The training of reserve deputy Robert Bates, who killed an unarmed black man after mistaking his gun for a Taser, was supervised by a man now in jail on first-degree murder charges.
The elderly Tulsa reserve deputy charged with manslaughter went on national television recently and dropped a bombshell. The thing is, no one noticed it was a bombshell at the time.
In an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, 73-year-old Robert Bates apologized to the family of Eric Harris, the man he accidentally gunned down on April 2 in a botched gun sting.
But in a moment that went unremarked on air, Bates also named former deputy Warren Cole Crittenden, a 44-year-old accused murderer, as his supervisor during his training. "I have a piece of paper by Mr. Warren Crittenden- now in jail for first-degree murder 40 miles east of here, in Mayes County-signed off to say I'd done a good job," Bates said.
Bates's potentially poor preparation for his reserve duties has generated almost as much controversy as his shooting of Harris.
On Wednesday evening, CBS News reported that in 2009 an internal investigation was opened to determine if Bates's superiors at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office (TCSO) were soft on him because they were leaned on by brass. The outcome of that report, according to CBS News, suggests they were. On Tuesday, Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz acknowledged the inquiry into Bates by then-Undersheriff Brian Edwards before a pool of reporters but said he believed "they found there was no special treatment."
Lawyers for the late Harris, whom Bates killed when he accidentally reached for his gun instead of his Taser, sent out a statement saying the 44-year-old victim would be alive today were it not for the cronyism in the sheriff's office.
"Bob Bates was not adequately trained, TCSO acted to cover this up, and TCSO knowingly and dangerously allowed an undertrained and underqualified 73-year-old insurance executive to play cop," the lawyers said.
Now it turns out the man who OKed Bates's preparation-the man who gave Bates the go-ahead to become a reserve deputy-has himself been indicted for taking a life.
The morning of Bates's April 17 Today show interview, The Daily Beast published a profile of Crittenden, who was once a promising pro wrestler and in the ring grappled under the avatars "The Real Deal,""The Masked Outlaw," and "The Cooler," not to mention "Super Invader" and "Super Destroyer II."
The son of a police chief, Crittenden went on to become a Tulsa deputy-only to be terminated in 2011. He is now behind bars charged with first-degree murder, awaiting trial for a deadly January shoot 'em up at a Super 8 Motel that left 33-year-old Michael Jones, a wanted pimp, pumped full of lead.
↧