Prosecutors in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Monday filed homicide charges against a 73-year-old Sheriff’s Office volunteer who fatally shot a suspect on April 2, apparently firing his handgun instead of a Taser by accident as other officers were subduing the man on the ground.
The volunteer, Robert Bates, was charged with second-degree manslaughter involving culpable negligence, punishable by up to four years in prison.
Bates, an insurance broker, had been a reserve deputy since 2008. He is among scores of civilian police enthusiasts, including wealthy donors to law enforcement, who sometimes effectively act as an armed adjunct to the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s officials said Bates had intended to subdue the fleeing suspect, Eric Harris, with a Taser, but fired his handgun instead.
Harris was accused of trying to sell an illegal gun to an undercover officer.
Video footage shot by a body camera worn by another deputy showed the suspect being knocked to the ground and commanded to roll on his stomach as officers struggled for a few seconds to subdue him.
A voice on the video could be heard saying: “Taser, Taser,” as if to warn other deputies to get out of the way of the device.
A moment later, there was a single gunshot and a voice saying: “Oh, I shot him. I’m sorry.”
Harris, a black man, could be heard repeatedly shouting: “He shot me,” while a deputy knelt on the suspect’s head and others yelled at him to stop struggling. A voice can be heard shouting expletives at the injured suspect.
The video showed Bates, a white man, dropping his pistol. Officials later said he dropped it because he was unprepared for the gun’s recoil, characterizing the drop as “added proof” that the shooting was accidental; a Taser has negligible recoil.
Bates’ lawyer, Charles Brewster, said that his client would surrender to the authorities yesterday morning and that he intended to plead not guilty.
“Anyone that looked at the facts here would find that there was no crime committed,” Brewster said. “It was a truly tragic incident.”
Brewster expressed disappointment with the district attorney’s decision to charge his client.
“I think it’s kind of a response to the national fervor and media concerning police shootings,” he said. “I think he just kind of capitulated to that. This truly is an event that was unintended and what I consider to be a justifiable homicide.”
Bates was working with sworn officers in an undercover operation into illegal gun sales run by the Sheriff’s Office’s violent crimes task force.
Bates acted as an unpaid member of the office’s Reserve Deputy Program, in which about 130 volunteers receive training and are deployed part time. A Tulsa police officer for a year from 1964 to 1965, he reportedly had received hundreds of hours of advanced training and “can do anything a full-time deputy can do,” the Tulsa World quoted Sheriff’s Office spokesman Shannon Clark as saying.
In 2012, the department named Bates “Reserve Deputy of the Year.”
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