In this screen shot from April 2, 2015 video provided by the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, police restrain 44-year-old Eric Harris after he was chased down and tackled by a Tulsa County Deputy, and then shot by a reserve sheriff’s deputy while in custody, in Tulsa, Okla. The sheriff’s office said 73-year-old reserve deputy Robert Charles Bates fired the shot that killed Harris, believing he was using his stun gun instead of his service weapon when he opened fire. (AP Photo/Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office)
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Prosecutors charged a reserve sheriff’s deputy with manslaughter Monday in the death of a man who was fatally shot as he lay on the ground at the officer’s feet.
Tulsa County prosecutors filed a second-degree manslaughter charge against 73-year-old Robert Bates.
A police investigator has said Bates, who is white, thought he drew a stun gun, not his handgun, when he fired at 44-year-old Eric Harris, who was black, in the April 2 incident.
Bates is charged with second-degree manslaughter “involving culpable negligence,” Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said in a statement.
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,” Kunzweiler said.
Read the full story here: http://krqe.com/2015/04/13/oklahoma-deputy-charged-in-suspects-shooting-death/