Posted on 08/04/2007 5:44:25 PM PDT by cashion
NOBLE — The first shot was so loud it made the hair stand straight up on Jack Tracy's arm. The bullet hit the water just a few feet in front of the boat dock where he was standing.
Instinctively, he pulled his 5-year-old grandson, Austin Haley, close to his left side and began yelling that there were people down by the pond.
Then came the second shot, and the unforgettable thump of a 9 mm bullet penetrating a young boy's skull.
"It went right through the back of his head and came out the front,” Tracy said. "He was just bleeding severely and I knew, right then, he was most likely dead, right there.”
Tracy thought he and his grandson were under attack by someone trying to kill them both, so he threw the boy into the back of a 4-wheeler and drove to his daughter's house about 200 yards away.
"Then two officers came out of the brush over there,” he said. "They didn't tell us they were the ones who had been shooting or that they had shot him. They didn't admit a doggone thing.”
Much later, Tracy said, he found out one of the officers had fired two shots in the Crest Lane neighborhood, trying to kill a snake that had become lodged in a birdhouse on the back porch of a house just up the hill from Tracy's pond.
‘I just feel really bad' Police had gotten a call of a snake complaint from a woman on Crest Lane, whose 16-year-old daughter saw the snake hanging about 3 feet of its body outside a neighbor's bird house.
The woman, who would not identify herself, told The Oklahoman she called the police station to see if animal control could respond and take care of the snake, which she believed to be a diamondback rattlesnake.
She was told that the city, which lost its only animal control officer recently, would send a police officer over to help.
"This was just a freak and tragic accident,” the woman said, "and I just feel really bad for everyone involved.”
Other neighbors weren't as sympathetic.
Crest Lane resident Kara Johnson said there was no excuse for shooting a gun at a snake in a residential area.
"It's a shame that someone had to lose their 5-year-old child over a snake,” Johnson said. "And that's their only child. They'll never get their kid back.”
Neighbor G.W. Henderson said his wife heard a woman screaming within minutes of the shots.
"She was shouting ‘You shot my boy! You shot my boy!'” Henderson said.
Second shot hit snake City Manager Bob Wade said rumors of overeager Noble officers are inaccurate. "I was told that they tried several ways to get the snake down, but it was still hissing at them and firmly lodged,” Wade said. "What I was told is that the owner of the home either suggested or agreed that they should go ahead and shoot the snake, and then everything happened from there.”
Wade refused to identify the officer suspected of firing the shots but said the officer has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents were told that officers decided to shoot the animal after being told there was a field behind them, said Jessica Brown, bureau spokeswoman.
"The first shot grazed the snake, and the second killed it,” Brown said.
Wade said he is 90 percent sure that the same bullet that killed the snake also killed Austin, but due to the trajectory of the shot and the fact that Austin and his grandfather were downhill, investigators have to be 100 percent certain.
"This is so bizarre it has to be fully investigated. ... We're pretty sure circumstantially that it is the bullet from the police officer's gun, but it might be a bullet from someone else,” Wade said.
Tracy has little doubt about what happened.
"I was standing right beside him when they shot him in the head,” he said. "There just wasn't anything I could do for this baby. He was dead. And he was just the finest Christian boy. His mother just bought him a Bible not a week before this — he wanted one that was camouflage because he was in the Lord's army.'”
Tracy said that when he saw the news reports and heard the police chief saying it was an "unfortunate accident,” the remark seemed too trivial and dismissive.
. "I'm not saying the cop shot him on purpose,” Tracy said. "It was an accident. But let me tell you — if I had a kid and put him in this car and didn't put him in a car seat and he got killed on the way to town, they'd charge me with murder ... and what this cop did is a lot worse than that. ... There was no reason for him to kill my grandson.”
Prayers for the boy and his family, and the cop that royally screwed up.
A 9mm is never, ever an appropriate weapon with which to shoot at snakes — and certainly not in an area where there might be other people.
You are correct about the shotgun though. Doesn't have the range the 9mm does.
But hindsight is 20/20.
Next time use a .22 with snake shot.
ping
Prayers offered for this devasted family.
Firing weapons in a residential area is never wise.
“We’re pretty sure circumstantially that it is the bullet from the police officer’s gun, but it might be a bullet from someone else,” Wade said.”
Sure... /sarc
Noble is just up the road a bit from where we live. I wouldn’t judge this case yet until we know more. On a local newscast, things were lots murkier than this article would suggest—for instance, they said on the broadcast that they knew the officers were there to shoot a snake, yet the child was allowed to be (too) close to the action. So let’s see.
But personally, why call anyone to shoot a snake at all? Just do it yourself. (And take note of where the kids are!)
Were it you or I we'd be in jail charged with at least aggravated manslaughter. The cops get a 'my bad'.
It’s mostly country where they were. Houses are pretty far apart, and it was near a pond.
Manslaughter, hell. We’d be looking in the phone book under capital defense attorneys.
That was my first thought. Cop cars have shotguns, why didn’t they use it?
I might add that in most cases, snakes can be dispatched without using a gun, especially in populated locations.
A camouflage Bible? Seriously?
They shot up in the air w/o being certain where the bullet would go inan area known to be inhabited by people. That's very negligent. See what happens when folks do stuff like that?
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