An Oklahoma sheriff apologized Monday to the family of an unarmed man who was shot and killed by a volunteer reserve deputy, but he continued to defend the reserve program and his office.
The sheriff's office in Tulsa County, Okla., has drawn attention since the April 2 shooting, captured on video, of Eric Harris, 44, who had run away from deputies who were trying to arrest him in connection with an illegal gun sale. Deputies caught Harris and pinned him to the ground when Robert Bates, a 73-year-old volunteer, fired the fatal shot, apparently mistaking his pistol for a stun gun.
Bates faces a charge of second-degree manslaughter.
"I want to speak directly to the Harris family," the sheriff, Stanley Glanz, said Monday at a news conference. "We are sorry Eric was taken from you. I am sorry we were involved, and my sympathy goes out to that family."
Referring to the prosecution of Bates, he said, "I agree with what the district attorney has done."
But when pressed on whether Bates should have been working as a reserve deputy, the sheriff said, "Yes, he should have been," and he called the reserve program vital to the office. He repeatedly said that the shooting did not point to any broader problem in the sheriff's office.
"Very rarely has the press ever covered the professionalism of this agency," he said. "There's been a lot of things said about the sheriff's office that are untrue."
Bates, a reserve deputy since 2008, apologized to the Harris family in an appearance Friday on the Today show, adding, "I rate this as No. 1 on my list of things in my life that I regret."
On Monday, Glanz played down allegations that training records that showed Bates was qualified for law enforcement work had been falsified by sheriff's officials. The sheriff said his office was not looking into those claims, suggesting that there would have been no point in falsifying any records.
"I could have waived all of those requirements if I felt like it," he said. "I've waived a lot of reserves that come over that have been in other law enforcement agencies."
Bates was a Tulsa police officer for a short time more than 50 years ago, and his lawyer has said that until about a decade ago, he served as a reserve deputy for several years while living in Florida.
Glanz said the Oklahoma office of the FBI had investigated and found no wrongdoing by the sheriff's office. It was not clear whether the FBI inquiry was limited to the shooting or whether it included the allegations of falsified records. An FBI official said the department would comment later.
The sheriff's office has 128 reserve deputies who work on a volunteer basis and are allowed to carry firearms. Glanz described them as being essential to keeping the force at full strength. Hundreds of law enforcement agencies have such reserve or auxiliary forces, but they vary in the kind of work those officers can do, whether they are armed and whether they receive any compensation.
Bates was in the highest of three tiers of reserves within the sheriff's office, meaning that he could perform nearly all the duties of a full-time deputy, including making arrests. He was not involved in the undercover sting that snared Harris but was one of several deputies who formed a backup force for that operation.
Members of the Harris family and their lawyer, Daniel Smolen, have criticized the way deputies treated Harris after he was shot, yelling at him to stop complaining and not immediately making any attempt to have his wounds treated. Some deputies have said they did not immediately realize that he had been shot.
Glanz said two deputies had been reassigned and that there would be an administrative review of their performance and of the shooting. But he said that investigation would have to wait until after the deputies serve as witnesses in the criminal case against Bates. In addition, he said, "We're trying to decide how to do that, whether we ought to bring in outside law enforcement."
The sheriff's office said Bates had extensive training over the past eight years, but he has been unable to produce most of the records. Glanz said the agency was still searching for them.
On Saturday, Bates' lawyer released some records that he had kept, which the sheriff's office may not have, and denied that qualifications had been falsified. But those records are incomplete, and Smolen has questioned, in particular, whether Bates had been certified on the type of handgun he used on Harris.
The Tulsa World reported that several unnamed officials in the sheriff's office said that top commanders ordered the falsification of Bates' records in 2008 and that three officers were moved to less attractive assignments for refusing. Smolen has made similar allegations.
A Section on 04/21/2015