The friend shot on a camping trip by Portland Police Chief Larry O'Dea insisted from the beginning that he hadn't accidentally wounded himself by putting his pistol in a shoulder holster, but that's what O'Dea told the deputy who initially responded to the call last year.

A state report of the shooting shows key contradictions in O'Dea's version of what happened last April when he and seven other friends went to southeastern Oregon and sat in a row of lawn chairs on the high desert shooting at ground squirrels.

Among them: How Robert Dempsey got injured, what O'Dea was doing at the time and why O'Dea never told Harney County authorities that he eventually realized he was the one who shot Dempsey in the back.

Both Dempsey, as well as O'Dea's former police partner who was on the trip, had to convince O'Dea when they talked several days after the shooting that the police chief was responsible, the investigation shows.

But O'Dea repeatedly objected to any suggestion that he tried to hide his role in the shooting.

Mugshot of Larry O'Dea at the Harney County Sheriff's Office on Jan. 17. The judge ordered O'Dea be booked and released, before he signed an order dismissing a negligent wounding charge and accepting a civil compromise. (HCSO)

"There's no way this is a cover up. It was an accident,'' O'Dea told state investigators. "One accident, and it feels like 30 years of service is out the window. It's really upsetting for me.''

He also denied that he had been drinking. He said he had some Irish cream in his morning coffee about 6:30 a.m. and was just popping open a beer before the shooting occurred.

Others said men in the group may have had a couple of beers but no one was drinking heavily. Dempsey said he had three to four beers that day. Another man, Stephen Buchtel, a retired Portland police lieutenant, said he had a couple of sips of whiskey just before Dempsey was shot.

Documents: Oregon Department of Justice reports, obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive through public records request

O'Dea resigned last June as he was under investigation by Oregon State Police. A grand jury indicted him on a negligent wounding charge, but in early January a Harney County judge agreed to a civil compromise that will allow the charge against O'Dea to be dismissed.

Investigators reconstructed what occurred that April 21 afternoon by reviewing audio recordings and body camera videotapes of the camping party's first interviews with a Harney County sheriff's deputy, the deputy's notes and report, photos of the firearms and through follow-up interviews with O'Dea and all the other campers, the mayor, the Police Bureau's internal affairs captain and an assistant chief.

At their isolated camping spot, Dempsey cursed loudly, moaned in pain and dropped to a knee in front of his chair, holding his back once he was shot. As members of the group hurried to bandage up their friend and rush him to the hospital, O'Dea suggested to Dempsey that he had shot himself when he was reholstering his pistol.

But Dempsey immediately challenged that scenario, telling O'Dea and another friend at the scene: "I didn't shoot myself. I didn't.''

Document: Harney County sheriff's deputy interview of O'Dea in Fields

Document: Oregon State Polcie Det. Mitch Meyer's incident report

Document: DOJ investigator's report on interview with Mayor Charlie Hales

Document: Forensic report on testing of O'Dea's rifle

Nonetheless, O'Dea repeated the theory to the deputy who met the group at Fields Station, about 50 miles away, after a helicopter arrived to take Dempsey to St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise. Dempsey was already on LifeFlight and told a medic he didn't see where the shot had come from.

But he was sure he didn't shoot himself, even asking a doctor at the hospital to confirm it. The doctor told him there was no way he could have shot himself. The surgeon also told him he was very lucky. The hollow-point bullet entered the lower left part of his back, traveled across his back and fragmented. Dempsey was released from the hospital the next day, the bullet still lodged in his back.

Retired Portland police Sgt. Mike Lieb, who had been O'Dea's patrol partner in the late 1980s, told investigators that he had been standing behind a line of lawn chairs when he realized Dempsey had been hit.

He saw O'Dea sitting to the left of Dempsey with his .22-caliber rifle either across his lap or the arms of his chair and the barrel facing toward Dempsey.

"I heard a kind of muffled shot," Lieb said.

O'Dea told investigators that it wasn't until he spoke to Lieb by phone three days after the shooting that he realized that "oh crap'' he had shot Dempsey.

"After talking to Mike, it just hit me like a ton of bricks that it had to be me,'' O'Dea said.

He told state investigators that he didn't recall exactly where his gun was before the shooting, but spoke of his "intention to set it against the chair.''

O'Dea said he had stopped shooting, went to his truck to get some food, grabbed a can of beer, placed it in the cup holder of the table attached to his chair, sat and then stood up again to remove his electronic earmuffs.

O'Dea grabbed the unopened beer can, he said, and set the rifle down against his chair, stepped to his left and heard Dempsey moan.

"The best that I believed ... I know my intention is I'm going to set my rifle down, take this can and go over to where my truck is,'' O'Dea said.

O'Dea also wasn't sure where his rifle was after the shooting: "I couldn't tell ya,'' he told investigators.

In hindsight, he said he's been "wracking'' his brain, asking himself, "Where did my gun land? Was it still against the chair?"

But Lieb told investigators that O'Dea was sitting down when the gun went off.

"I have no doubts about what I had saw,'' Lieb said.

Dempsey recounted to investigators that Lieb told him: "Mike said when he heard the shot and me scream, he turned and he saw Larry with the rifle in his hands.''

Lieb ended up traveling to Idaho and driving Dempsey back home the next day. On that drive, they agreed that O'Dea must have shot him. Dempsey said he called Buchtel first, and said, "One of you guys shot me.'' Buchtel said it couldn't have been him. Dempsey then called O'Dea.

"You shot me,'' Dempsey told him. O'Dea, he recalled, responded, "Yeah, I know,'' in an unusually matter-of-fact manner, Dempsey told investigators.

About five days after the shooting, O'Dea called Dempsey and this time was extremely emotional and apologetic, Dempsey said. O'Dea also told Dempsey that he had called the sheriff's office, the state report said.

But that never happened.

O'Dea told state investigators that he believed the Harney County deputy was on vacation and so he had asked Dempsey, who was planning to talk to the deputy, to tell the deputy to contact O'Dea.

But Dempsey said O'Dea never made that request and instead told Dempsey that he had contacted the sheriff's office himself.

The Harney County Sheriff's Office turned over the investigation to the state after learning from Dempsey that Portland's police chief had shot him. Sheriff's Deputy Chris Nisbet had taken photos of the hunting party's firearms, but never went to the campsite where the shooting occurred because the group had cleared out of the spot. No deputies went to the hospital where Dempsey was admitted.

When Oregon State Police Detective Mitch Meyer asked O'Dea why he didn't call the Harney County Sheriff's Office the day he realized he was responsible for shooting his friend, O'Dea responded:

"In hindsight that was the biggest mistake I ever made ... in hindsight that was very foolish. I should have called somebody and said, 'Here's something significantly different than how it started out.'''

State Justice Department investigator Jodi Shimanek asked Lieb if there was any concern or conversation about how the shooting would look bad for O'Dea as police chief if it came out publicly. "Sure, we're all aware of that, absolutely," Lieb said.

Once O'Dea realized he had shot Dempsey, shouldn't have O'Dea called the sheriff's office, she asked Lieb.

"I didn't know he didn't,'' Lieb said.

Safety rules that are prominent in Portland Police Bureau's Central Precinct and its firing ranges. (Courtesy of Oregon Department of Justice/Oregon State Police investigators)

His fellow campers said O'Dea had been having trouble with his rifle jamming and misfiring earlier that day. In follow-up interviews, Dempsey and another camper, Jeff Purvis, told investigators that on more than one occasion O'Dea had left his rifle resting across the armrest of his chair, one time facing toward Dempsey and another time facing toward Purvis.

The state investigators included in their reports a photo of a sign posted in the Portland Police Bureau's precincts, titled the "Four Cardinal Safety Rules.'' The first two rules are: "1. All firearms are always loaded 2. Never Point the Muzzle at Anyone or Anything You Are Not Willing to Destroy (Including Yourself)."

O'Dea said he told 18 people of his accidental discharge by the Monday after the Thursday shooting, including Mayor Charlie Hales, four assistant chiefs and the captain who oversees the bureau's Internal Affairs Division. He said he didn't want to publicize the shooting until the Harney County Sheriff's Office had completed its investigation.

Then-Capt. Derek Rodrigues, supervisor of Portland's Internal Affairs Division, said O'Dea told him about the shooting after their usual Monday morning meeting when Rodrigues briefs him about division cases.

He said O'Dea said one of his friends was shot in the stomach area while camping and that O'Dea later realized he had an accidental discharge. Rodrigues said the chief never mentioned that the Harney County Sheriff's Office was investigating the shooting.

He didn't realize the magnitude of what occurred, Rodrigues said, and thought O'Dea was talking to him about a personal matter. An internal investigation wasn't started until after the shooting became publicized a month later.

Mayor Charlie Hales said O'Dea told him that Monday morning that an internal affairs investigation would be conducted, but the internal affairs captain said O'Dea had never requested one.

O'Dea never told the bureau's public information officer. The shooting didn't become public until May 20 when reporters asked about it.

"My concern why we wouldn't make something public was until the deputy was back and has the rest of the information,'' O'Dea told investigators. Somehow, the shooting got leaked to the press, the chief noted, adding, "The problem with letting 18 people know.''

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian