Oklahoma County DA Drops Charges In Officer-Involved Shootings

Charges will be dropped against Oklahoma City-area police officers in three separate officer-involved shooting cases from 2020, Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna announced on Friday.

This includes five police officers in the death of a metro teen. Stavian Rodriguez was shot to death by Oklahoma City Police officers during a robbery in November 2020. Charges of first-degree manslaughter will be dropped against Officers Jared Barton, Corey Adams, Bradley Pemberton, Bethany Sears, and Jonathan Skuta.

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It includes one police officer in the death of 49-year-old Christopher Poor. The Village Police Officer Chance Avery was charged with second-degree murder in Poor's death on July 25, 2020.

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And it includes one police officer in the death of 60-year-old Bennie Edwards. Officer Clifford Holman shot and killed Edwards on Dec. 11, 2020, after a confrontation outside a shopping plaza in the 2100 block of West Hefner Road in Oklahoma City.

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The charges will be dismissed with prejudice, which means the decision is final and cannot be reintroduced.

Rodriguez family attorney Rand Eddy reacted to the news.

"We are extremely disappointed in her decision to dismiss the case against the five officers, and we’re going to seek our redress in the civil proceeding that has been on hold for 2.5 years that will hopefully get started very soon," Eddy said.

Behenna said a team of seven lawyers, from a variety of backgrounds, reviewed facts, bodycam footage and anything that was available to them. She said her office retained an outside expert on the case, too.

"We spent hundreds of hours reviewing the facts in each of these three cases," Behenna said.

Behenna said that she understood the gravity of her decision.

"I know how highly-charged the topic of law enforcement use-of-force is in the current environment," she said in a press release handed out at the press conference. "It is critical to evaluate each case independently and make a decision based on facts, not emotion. No matter what the ultimate decision is, there is a family that is going to be changed forever. I do not take these decisions lightly and they are not made in a vacuum."

Related Video:

1. WATCH VIDEO: Oklahoma County DA Vicki Behenna Press Conference
2. WATCH VIDEO: OKC Fraternal Order Of Police News Conference