State agency to investigate shooting after death is called an accident

By Johnny Johnson

Published: August 5, 2007

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.

Tracy thought he and his grandson were under attack, 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.

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.

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.”

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