone’s character and our ability to predict what they might do next.

We now learn of Crutcher, about a previous traffic stop in 2013 (for speeding and DUI):

Once confronted, Crutcher was slurring his speech and had “the extreme odor of an alcoholic beverage” on his breath, the affidavit states. The patrolman found an open can of Steel Reserve beer in the vehicle’s center console.

The cop also noticed one of Crutcher’s eyes did not appear to be functional, according to the police report.

When pressed, Crutcher confirmed “that he had a fake eye.”

The trooper proceeded to book Crutcher, citing the “very droopy, heavy eyelids” of “Crutcher’s good eye” and noted that he “seemed to be disoriented and confused,” the affidavit states.

I haven’t seen the fact that Crutcher had a false eye reported elsewhere—and maybe I’m the only one who finds it possibly relevant anyway. And I’m certainly not saying that this is the whole reason that Officer Shelby became so suspicious almost from the start. But it probably didn’t help, and she probably never realized that Crutcher had a false eye that may have affected his gaze and his “thousand-mile stare.”