National

Accused Murderer Signed Off on Tulsa Killer Cop’s Training

Published

9 years ago

April 24, 2015

This Tuesday, April 14, 2015 file photo provided by the Tulsa County, Oklahoma, Sheriff's Office shows Robert Bates. Defense attorneys released some of the training records Saturday April 18, 2015 for a 73-year-old volunteer sheriff's deputy charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect in Oklahoma. The records for Robert Bates include certificates showing what training he received, job evaluation reports and weapons training and qualification records dating to 2008. (Tulsa County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

This Tuesday, April 14, 2015 file photo provided by the Tulsa County, Oklahoma, Sheriff’s Office shows Robert Bates. (Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)

(The Daily Beast) – The elderly Tulsa reserve deputy charged with manslaughter went on national television recently and dropped a bombshell. The thing is, no one noticed it was a bombshell at the time.

In an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, 73-year-old Robert Bates apologized to the family of Eric Harris, the man he accidentally gunned down on April 2 in a botched gun sting.

But in a moment that went unremarked on air, Bates also named former deputy Warren Cole Crittenden, a 44-year-old accused murderer, as his supervisor during his training. “I have a piece of paper by Mr. Warren Crittenden—[he’s] now in jail for first-degree murder 40 miles east of here, in Mayes County—signed off to say I’d done a good job,” Bates said.

Bates’s potentially poor preparation for his reserve duties has generated almost as much controversy as his shooting of Harris.

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