Tulsa Co. assistant district attorney Kevin Gray (denter) during a break in Robert Bates' second degree manslaughter trial at the Tulsa County courthouse in Tulsa, OK, April 21, 2016. Bates, a volunteer deputy with the Tulsa Co. Sheriff's Office, accidentally shot and killed Eric Harris during a sting operation last year that Ramsey was involved in as a buyer of a gun that Harris was illegally selling. Gray is the lead attorney for the prosecution in the case.

Tulsa County assistant district attorney Kevin Gray (center) during a break in Robert Bates’ second-degree manslaughter trial at the courthouse Monday. MICHAEL WYKE/For the Frontier

While assistant district attorney Kevin Gray on Monday took his first hard line with a witness, he still passed up an opportunity to divulge to jurors allegations that Bates had not done the necessary training to be a reserve deputy the day he shot Eric Harris.

Bates, 74, a former reserve deputy with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, shot Harris — the focus of an undercover operation —  April 2, 2015, in north Tulsa. Harris died, Bates resigned and was charged with second-degree manslaughter, and the ensuing fallout cost a number of high-ranking TCSO officials their jobs and ended with a longtime sheriff being indicted.

Central to the controversy at TCSO since the Harris incident were allegations that Bates had been allowed to breeze through the reserve deputy ranks due to his close association with former sheriff Stanley Glanz.

Bates formerly served as chairman of Glanz’s re-election campaign, had taken the sheriff (and other top TCSO officials) on vacations, and had donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment to the Sheriff’s Office in his time as a volunteer.

Glanz resigned in late 2015 following his indictment by a grand jury on for two misdemeanors.

Weeks after Harris was shot, a 2009 internal TCSO memo was leaked to the media showing that for years there had been concerns within the department that Bates was untrained and was possibly dangerous.

It wasn’t until Monday’s testimony that gaps in his training records were heard by jurors, albeit in a relatively neutered way. (A judge ruled pre-trial that training allegations could not be mentioned by prosecutors in court unless the defense “opened the door” by introducing it in some way.)

On Monday, during cross examination of Dr. Charles Morgan, a forensic psychiatrist who testified as the first defense expert witness, reference to Bates’ training records — or lack thereof — was made for the first time in the six-day-old trial.

Morgan was testifying that he believed stress, rather than negligence (a key component of securing a second-degree manslaughter conviction) may have been responsible for Bates confusing his gun and Taser when he shot Harris. Morgan said it was likely that the high-stress situation of chasing Harris and seeing the ex-convict being entangled with another deputy led Bates to “revert to habit” when he drew his gun that day.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray quizzed Morgan on how he knew Bates had even trained enough to have a habit, and Morgan replied that he had not seen any training records for Bates, but if the former reserve deputy had not been trained appropriately, his opinion “might change.”

 

Those training records have been the elephant in the room since the trial began, but the allegations have not been proposed to the jury in any substantive way, something that’s drawn the ire of Eric Harris’ brother Andre Harris, and Marq Lewis, a grass roots organizer whose Grand Jury inquest led to Glanz’s removal from office.

Bates records have come up only one other time in the trial, earlier Monday when Gray asked Det. Mike Heisten about a statement Bates gave to investigators four days after the Harris shooting. Bates said in the statement he attempted to deploy his Taser at Harris, who was entangled with deputy Ricardo Vaca, because he saw the two wrestling, and knew how dangerous that situation was because of his training in “ground fighting.”

Gray asked Heisten if he had any knowledge or had seen any record of Bates’ “ground fighting training,” to which Heisten replied “no.”

Other than that, no reference to Bates’ training records has been made in the trial. Also mentioned Monday during testimony were the similarities between Bates’ .357 handgun used in the shooting, and the x26 Taser he meant to use. Gray and Bates’ attorney Clark Brewster agreed the weapons had a similar feel and weight, but no mention was made of the fact that Bates had not qualified on the range with that handgun and even if he had, was forbidden by TCSO policy of using it on duty.

 

Asked about Bates’ training records following Monday’s testimony, Brewster called Bates “probably the most trained reserve” at TCSO, said he had all of Bates’ training records and wished Morgan, a witness Brewster will pay upwards of $10,000 to testify, had seen the documents.

Morgan was Brewster’s only witness on Monday due to time constraints. Brewster has five other expert witnesses on his witness list, though it’s unclear if all will be called to testify.

District Judge Bill Musseman told jurors Monday evening to expect to be ready to deliberate at some point on Wednesday.


Editor’s note: Here is an earlier version of this story, published Monday as testimony was being heard. 

A Tulsa County Sheriff’s Deputy testified Monday that Robert Bates wasn’t interviewed immediately after he shot Eric Harris, and was instead allowed to give deputies a four-page written statement four days after Harris died.

Typically, officers involved in a shooting are given 48 to 72 hours to give a statement, Det. Mike Heisten testified.

Bates’ trial on charges of second-degree manslaughter in the April 2015 shooting of Eric Harris began last week, but it wasn’t until Monday’s testimony that gaps in his training records were heard by jurors, albeit in a relatively neutered way.

In the statement given to TCSO, Bates said that as he viewed Harris and deputy Ricardo Vaca entangled on the ground, his “training in ground fighting” played a role in his decision to deploy his Taser. Instead, Bates took out a revolver and fatally shot Harris.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray asked Heisten if he had any knowledge or had seen any record of Bates’ “ground fighting training,” to which Heisten replied “no.”

Prosecutors on Monday wrapped up their end of the Bates criminal case following testimony from Heisten and Deputy Don Stach.

Defense attorneys for Bates were to begin examining their witnesses Monday afternoon in District Judge Bill Musseman’s courtroom.

For more than a year, the 74-year-old former reserve deputy has been at the center of a department-shattering controversy at the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office.

Bates shot and killed Harris on April 2, 2015, during a botched undercover gun sting by TCSO’s Drug Task Force. Days after Harris was shot, sources inside TCSO began to tell media about allegations that Bates had been allowed to breeze through the reserve deputy ranks due to his close association with former sheriff Stanley Glanz.

Robert Bates leaves the courtroom after the second day of testimony in his second-degree manslaughter case at the Tulsa County courthouse in Tulsa, OK, April 21, 2016. Bates was a volunteer Tulsa County deputy who accidentally shot and killed suspect Eric Harris during a sting operation last year.

Robert Bates leaves the courtroom after the second day of testimony in his second-degree manslaughter case at the Tulsa County courthouse. Bates was a volunteer TCSO deputy who accidentally shot and killed suspect Eric Harris during a sting operation last year. MICHAEL WYKE/For The Frontier.

 

Bates formerly served as chairman of Glanz’s re-election campaign, had taken the sheriff (and other top TCSO officials) on vacations, and had donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment to the Sheriff’s Office in his time as a volunteer.

Glanz resigned in late 2015 following his indictment by a grand jury on for two misdemeanors.

Weeks after Harris was shot, a 2009 internal TCSO memo was leaked to the media showing that for years there had been concerns within the department that Bates was untrained and was possibly dangerous.

Heisten testified Monday that he was tasked with interviewing Bates after the shooting, but instead received a written statement by Bates four days later.

In that written statement, Bates mentioned that had served on more than 100 undercover sting operations. Heisten said he had reviewed all of those operations and found none where a suspect fled and had to be forcibly tackled by pursuing deputies.

No mention has been made in court, however, of allegations that Bates had his reserve deputy training documents forged, as had been noted in the 2009 Internal Affairs document, or of allegations that Bates’ gun range qualifications had been falsified.

At no point during the nearly week of testimony has it been mentioned that no record exists showing Bates was qualified to even carry the handgun he used to shoot Harris.

However, Heisten did specify for jurors that while the laser sight used by both the .357 Bates used to shoot Harris and the Taser that Bates said he believed he was holding at the time do look similar, the way the two weapons are used are vastly different.

The Taser (which was located in a vest on Bates’ chest) must be unholstered and switched on, at which point Bates’ Taser would illuminate and deploy a laser sight. The handgun Bates used (which was holstered on his hip) does deploy a laser, but does not need to be switched on.

“All you need to do is pull the trigger,” Heisten testified.

Stach recovered and photographed blood-soaked clothing worn by Eric Harris at the time of the shooting. Heisten interviewed Bates and a number of other deputies following the shooting.

Before Stach’s testimony, Musseman allowed prosecutors to introduce two images of Harris’ clothing that were photographed by Stach after Harris had died. Harris, who was wearing socks, boxer shorts, athletic shorts and two t-shirts at the time of the shooting, bled profusely on the items, the pictures showed.

The images also showed the bullet hole that entered Harris under the right arm.

Brewster attempted to keep the jury from seeing the images, arguing that a majority of the blood on the clothing came from medical procedures done to Harris as emergency personnel were attempting to save his life.

In contrast to the bloody clothes, only a relatively small puddle of blood was left on the street where Harris was shot. Brewster said that showing the jury the picture of the clothes was “a desperate attempt” by the prosecution that was “calculated to mislead this jury.”

“They’re going to mislead the jury that the blood on his shirt is consistent with (the medical examiner’s) testimony,” said Brewster, who argued that CPR given to Harris, as well as a chest tube and another extensive invasive procedure done after the shooting, contributed to the majority of the blood seen in the images.

The images were eventually shown to the jury during Stach’s testimony. During cross examination, Brewster asked Stach repeatedly if “other procedures” could have contributed to the blood, which Stach agreed with, noting that the shirt at one point was directly under a bleeding incision on the opposite side of Harris’ body from the location of the bullet wound.