The 73-year-old Deputy who killed man after mistaking gun for a taser has been charged.

Why was a 73-year-old insurance company executive playing cop?
That’s the simple question many are asking more than a week after an undercover Tulsa sheriff’s operation went wrong and a white reserve deputy sheriff shot and killed an unarmed black man, apparently by accident.

The reserve deputy, Robert Bates, was charged Monday with second-degree manslaughter, the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office said.

“Mr. 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.’

“The defendant is presumed to be innocent under the law but we will be prepared to present evidence at future court hearings.”
Tulsa police said an officer made a “mistake” when he fatally shot an unarmed suspect with his gun instead of his taster. The man died an hour after the shooting.

Video was released Friday showing the incident, in which several officers chased down suspect Eric Harris, who ran after he tried to sell a gun to undercover cops. When the suspect was pinned down, the 73-year-old reserve deputy Robert Bates said he meant to reach for his taser, but accidentally pulled his gun instead. “I shot him, I’m sorry,” Bates is heard to say on the video.

“He shot me!” Harris yelled. “He shot me, man. Oh, my god. I’m losing my breath.”

“F**k your breath,” an officer is heard yelling on the video.

Tulsa police maintain that Harris, who had a previous arrest for assaulting a police officer, had been a threat, and called his shooting an accident. “He made an inadvertent mistake,” said Sheriff’s Captain Billy McKelvey of Bates’ action. As of this writing, no investigation is underway.

It was one of at least two shootings this month in which a white officer shot and killed an unarmed black man  and it has created a backlash for many reasons, one being Bates is not a real police officer. He’s a reserve sheriff’s deputy. And some fear he wasn’t qualified to be one.