The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Bear’s hunter not out of woods yet
After killing Bobbi the Bear in Newtown, Lawrence Clarke couldn’t stop shooting off his mouth.
As a Ridgefield police sergeant, it’s appropriate that Clarke told investigators he wanted to be transparent about the investigation into his off-duty fatal shooting of the popular mother bear, whose two orphaned cubs were rescued at a neighbor’s property.
He said enough to convince the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Environmental Conservation Police not to file charges.
Then he said some other stuff.
Like explaining that he chose to grab the AR-15 when he went to confront the bear because it felt like a “security blanket.” Maybe that’s appropriate. Security blankets are for confronting fictional threats.
Or revealing that the AR-15 seemed like the best choice next to his shotgun, rifles and handgun. Don’t blame him for being unsure, since he admitted he “never hunted before.” After all, there are surely other reasons to stockpile guns. He said he was “not a hunter.” He is now.
Then there’s his line about being “almost a perfect shot with the AR.” His first shot hit Bobbi in the head. While the bear was down, and apparently having seizures, Clarke shot her in the head three more times. Seven casings were recovered, so Clarke apparently missed three times from less than 20 feet away.
He defended his actions by acknowledging the alternative: “What am I going to do? Am I going to say ... ‘hey everybody let’s just watch TV and let’s roll the dice and hope this bear doesn’t freaking kill my chickens?’ ” Well yes, that would have been better, with the addition of calling DEEP for help.
He did confess to making one bad call, that “the only thing he did wrong was pick up his rounds, except for one.”
Clarke’s critics think he made a few more mistakes May 12, starting with shooting Bobbi in the first place. He told investigators of hate mail he received, which is inappropriate under any circumstances. For all his training, and his stockpile, he was not prepared to confront a bear.
A lot of people aren’t, and can be understandably rattled upon meeting a bear unexpectedly. Most people haven’t learned the lesson that avoiding eye contact and making a little noise can prompt black bears to back off.
Those who reported sightings of Bobbi, who was marked with the No. 217 on ear tags, seemed to be at ease. Bobbi ate from backyard bird feeders like she was snacking on peanuts at a bar, washing them down with cocktails from hummingbird feeders.
Since 2017, residents in Newtown, Redding, Bethel, Ridgefield and elsewhere reported to DEEP that they had effectively shooed Bobbi away by using air horns, banging pots and blowing high-pitched whistles. Such tactics reliably work on the black bears that populate the Eastern United States (which have fur that ranges from black to gray to cinnamon). A video went viral in recent days of a woman in North Carolina using her “teacher voice” to ward off a black bear that climbed onto the deck (“What do you think you are doing on my porch? You get up, go, go! How dare you?” she scolded before the bear slinked away).
More than one Connecticut resident logging a Bobbi sighting noted “she was beautiful.” A Redding resident inquired in 2018, “might I learn of its history?”
Bobbi’s story was documented in recent years on her own Facebook page, where her profile pic depicts her lounging on a hammock. Turning a bear into a local celebrity has practical advantages, such as informing neighbors of its location. But it can also pose the problem of not recognizing the genuine perils of cohabitating with wildlife. No one should be looking for opportunities to take selfies with a bear.
Clarke’s problems arose as Bobbi developed a taste for his backyard chickens that might as well have been a buffet. He told his wife to contact DEEP, and a wildlife biologist advised her to buy an electric fence for the chicken coop. The solar device wasn’t charged by the time Bobbi returned.
No one needs an AR-15 to ward off backyard critters. It was a particularly chilling choice in Newtown, where the same weapon was used 5 miles from Clarke’s home to kill 20 students and six educators a decade ago. The AR-15 also was used by the gunmen in Uvalde, Texas, in May (21 dead), Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 (17 dead), Pulse nightclub in
Like explaining that he chose to grab the AR-15 when he went to confront the bear because it felt like a “security blanket.” Maybe that’s appropriate. Security blankets are for confronting fictional threats.
2016 (49 dead), Las Vegas in 2017 (58 dead) ...
Finally, there’s that mistake Clarke admits to making. He knows better than to pick up evidence after a shooting. But collecting the rounds makes it impossible to determine whether he also put neighbors at risk.
The reports are murky when it comes to the numbers. Seven rounds were recovered, along with a 30-round magazine with 17 unused rounds. But the number of shots fired is not definitive. When it comes to practical applications of math, no number matters more than when counting bullets.
Activists and neighbors remain livid that Clarke wasn’t charged, as it’s illegal in Connecticut to kill bears.
Bobbi the Bear may not have had Clarke’s arsenal, but she has formidable troops on her side. The chief state’s attorney received a letter Tuesday asking for the investigation to be reopened. It carries about 400 names, including activists, area residents, leaders from groups such as the state Humane Society, Sierra Club, CT Wildlife Rehabilitators Association and five state representatives (David Michel, D-Stamford; Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour; Mitch Bolinsky, R-Newtown; Raghib Allie-Brennan D-Bethel; and Anne Hughes, D-Easton). Getting Clarke charged has become a bipartisan cause.
Regardless of whether that effort succeeds, Clarke will remain adrift in Connecticut’s version of purgatory, a gray twilight of social media scrutiny and cautionary tales.
Protect the coop before raising chickens. Stay inside when there’s a bear in the yard. Call the DEEP as the first step, not the last. Instead, Clarke followed that familiar, reckless pattern: ready ... fire ... aim.