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 / Updated By Erik Ortiz and Phil Helsel 
 
 A jury on Wednesday acquitted a white Oklahoma police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed black man in Tulsa last year. 
 
 Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby, 43, had been charged with manslaughter in the September 2016 shooting death of Terence Crutcher, 40, during an encounter that began with the report of a stalled vehicle. 
 
 The district attorney’s office announced a verdict had been reached shortly after 9 p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET), more than eight hours after deliberations began, NBC affiliate KJRH reported. 
 
 The manslaughter trial against Shelby opened May 10 with prosecutors laying out how the five-year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department encountered Crutcher — what should have been a routine traffic matter that went too far, they said. 
 
 Instead, Crutcher's death — another involving an unarmed black man at the hands of police — touched off Black Lives Matter protests and calls for greater transparency from local authorities. 
 
 Crutcher's family called the verdict a disappointment, and called the police department "corrupt" after being led out of the courtroom filled with emotion. Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher, said her brother's hands were up, that he was not an imminent threat or attack her and didn't deserve to be shot. 
 
 "Terence was not the aggressor; Betty Shelby was the aggressor," she said. "Betty Shelby had the gun. Betty Shelby was following him with his hands up." 
 
 Shelby was among the officers who responded to reports of a stalled SUV left abandoned in the middle of a road just after 7:30 p.m. local time, prosecutors said. 
 
 Related: Trial Starts for Oklahoma Officer in Terence Crutcher Shooting 
 
 Police said Crutcher approached the vehicle but failed to listen to commands from officers. Shelby asked Crutcher if the car was his, but only mumbled to himself and didn't respond, according to an affidavit. 
 
 Crutcher was seen walking to his car with his hands up before reaching into the driver's side window. One of the officers fired his Taser at him. Shelby also fired her gun — striking the father of four in the lung, police said. 
 
 Video footage taken from helicopter and cruiser dashcams don't provide clear views of the moment she shot him. 
 
 An attorney for Shelby later said that she believed Crutcher was under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Shelby, a former deputy for the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, had previously completed drug-recognition expert training. 
 
 A toxicology report revealedthat Crutcher was on two hallucinogenic drugs, including PCP, during the encounter. It took at least two minutes after Crutcher was shot before police attempted aid, according to officers. 
 
 During the trial, Shelby testified that police training videos taught her to be careful about suspects pulling guns when they reach into their vehicles, according to The Associated Press. 
 
 She fired her weapon, she told a Tulsa County courthouse on Monday, because "I feared for my life." 
 
 "I did everything I could to stop this," she added. "Crutcher's death is his fault." 
 
 Prosecuting attorney Kevin Gray told the court that Crutcher was never aggressive toward police or actually produced a gun, and that Shelby was merely "guessing" that he had one. 
 
 Her defense attorney, Shannon McMurray, argued that it was unfair for the prosecution to repeatedly say Crutcher was unarmed. No weapon was found inside the SUV. 
 
 Tiffany Crutcher, center, sister of Terence Crutcher, talks with the media following a verdict in the trial of Tulsa police officer Betty Jo Shelby in Tulsa, Okla., Wednesday, May 17, 2017. Sue Ogrocki / AP 
 
 "To somehow imply that she was supposed to see what was in this door panel is absurd. It's deceitful and you should disregard it," McMurray told jurors, according to the AP. 
 
 Judge Doug Drummond, however, said his being unarmed was a relevant factor in the case. 
 
 An attorney for the Crutcher family, Benjamin Crump, raised the deaths of other black men in encounters with police, like Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, in expressing his disappointment with the verdict. 
 
 "The list just goes on and on, of unarmed African American men being killed by white police officers, and they get away with it," Crump said. 
 
 Jerad Lindsey, chairman of Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police, said that the jury’s verdict was the right one, but said the shooting was a tragedy. "There’s no winners in this," he said. "There's still a family that has dealt with a tragedy here, the Crutchers, and we still extend our deepest sympathies to them." 
 
 "And now that we’ve reached a verdict, Tulsa’s gonna have to figure out how to get its arms around this and be able to move forward in a positive way," Lindsey said. 
 
 Betty Shelby leaves the courtroom with her husband, Dave Shelby, right, after the jury in her case began deliberations in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 17. Sue Ogrocki / AP 
 
 Both Shelby's family, including her husband, who is a fellow Tulsa police officer, and Crutcher's family have been at the courthouse since the trial began. 
 
 Shelby was placed on paid administrative leave amid the investigation, then on unpaid leave. Shelby did not speak to the media after Wednesday's verdict. McMurray said Shelby is "elated and very proud of her jury." 
 
 Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler in a statement Wednesday night thanked jurors and said "there can be no doubt that the decision rendered by this jury was only after a long and deliberative process." 
 
 The NAACP Legal Defense Fund in a statement called Wednesday’s verdict disappointing, and said it is hopeful the Justice Department files charges. The DOJ announced shortly after the shooting that it was opening a civil rights investigation. 

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 The Rev. Joey Crutcher, father of Terence Crutcher, talks with the media following the verdict in the trial of Betty Shelby in Tulsa, Okla., Wednesday, May 17, 2017. Shelby, a white Oklahoma police officer,... (Associated Press) 
 
 TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A jury on Wednesday acquitted of first-degree manslaughter a white Oklahoma police officer who says she fired out of fear last year when she killed an unarmed black man with his hands held above his head. 
 
 The family of Terence Crutcher burst into tears and reacted with outrage after jurors found Tulsa officer Betty Jo Shelby not guilty in the Sept. 16 shooting. 
 
 "Let it be known that I believe in my heart that Betty Shelby got away with murder," Crutcher's father, Rev. Joey Crutcher, said after the verdict was announced. 
 
 A lawyer for Shelby said the officer was "elated" that the jury found her not guilty. 
 
 "She's ready to get back to her life," Defense Attorney Shannon McMurray said. 
 
 Shelby looked stone-faced when the verdict was read, but Crutcher's family was quickly ushered out of the courtroom sobbing and wailing. 
 
 At least four of the 12 jurors were crying as they left the courtroom and did not look at either the family of Crutcher or Shelby. The jury comprised eight women and four men and included three African-Americans. 
 
 About 100 demonstrators gathered in a plaza outside the courthouse Wednesday evening in peaceful protest at the verdict. They chanted: "No Justice, No Peace. No Racist Police." They marched several blocks downtown and gathered outside a hotel where they believed that Shelby and her defense team were staying. Later the protesters dispersed without incident. 
 
 Marq Lewis, organizer of the local civil rights group We The People Oklahoma said the verdict was a blow to Tulsa's black community. 
 
 "When is it going to stop — just officer-related shootings? When will the police change policy," he said. 
 
 Shelby said she fired her weapon out of fear because she said Crutcher didn't obey her commands to lie on the ground and appeared to reach inside his SUV for what she thought was a gun. Crutcher was unarmed. 
 
 Prosecutors told jurors that Shelby overreacted. They noted Crutcher had his hands in the air and wasn't combative — part of which was confirmed by police video taken from a dashboard camera and helicopter that showed Crutcher walking away from Shelby, hands held above his head. 
 
 Shelby's attorneys argued that in the two minutes before cameras began recording the encounter, Shelby repeatedly ordered Crutcher to stop walking away from her and get on the ground. 
 
 Shelby also said she feared Crutcher was under the influence of PCP, a powerful hallucinogenic known as Angel Dust that makes users erratic, unpredictable and combative. 
 
 An autopsy showed PCP was in Crutcher's system, and police said they found a vial of it in his SUV. 
 
 Crutcher's family said police attempted to "demonize" Crutcher over the drug possession to deflect attention from the fact officers didn't find a gun inside his SUV. 
 
 The killing of 40-year-old Crutcher was among a spate of officer-involved shootings in recent years that helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement and prompted calls for more police accountability. 
 
 Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler charged Shelby six days after the shooting. An affidavit accused her of "becoming emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted." 
 
 Defense attorney McMurray argued that prosecutors rushed to charge Shelby for political reasons, fearing civil unrest like the angry street protests that erupted in Charlotte, North Carolina, after the fatal shooting of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott four days after Crutcher was killed.
– Protesters gathered on the streets of Tulsa Wednesday night after a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man whose car had stalled was acquitted of manslaughter. The jury took more than eight hours to deliver a not guilty verdict for Betty Shelby, who shot 40-year-old father of four Terence Crutcher on Sept. 16, 2016, after he walked away from her with his hands up, NBC reports. Earlier this week, the 43-year-old officer testified that she feared for her life when Crutcher reached into his vehicle. "I did everything I could to stop this," she said. "Crutcher's death is his fault." Her defense attorney said the fact PCP was found in Crutcher's system backed up her decision to treat him as a threat. Prosecutors argued that Crutcher was not aggressive toward police during the incident. Tiffany Crutcher, Crutcher's twin sister, said after the verdict that her brother was murdered and "corrupt" police tried to cover it up, the Tulsa World reports. She also criticized Shelby and other officers at the scene for failing to provide medical care in the minutes after the shooting. Around 100 protesters dispersed peacefully after marching from the courthouse to a hotel where they thought Shelby was staying, the AP reports. "When is it going to stop—just officer-related shootings?" asked Marq Lewis, organizer of civil rights group We The People Oklahoma. "When will the police change policy?"