RSN: Robert Bates Should Shut Up Now

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AGAIN THE CONTRIBUTIONS HAVE COMPLETELY STOPPED: Two days of reasonable progress and now, again - nothing. We need about 400 donations @$30. to finish for April. In the span of 15 minutes, 400 people will visit Reader Supported News. The problem is the willingness to help. We have no choice but to confront that. / Marc Ash - Founder, Reader Supported News

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Tulsa County reserve deputy Robert Bates. (photo: ABC News)

Robert Bates Should Shut Up Now

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

17 April 15

In which we learn that Robert Bates is not helping himself in Oklahoma.

ast night, I chatted with Chris Hayes on the electric teevee machine about the sad saga of Robert Bates, the septuagenarian lawman who shot Eric Harris to death in Tulsa. If the consequences of Bates's actions weren't so awful, I'd almost feel sorry for the guy. As the smarter member of the firm put it the other night, this is the firearms equivalent of the elderly driver who "hits the accelerator instead of the brake" and T-bones a McDonald's. Even though I'm still wondering how in the hell nobody's been fired behind this nonsense yet, I'd like to be able to give this story a good leaving alone, except that it keeps getting better, which is to say, it keeps getting horribly worse. On Thursday, we learned that the local sheriff's department fudged Bates's qualification documents. Now, Bates has emerged from seclusion to make his own case and, well, wowser.

"First and foremost, let me apologize to the family of Eric Harris," Tulsa reserve deputy Robert Bates said of the 44-year-old black man he fatally wounded. "This is the second-worst thing that's ever happened to me or the first that ever happened to me in my life. I had cancer a number of years ago. I didn't think I was going to get there… I'd rate this as number one on my list of things in my life that I regret." Asked by Matt Lauer how he could make the fundamental mistake of grabbing his gun instead of the taser, Bates replied, "This has happened a number of times around the country. I have read about it in the past. I thought to myself after reading several cases, I don't understand how this can happen."

Please stop helping yourself. Listen to your lawyer.

Lauer took the opportunity to grill Bates on several stories that have come out about his relationship with the Tulsa police: Allegations that he was allowed to "play cop" because of his financial support of the sheriff's deputy; and claims that the sheriff's department falsified Bates' training records to give him unearned credit for firearm certification. Of the former, Bates said, "That is unbelievably unfair. I have donated equipment as I saw fit." He added that his main motivation has been to assist the department in fighting a local drug problem. And on the latter accusation, Bates asserted that he has it "in writing" that he completed the required firearms training. His lawyer jumped in to dismiss the credibility of the report, noting it originates with records from seven years ago and comes from a source he says was recently charged with first-degree murder and is being represented by a firm also representing the Harris family.

Wait, what?

"...comes from a source he says was recently charged with first-degree murder..."

That's what I thought you said.

This is going to get very, very weird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSN: Tulsa's Killer Is Sheriff's Sugar Daddy

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THE $10 BILLS ARE NOT DOING IT: We are seeing a decent amount of donations, but the average this month is far below normal. Traditionally a thirty dollar donation is our average. That should be the target if at all possible. Sorry but it's a steep drop off from where we are normally at, with the same number of donations. Marc Ash - Founder, Reader Supported News

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Robert Bates. (photo: The Daily Beast)

Tulsa's Killer Is Sheriff's Sugar Daddy

By Kate Briquelet and M.L. Nestel, The Daily Beast

14 April 15

The volunteer cop charged with fatally shooting an unarmed man plied the sheriff’s department with trips and gear, former officers say.

he Tulsa deputy charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed black man was the sheriff’s sugar daddy—treating him to exotic cruises and fishing trips—former officers with the sheriff’s department told The Daily Beast.

Volunteer cop Robert Bates, 73, made national headlines after authorities released a video of the senior officer mistaking his gun for a Taser and killing Eric Harris, 44, during a bungled sting operation. “Oh, I shot him. I’m sorry,” Bates can be heard on the police cameras after yelling, “Taser!”

 

Hours before the Tulsa County district attorney charged Bates with second-degree manslaughter on Monday, Sheriff Stanley Glanz defended the deputy—who is his longtime friend and served as his insurance agent and onetime election campaign chair.

 

"He made an error," Glanz told the Tulsa World. "How many errors are made in an operating room every week?"

 

Glanz also showed a Tulsa World reporter cellphone photos of him fishing with Bates, a millionaire insurance executive. "Bob and I both love to fish," he said. "Is it wrong to have a friend?"

 

Still, former officers with the sheriff’s department told The Daily Beast that Bates was a “pay to play” policeman. The businessman donated thousands of dollars worth of vehicles and equipment to the force.

 

“Bob Bates came on board because he had all this money,” one former reserve deputy said, adding that the sheriff and other higher-ups would “go on these cruises in the Bahamas and in Mexico all the time.”

 

“[Bates] foots the bill,” the deputy added. “The sheriff just gave him free rein because he was treating him right. He bought his way into this position.”

 

Another former full-time deputy said Bates was “getting glad-handed” around the office because of his wealth.

 

“This is your typical Southern good ol’ boys system,” he said, adding that before the shooting Bates planned to take Glanz on a fishing trip to Florida.

 

Major Shannon T. Clark of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the allegations.

“I’m not going to respond to that,” he said in an email to The Daily Beast. “His personal life has nothing to do with this story.”

 

Bates’s attorney, Scott Wood, said the sheriff’s drug task force was outfitted with surveillance equipment paid for by the volunteer.

 

“The contributions that he made, especially to the drug task force, has made a giant impact and led to drug arrests,” Wood told The Daily Beast, adding he was uncertain if Bates purchased the officers’ body cameras.

 

Regarding the luxury-trip allegations, Wood confirmed that Bates and sheriff’s department personnel vacationed together in the Bahamas. But he couldn’t say if Bates “paid their way there.”

 

“You have to know Bob Bates,” Wood said. “I know that he vacations in the Bahamas, I know that other members in the Sheriff’s Office have gone with him. But it would be like if we were college friends and we all said, ‘Let’s go there.’”

 

The volunteer was such a familiar face that when the TV show Cops came to Tulsa in 2008, producers asked if Bates was undersheriff.

 

“They were like, ‘Who is this guy? Is he the undersheriff or something?’” the insider recalled. “We said, ‘No, he’s just some new reserve.’”

 

Oklahoma watchdogs are questioning why Bates was involved in a deadly undercover weapons bust with an ex-con.

 

Bates could serve up to four years in prison for the manslaughter charge. And it’s not his only legal dilemma.

 

He is being sued in federal court for refusing to “vacate the premises” after selling his company, Robert C. Bates L.L.C., for tens of millions of dollars in 1999.

 

The new owner claims that when Bates finally left, he made off with “hundreds of files,” court records show.

 

Roger Crow, a fellow reserve deputy since 1982, told The Daily Beast that he sees Bates at monthly meetings and at the city’s annual fair.

 

He said the department warns reservists about drawing the wrong weapon in training videos.

 

“It’s a tragedy,” he said. “We’ve all gone through the training, but when it comes to what they call ‘the slip,’ when you think you’re harnessing your weapon—it happens. Even through the academy ... you think you’re pulling your weapon but you’re pulling out the Taser, unfortunately.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSN: SeaWorld Lawsuit Alleges Orcas Are Drugged and Confined in 'Chemical Tubs', Cop Mocks Unarmed Man as He Dies From Police Bullet,

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MORE ON “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS” The reference in yesterday’s fundraising message about going out of business, was plucked from a reader comment about not intending to contribute unless the organization was going out of business. We are not going out of business but that mindset certainly has an enormously destabilizing effect. In earnest. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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