Reserve officer charged with manslaughter after shooting dead Eric Harris

2015-04-14 1

Hidden camera footage of an undercover police operation shows Eric Harris looking nervous as he appears to sell a gun to a plain-clothes officer during a police sting operation.

When Harris spots an undercover car pulling up ran.

Moments later he was shot by reserve deputy Robert Bates who grabbed his handgun rather than his brightly-coloured and lethal taser.

“He didn’t have to,” said Harris’s brother Andre. “This is something that either he didn’t just really think about, or he just decided that he wanted to shoot and he would worry about it later.”

Critics say he should have known the difference between his two weapons.

Robert Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, volunteered as a deputy in his spare time.

Police explain things from their perspective…

Oklahoma’s Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department said the shooting was an accident.

“Mr Harris fled. He disobeyed the orders of law enforcement. He attempted to flee from capture. And when he was attempting to be sub