This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Oklahoma police do not plan to review death said to be stun gun mistake Read more

Video has been released of the moment a reserve police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shot and killed a man by mistake.

The reserve officer, Bob Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, told police he had thought he was firing his Taser stun gun at Eric Courtney Harris, 44, a convicted felon who a police report on the incident said was being arrested after having sold a gun to an undercover officer.

The video, which came from a police officer’s body camera, was released by police on Friday. It shows Harris running down a suburban street, away from his pursuers. The officer catches up with him and Harris is brought to the ground. A shot is heard and Harris gasps in pain.

A voice, presumably that of Bates, says: “I shot him. I’m sorry.”

A gun is dropped on the road and then picked up.

Harris cries out, repeatedly, “He shot me!” and says: “Oh my God, I’m losing my breath.”



As officers continue to subdue Harris, one officer is heard to say: “Fuck your breath.”

Medical help was called to the scene, but Harris died in hospital.

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

Harris’s death is one of a number involving black men at the hands of white police officers to have occurred across the US in recent months. Last year, protests broke out after the officers who killed Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Missouri and 43-year-old Eric Garner in New York City were not indicted.

Last week, an officer in North Charleston, South Carolina shot and killed Walter Scott, a 50-year-old man who ran away from a routine traffic stop. The shooting was captured on camera by a bystander with an iPhone.

Scott’s funeral took place on Saturday; the officer, Michael Slager, has been fired from the force and charged with murder.

South Carolina reflects on Walter Scott killing: ‘The flag of white supremacy still flies on our State House' Read more

Eric Harris is shown in an undated photo provided by the Tulsa County sheriff’s office. Photograph: Handout/Reuters

The intensity of the protests over such deaths – which gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement and the use of Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe”, as a campaign slogan – has stoked intense national debate about the policing of African American communities and the state of civil rights in the US.

Like the death of Walter Scott, Garner’s death was captured on video by a bystander.

Bates was assigned to the violent crimes task force of the Tulsa County sheriff’s office. Reserve deputies “have [the] full powers and authority” of a deputy while on duty, Major Shannon Clark told the Tulsa World, saying their use in such cases was not unusual.

Oklahoma police have said they do not intend to investigate Harris’s death any further, unless requested to do so by the sheriff’s office.