Prosecutors on Monday charged the Tulsa County, Oklahoma reserve sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed an unarmed man earlier this month with second degree manslaughter.
The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office has said that Robert Bates, who is 73 years old and is white, fatally shot Eric Harris, who was black, on April 2 when he mistook his handgun for a taser while trying to help take Harris into custody.
District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said in a press release that Bates was charged with second-degree manslaughter for the shooting.
“Mr. Bates is charged with Second-Degree Manslaughter involving culpable negligence,” Kunzweiler said in the release, as quoted by The Tulsa World newspaper. “Oklahoma law defines culpable negligence as ‘the omission to do something which a reasonably careful person would do, or the lack of the usual ordinary care and caution in the performance of an act usually and ordinarily exercised by a person under similar circumstances and conditions.'”
“The defendant is presumed to be innocent under the law but we will be prepared to present evidence at future court hearings,” the release continued.
This post has been updated.
Thank you! It’s about time. He had no reason to even tase the guy let alone shoot him. I hope he ends up in jail.
Good. I was sick to my stomach reading the sheriff’s pathetic explanations in the previous post.
Let’s hope he is actually found guilty, and these dumbass law enforcement agencies stop allowing these “cowboys” to volunteer.
Sounds like the right charge. Of course, if he wasn’t a rich white guy with a pay to play cop badge, he would have been ridiculously overcharged in the expectation of pleading it down to this one.
I have to admit this is a big surprise, so much so I think I just saw a pig fly past my window.
But this should not be the end of the inquiry. This insane program of allowing rich white guys to go out and play cop has to fully investigated. I still cannot believe that any legitimate police force would allow a 73 year man participate in an investigation like this. Something is rotten in Tulsa and the Justice Department needs to review this and any other force that allows this kind of nonsense to occur.
Now, let’s have the stupid son of a bitch that Ok’d this moron to play cop brought up on murder charges.