(CN) - The training of a volunteer Tulsa sheriff's deputy who shot an unarmed black man to death is being called into question amid allegations of records tampering. Robert C. Bates, 73, a white volunteer reserve deputy with the Tulsa County Sheriff's Department, was charged Monday with second-degree manslaughter involving culpable negligence. He is free on $25,000 bond.
The April 2 death of Eric Courtney Harris, 44, was recorded on a deputy's body camera and is one of the latest examples of police violence against black men .
In the video released by the sheriff's office last Friday, Harris is shown running away from deputies as they pull up to his vehicle. He is chased down, held to the ground and a single gunshot is heard. Bates immediately apologizes as Harris screams that he has been shot. As Harris screams that he can't breathe, an officer says, "Fuck your breath."
Police said Harris was being arrested in an undercover investigation of illegal gun sales.
Three of Bates' supervisors were transferred after they refused to sign papers that he had received state-required training, The Tulsa World reported Wednesday.
The unidentified deputies were ordered to falsify Bates' training records to give him credit for field training he never took, and for firearms certifications he should not have received, multiple anonymous sources told the newspaper.
As an "advanced reserve" deputy, Bates should have received 480 hours of the Field Training Officer program. An attorney for the Sheriff's Office declined The World's request for records showing which supervisors signed off on Bates' training.
In a statement to investigators, Bates said he has been involved in more than 100 assignments, had attended a five-day homicide investigation school in Dallas and was trained in "active shooter response" by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona
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