Okla. City officers shoot deaf man who didn’t obey orders

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma City police officers who opened fire on a man in front of his home as he approached them holding a metal pipe didn’t hear witnesses yelling that he was deaf, a department official said Wednesday.

Magdiel Sanchez, 35, wasn’t obeying the officers’ commands before one shot him with a gun and the other with a Taser on Tuesday night, police Capt. Bo Mathews said.

Sanchez, who had no apparent criminal record, died at the scene. Sgt. Chris Barnes, who fired his gun, has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Mathews said the officers were investigating a reported hit-and-run. He said a witness told Lt. Matthew Lindsey the address where the vehicle responsible for the hit-andrun had gone, and that Sanchez was on the porch when Lindsey arrived.

He said Sanchez was holding a metal pipe that had a leather loop on one end. Lindsey called for backup and Barnes arrived, at which point Sanchez began to approach the officers, Mathews said.

Witnesses could hear the officers giving Sanchez commands, but the officers didn’t hear the witnesses yelling that Sanchez couldn’t hear them, Mathews said. When he was 15 feet away from the officers, they opened fire — Lindsey with his Taser and Barnes with his gun, Mathews said.

Neither officer had a body camera.

Sanchez’s father, who was driving the hit-and-run vehicle, confirmed that his son was deaf, Mathews said. He said Sanchez wasn’t in the vehicle when his father struck something and drove off. It wasn’t a person that he struck.

A neighbor said Sanchez “always had a stick that he would walk around with, because there’s a lot of stray dogs.”