Portland Police Chief Larry O'Dea called his friend to apologize for shooting him in the back during a hunting trip.

O'Dea told him that he had put his .22-caliber rifle down, went to get a drink and it suddenly fired when he picked it back up.

The account directly contradicts what a visibly rattled O'Dea told a deputy right after the April 21 shooting in Harney County: that it appeared his friend, Robert Dempsey, was trying to return his pistol to his shoulder holster and accidentally shot himself.

At the time, O'Dea also told the deputy that he didn't have his rifle in his hand, having placed it on his chair and walked a couple of steps to open a drink when he heard his friend suddenly groan in pain.

The deputy said he smelled a strong odor of alcohol on O'Dea's breath and described O'Dea as nervous with glassy, bloodshot eyes, shaking and quickly drinking a bottle of water as he talked.

The conflicting versions of what happened are in an Oregon Fish & Wildlife report required after hunting accidents. It includes the deputy's interviews with O'Dea and five other men after the shooting near Fields, statements Dempsey made before he was airlifted to a hospital and then a later phone interview with Dempsey.

Dempsey, 54, told the deputy more than three weeks after the shooting that O'Dea's rifle had been jamming and misfiring throughout the day. The rounds weren't feeding properly, he said.

Dempsey was facing away from O'Dea and didn't see what happened, he said. But O'Dea called him later, Dempsey said, and described holding the gun when it went off.

O'Dea was very emotional and apologized, Dempsey told the deputy. It's not clear when O'Dea called him.

"Mr. Dempsey said Mr. O'Dea put his gun down and went to get something to drink,'' the deputy wrote based on the May 14 interview. "Mr. Dempsey said when Mr. O'Dea returned, he picked his gun back up and Mr. O'Dea accidentally shot him.''

The two had been among a group of seven men camping in Catlow Valley. They were sitting in a line on lawn chairs, shooting at ground squirrels. O'Dea was to the left of Dempsey, within 10 yards, when he shot Dempsey.

O'Dea never informed Harney County Sheriff's Office that he was responsible for shooting his friend, Sheriff Dave Ward said this week.

O'Dea, 53, was put on paid administrative leave Tuesday. He has declined repeated requests for comment and his spokesman said O'Dea now faces a gag order while he's under investigation by Oregon State Police, the state Justice Department and the city's police review division.

The shooting remained a tightly guarded secret in Portland until reporters got a tip and started asking questions about it last week. Both O'Dea and Mayor Charlie Hales on Friday publicly acknowledged for the first time that O'Dea had shot his friend in a "negligent discharge," but released no details.

O'Dea had told the mayor about the shooting four days after it occurred and admitted then that he accidentally shot his friend, the mayor's spokeswoman has said.

In the hunting accident report, Deputy Chris Nisbet cited as contributing factors: careless handling of firearm, apparent use of intoxicants and faulty equipment.

He described four of the men in the hunting group as having an odor of alcohol on their breath and bloodshot eyes.

Several of the men had driven Dempsey from the campsite to Fields, where he was then airlifted to a hospital in Boise. A bullet went into the lower left side of Dempsey's back. He was treated and released without undergoing surgery; the bullet remains lodged in his body.

Others in the group stayed behind to clean and pack up the camp. Nisbet interviewed all the men the day of the shooting once they arrived in Fields.

"During the interviews I could smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from almost everyone's breath, and I suggested that they not drive the vehicles,'' Nisbet wrote in his report.

The deputy asked to see all of the firearms that the men were using to hunt and those present retrieved their guns, according to his report. Nisbet said he took photos of the firearms, but didn't seize any of them because he believed based on his interviews that it appeared Dempsey suffered an accidental self-inflicted wound.

Before the deputy left, he asked the group if there was anything else he needed to know. "No one said anything,'' he wrote.

Aside from O'Dea and Dempsey, the others in the group were: Steve Buchtel, 60, of Vancouver; Brian Carroll, 56, of Gresham; Michael Lieb, 54, of Estacada, James Miller, 58, of Beavercreek and Jeffrey Purvis, 51, of Milwaukie. O'Dea and two other retired Portland police supervisors never identified themselves as law enforcement.

According to the deputy's report:

O'Dea completed a drawing, showing where everyone was sitting in a line on lawn chairs. O'Dea said he had stood up, placed his gun on his chair and walked to where a friend was with a cooler and opened a drink. He said that's when he heard Dempsey make a groaning sound.

O'Dea turned and said he saw Dempsey with an empty shoulder holster, holding his left side while in his chair. O'Dea said he went over to Dempsey and removed the holster, and then started taking off Dempsey's clothes to find the wound. He said he didn't see a pistol in Dempsey's hand when applying first aid.

Buchtel, about 15 yards to the left of Dempsey, said there was a "steady amount of gunfire'' and suddenly he heard Dempsey yelling profanities. Buchtel said he put his gun down, stood up and saw Dempsey on one knee in front of his chair, holding his lower left back.

Buchtel said it looked as if Dempsey had tried to put a pistol in a shoulder holster and had an accidental discharge. But Buchtel also told the deputy that Dempsey didn't have a shoulder holster, so the round would have had to have come from somewhere else. He said O'Dea went to his vehicle to grab a medical kit. Buchtel started to give first aid and then loaded Dempsey into the silver Dodge Ram pickup.

Buchtel called 911 as soon as they got within cellphone coverage at 4:37 p.m. and drove Dempsey to Fields. Some of the others in the group remained at camp, cleaning and packing everything up. Buchtel retired from Portland police, where he had served as a supervisor of firearms instruction and was on the tactical squad, the Special Emergency Reaction Team.

Lieb, a retired member of Portland Police Bureau's Special Emergency Reaction Team, smelled of alcohol and his eyes were bloodshot, the report said. Lieb was sitting about 2 feet to the right of Dempsey, he said. He said he heard a gunshot to his left before he noticed Dempsey had been shot. Lieb said he went to the pickup and unloaded it so they could take Dempsey for help. Lieb said he drove until they could find cellphone service.

Purvis said he heard a gunshot and Dempsey yelling. He was at the cooler when the shooting occurred. He said he saw Dempsey kneeling by his lawn chair. He went to Dempsey and thought the wound was from a .22-caliber-sized round. He said he thought Dempsey had an accident when trying to holster his pistol, but after he inspected the wound, thought the angle was wrong for it to have been self-inflicted.

Miller said he was sitting at the right end of the line of men, drinking a beer and eating a sandwich while watching for squirrels. He said he stood up and heard Dempsey yell, "This is what it feels like to get shot.'' He went to help, and noticed Dempsey's pistol in the chair, picked it up and cleared it. He helped clean out the truck to carry Dempsey into Fields.

Carroll said he was 30 to 40 yards away and didn't see anything. He was on the other side of his pickup when he heard Dempsey yelling.

At the scene, Dempsey told U.S. Forest & Wildlife Service officer John Megan that he didn't know how he'd been shot in the back.

Deputy Nisbet contacted Dempsey the next day. Dempsey said he was on his way home and would call when he arrived home. That night, his wife called and said her husband was heavily medicated and couldn't talk. The deputy left messages with him on May 8 and May 13. On May 14, they made contact.

Dempsey told the deputy then that he learned O'Dea had shot him when O'Dea called to apologize sometime afterward. Dempsey said he was facing away from O'Dea when it happened. Dempsey told the deputy that O'Dea had said he talked with his bosses, but Dempsey didn't elaborate on who those bosses were, the report says.

On Monday, May 16, Nisbet told the sheriff of O'Dea's role in the shooting, leading Ward to call for state police to assist in the investigation.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian