An Oklahoma city police officer fatally shot a deaf man Tuesday night after he allegedly came at two cops with a metal pipe, authorities said Wednesday.
Oklahoma City police officers went to Magdiel Sanchez’s, a 35-year-old deaf man, house after hearing reports Sanchez’s father was involved in a hit and run and left the scene to go to his son’s house, reports NBC News.
When officers showed up at Sanchez’s house, Lt. Matthew Lindsey witnessed Sanchez on the front porch holding a long metal pipe, Police Capt. Bo Mathews said at a Wednesday press conference. Lindsey called for back up, believing that Sanchez posed a threat and waited until Sgt. Christopher Barnes came to help.
“When the other unit arrived, verbal commands were being given to this individual to drop the weapon and get on the ground,” Mathews said.
Mathews said that Sanchez didn’t listen to the officers’ commands and kept coming towards them with the pipe. He added that neighbors were screaming at the officers to tell them that Sanchez was deaf and couldn’t hear their orders; he couldn’t confirm whether the officers heard the warnings or not.
Lindsey tased the deaf man and Barnes fired multiple shots. Sanchez died at the scene.
Barnes is on paid administrative leave and neither of the men had body cameras on them.
“I don’t know exactly what the officers were thinking at that point, because I was not there. But they very well could not have heard, you know, everybody yelling, everybody yelling around them,” Mathews said.
One of the neighbors said that Sanchez, who suffered from various developmental disabilities, carried around the pole to keep stray dogs away from him when he went for walks.
“The guy does movements,”Julio Rayos, another witness, told The Oklahoman. “He don’t speak, he don’t hear, mainly it is hand movements. That’s how he communicates. I believe he was frustrated trying to tell them what was going on.”
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