Tag: eric courtney harris
Experts Doubt Oklahoma Deputy’s Claim He Confused Pistol With Stun Gun

Experts Doubt Oklahoma Deputy’s Claim He Confused Pistol With Stun Gun

By James Queally, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

The Tulsa, Okla., volunteer deputy involved in the shooting death of an unarmed man earlier this month demonstrated how he confused his pistol with a stun gun during an interview on the “Today” show Friday morning, but law enforcement experts are skeptical about his explanation.

Robert Charles Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, showed NBC’s Matt Lauer during the interview where he normally carried his stun gun and handgun.

Asked to recreate his fatal clash with Eric Courtney Harris, 44, Bates said he kept his handgun in a hip holster, far away from the stun gun, which was normally kept closer to his chest.

On April 2, Tulsa County sheriff’s deputies were chasing Harris, who had run away from officers trying to arrest him on suspicion of gun charges. Body camera video of the incident shows another deputy tackle Harris to the ground as Bates, who is standing offscreen, shouts “Taser!”

Instead of the stun gun, Bates produced his sidearm and fired one shot, mortally wounding Harris.

“I shot him; I’m sorry,” Bates can be heard saying on the video, which showed that he then dropped his gun on the ground.

Bates has been charged with manslaughter by local prosecutors, who say his negligence led to Harris’ death. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

During the Friday interview, Bates apologized to Harris’ family, calling the shooting “the second worst thing that ever happened” to him next to having cancer, before saying it was the No. 1 worst thing. But he also contended that he is one of several law enforcement officials to make the tragic mistake of firing a deadly weapon when they meant to choose a nonlethal option.

“Well, let me say, this has happened a number of times around the country. I have read about it in the past. I thought to myself after reading several cases, I don’t understand how this can happen,” Bates said. “You must believe me, it can happen to anyone.”

Law enforcement experts, however, told the Los Angeles Times they were skeptical of Bates’ argument, especially since the 73-year-old said his stun gun is normally holstered far from his sidearm.

“It’s a muscle memory issue. Is it possible? Yeah, but only because it’s not impossible,” said Sid Heal, a retired commander with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and chairman of strategy development for the National Tactical Officers Association. “It’s not very plausible.”

While similar incidents, typically referred to as “cross-contamination” because of the confusion of lethal and nonlethal options, are not unheard of, Heal said they usually involve officers who carry both their firearm and stun gun at the hip.

Officers carrying both weapons normally keep their lethal weapons holstered beneath their dominant hand, while the stun gun hangs to the opposite side of their body. The anxiety and panic of a life-or-death situation can sometimes cause a deadly mix-up.

“When you’re scared, or you’re not thinking clearly, you will go to your muscle memory, so they pull the wrong gun,” he said.

Bates, however, knew the stun gun was not at his side.

The case is similar to a high-profile 2009 case in Oakland, Calif., in which unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was fatally shot by a transit officer who said he accidentally grabbed his gun instead of his Taser.

The officer in that case, Johannes Mehserle, faced a second-degree murder charge but was ultimately convicted of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter after a jury found the shooting was unintentional. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Grant’s killing was the basis of the 2013 film “Fruitvale Station.”

Wayne Fisher, a professor of police policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said discussion of Bates’ purported mistake is masking the more serious issue at play in Harris’ death, which happened during a sting operation: Why did the sheriff’s office allow an elderly, inexperienced volunteer to be involved in such an operation, especially if the target was a known felon, as Harris was?

“Police work is not a hobby to be engaged in during people’s free time or weekend hours,” Fisher said. “It doesn’t just have to do with the training. It has to do with the experience of being in the profession full time, day in and day out, year after year.”

Fisher said there are plenty of tasks suited for reserve and auxiliary officers, but he described an operation like Harris’ arrest as “the very activity that they should not be involved in.”

Concern over officers’ confusing lethal and nonlethal weapons was stoked earlier this year, when the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department said it would consider employing “The Alternative,” a device developed by a San Diego entrepreneur to lessen the lethality of a bullet.

The device, an attachment that captures a bullet inside a “less lethal” metal sphere but still carries the force of the projectile, was panned by experts because it can only be fired once.

If an officer shoots twice during a lethal force situation, as they are commonly trained to do, the second shot would release a live round.

(Times staff writer Matt Pearce contributed to this report.)

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Image: screenshot of raw footage from the foot chase that ended with the shooting, via YouTube. Center: Eric Courtney Harris.

Oklahoma Reserve Deputy Thought He Was Using A Taser, Not A Gun

Oklahoma Reserve Deputy Thought He Was Using A Taser, Not A Gun

By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

A white reserve deputy accidentally shot an unarmed black man with a gun instead of a Taser, and Oklahoma law enforcement officials berated the man as he lay dying on the ground, according to body-camera footage released this weekend.

“Oh, God. Oh, he shot me; I didn’t do shit!” the suspect, Eric Courtney Harris, can be heard saying as officers from the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office violent crimes task force surround him after a foot chase. “He shot me, man! Oh, my God.”

“You didn’t do shit? You didn’t do shit? You hear me?” responds a man on the task force.

“I’m losing my breath,” Harris says.

“Fuck your breath!” a man responds.

Harris died later at a hospital.

An investigator brought in by the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office said this weekend that the reserve deputy had committed no crime during the April 2 incident.

Robert Charles Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, has close political ties to the sheriff. Bates was chairman of Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz’s successful 2012 re-election campaign and donated $2,500 to the effort, according to the Tulsa World. Bates won an award in 2011 as the top reserve deputy, the newspaper reported.

“It was me,” Bates told the Tulsa World last week. “My attorney has advised me not to comment. As much as I would like to, I can’t.”

The case has been referred to the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether to charge Bates.

Harris had a lengthy criminal background, including a 2013 felony conviction for assault on a law enforcement officer. He was targeted for arrest after selling drugs to an undercover officer and offering to sell guns, officials said.

Footage from an officer’s body camera shows Harris running away from members of the task force shortly after they said Harris sold a gun to an undercover officer.

The video, released by the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday, shows a deputy tackling Harris in the street.

Moments later, Bates, whom officials said was assisting the task force, shouts “Taser!” — but then fires a single gunshot instead, the video shows.

“I shot him; I’m sorry,” says Bates, whose gun falls to the ground.

“Oh shit, man, he shot me!” Harris can be heard saying and then moaning as law enforcement officials surround him.

The video does not clearly show the faces of the officers surrounding him.

“You fucking ran!” one of the men shouts at Harris. “Shut the fuck up!”

The brief video doesn’t show whether the officers provided first aid.

The sheriff’s department defended Bates, the reserve deputy, at a Saturday news conference announcing that the findings of its investigation had been turned over to the district attorney.

Instead of handing off the investigation to a different agency, a Tulsa police sergeant was “brought on to do an independent evaluation of this situation and make an opinion for Sheriff Glanz” as a “private consultant,” Tulsa County Sheriff’s Maj. Shannon Clark told reporters.

Tulsa Police Sgt. Jim Clark defended the reserve deputy to reporters, declaring him blameless and quoting scientific theories such as “slips and capture” to explain how he could have confused a gun with a Taser.

“It is my opinion, after reviewing all the facts and circumstances of this case, the state’s excusable homicide statute] was applicable in this incident,” Clark said. “Reserve Deputy Bates did not commit a crime. Reserve Deputy Bates was a victim, a true victim, of ‘slips and capture.’ There’s no other determination I could come to.”

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Image: Screenshot of footage from body camera, viaNY Daily News.