Deaf Man Is Fatally Shot by Oklahoma City Police, Despite Pleas

Credit...via Associated Press

An Oklahoma City police officer fatally shot a man on Tuesday night despite pleas from neighbors that the man was deaf and could not hear the commands to drop a metal pipe he was holding, the authorities said.

The man, Madgiel Sanchez, was shot around 8:15 p.m. outside his home soon after the police responded there to investigate a hit-and-run accident. The first officer to arrive called for backup, pulled out his Taser and ordered Mr. Sanchez, 35, who was on his front porch, to drop the two-foot-long pipe he was clutching, the police said.

The officer’s commands did not register with Mr. Sanchez. He ambled off the porch toward the officer, waving the pipe in his right hand, according to the police and a witness.

Julio Rayos, a neighbor who lives a few homes away and knew the man was deaf, said he saw the confrontation unfold and sensed trouble.

He said that he ran toward the officer with his wife and his 12-year-old daughter, all three of them screaming that the man could not understand the officer.

“Don’t kill him, he’s deaf,” his daughter yelled. “Don’t do it!”

About six other neighbors joined in, frantically trying to get the officer’s attention. But less than a minute after the episode began, a second officer arrived and immediately pulled out his handgun, Mr. Rayos said. While people continued to scream, the first officer fired his Taser at Mr. Sanchez, while the second fired his handgun, the police said.

Capt. Bo Mathews, a spokesman for the Oklahoma City Police Department, said Wednesday that the second officer, Sgt. Christopher Barnes, fired multiple shots and that Mr. Sanchez, who was hit more than once, was pronounced dead in front of his house.

Credit...Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Mr. Rayos said he heard more than six shots in rapid succession. “They seemed like they just came to shoot him,” he said. “It happened so quickly.”

In the neighborhood, Shields-Davis, just south of downtown Oklahoma City, Mr. Sanchez was known for wandering up and down the streets during the day, even in heavy rain, and running laps in the parking lot of an American Legion post next to his home. He never left home without the pipe, wielding it shoo away stray dogs, Mr. Rayos said.

Mr. Sanchez also used the pipe to communicate with people, moving it around to try to convey what he meant, Mr. Rayos said. It was the same motion Mr. Sanchez made before the police shot him, Mr. Rayos said.

Captain Mathews said that the shooting was under investigation and that Sergeant Barnes had been placed on paid administrative leave. The first officer who arrived, Lt. Matthew Lindsey, will remain on active duty, he said.

Captain Mathews said the police did not know yet why one officer pulled out his Taser while the other had his handgun.

“You can get tunnel vision or just get locked in on the person with the weapon,” he said, speaking generally about what officers can encounter during chaotic scenes. “I don’t know what the officers were thinking. They very well could not have heard everyone yelling around them.”

The police responded to Mr. Sanchez’s home, in the 200 block of Southeast 57th Street, after receiving 911 calls about a hit-and-run accident at a nearby intersection. A pickup truck involved in the crash had fled to the home, the police were told.

Captain Mathews said the truck had been driven by Mr. Sanchez’s father and that the son was not involved in the accident. Mr. Rayos said the father was still in his pickup, parked in the driveway of his home, during the confrontation with his son.