2 ex-Okla. police officers charged in fatal shooting
Two former police officers in Lawton, Oklahoma, were charged with first-degree manslaughter Friday in the shooting of a Black man in December. In video footage released by the city Friday, the man, Quadry Sanders, appeared to be complying with orders to put his hands up after he was initially shot, when he was repeatedly shot again.
The graphic body camera video of the confrontation shows police Officers Nathan Ronan and Robert Hinkle responding to a 911 call just after 8:30 p.m. Dec. 5 about a man who was under a protective order entering the home of the person named in the order.
Lee Merritt, the family’s lawyer, said in a statement that Sanders had a dispute with a woman when police were called.
Sanders, 29, was the person in violation of the protective order, according to a statement issued in December by the Lawton police chief, James T. Smith. The statement added that the caller reported that Sanders was waving a gun inside the house. Officers learned that Sanders was refusing to let one of the residents leave, according to a statement by the district attorney that was reported by local news station KSWO.
The footage shows officers using a loudspeaker to alert Sanders of their presence. A woman exits the home. Sanders then emerges from a back door, according to caption text in the video. Sanders complied with an officer’s commands to show his hands, according to the district attorney’s office, before running back inside.
When Sanders exits the house again, the officer wearing the body camera moves toward him, directing him to put his hands up and get down on the ground. (It was not immediately known whether the footage released by the city came from Ronan’s body camera or Hinkle’s.) The only object visible in his hands is a baseball cap, according to the district attorney’s statement. Sanders appears to try to move behind a refrigerator sitting outside. Just as he raises his hands above his head, one of the officers shoots at Sanders four times.