Speaker 1: The last episode of bear Grease was on the drowning
Speaker 1: of Oklahoma Wildlife Officer Melvin Bucky Garrison in nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: The story that we're going to tell today goes separated
Speaker 1: by forty four years, is eerily connected. It's the story
Speaker 1: about the use of lethal force and the legal precedence
Speaker 1: of water as a means of potential murder. I really
Speaker 1: doubt that you're going to want to miss this one.
Speaker 2: And he actually started shaking me under the water like
Speaker 2: he was trying to drown me, like you would see
Speaker 2: somebody on TV shaking somebody under the water. And he's
Speaker 2: doing that, and I'm laying there and in my mind,
Speaker 2: I'm it's slow. I mean, everything went real slow. And
Speaker 2: I was sitting there thinking, Okay, I know where I'm at,
Speaker 2: I know what I got to do.
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Knukem, and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 1: place as we explore, I'd like to introduce you to
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Wildlife Officer Jared Kramer. I'd say Jared is in
Speaker 1: his forties. He has a very serious demeanor. He's kind
Speaker 1: of fit and wiry, and I could immediately tell he
Speaker 1: takes his job extremely serious. I want to jump right
Speaker 1: in and learn about his history and law enforcement. Meet
Speaker 1: Officer Jared Kramer.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So actually started in conservation right out of college.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and five. I went to work for the
Speaker 2: Missouri Department of Conservation, and it's actually just an hourly
Speaker 2: temporary job doing some stream surveying, backpack shocking streams and
Speaker 2: doing a little study there in northern Missouri. And that
Speaker 2: turned into me staying and getting on as an hourly
Speaker 2: temporary employee with the wildlife guys. Worked all winter with them,
Speaker 2: and then I got a full time job with them
Speaker 2: on a conservation area as a wildlife technician. And all
Speaker 2: the while I'm trying to get on as an Oklahoma
Speaker 2: game warden, and I got that in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: and this Adair County was my first assignment and I've
Speaker 2: been here ever since.
Speaker 1: M Why do you want to get into wild life law.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't really have a memory of the why.
Speaker 2: It just seems like that was always it. I don't
Speaker 2: I don't recall like deciding one day that's what I
Speaker 2: want to do. But you know, since I was probably
Speaker 2: in junior high, I knew that, you know, that's something
Speaker 2: I probably wanted to do. My brother is actually a
Speaker 2: game warden in Oklahoma, and he hired on five years
Speaker 2: before I did, And that's that basically solidified that that's
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do. Not only because I looked
Speaker 2: up to my brother and you know, wanted to work
Speaker 2: with him and enjoyed, you know that, but I got
Speaker 2: an inside scoop on the job, you know, and so
Speaker 2: I really got to learn all ins and outs of
Speaker 2: actually being an Oklahoma game warden because he was doing it.
Speaker 2: And so then it's like, yeah, that's what I want
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Officer Kramer was involved in a life changing altercation in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. He knows what I'm here to talk to
Speaker 1: him about. He's often been asked to share the story
Speaker 1: with other wildlife officers and trainings and with new cadets.
Speaker 1: His story shows a very extreme situation and one that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think a wildlife officer would find himself in.
Speaker 2: So it's twenty fifteen in April's Sunday morning, and I'm
Speaker 2: going I'm going to go to work for a little
Speaker 2: bit mid morning, and my plan was was to go
Speaker 2: make a circle, probably check some fishing licenses. I actually
Speaker 2: had a place on a wildlife management area where some
Speaker 2: people have been illegally driving four wheelers or pick ups
Speaker 2: off road, and I was going to go check on that.
Speaker 2: And I was hoping to be home early in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: going to have a short Sunday as what I had planned.
Speaker 2: So this spot that I'm going to go check on
Speaker 2: the wildlife management area's not far from my house, so
Speaker 2: I hadn't been gone long. And I'm over there and
Speaker 2: I hear my partner on the county radio to the dispatcher.
Speaker 2: He's calling in a couple of individuals that are to
Speaker 2: run their status of their driver's licenses and to check
Speaker 2: them if they have any outstanding warrants. And so I
Speaker 2: hear this, and he I believe, he tells the dispatcher
Speaker 2: where he's at, and it was a place called Sanders
Speaker 2: Flat and I'm just right down the road from there. Well,
Speaker 2: within a minute they come back and say they've got
Speaker 2: two of these individuals have outstanding warrants out of Arkansas,
Speaker 2: and one of them's fell any warrant. So I know
Speaker 2: this guy's going to go to jail. So I start
Speaker 2: heading that way, and I raised.
Speaker 3: Is a guy.
Speaker 1: Forgive me for interrupted, this is a guy that he
Speaker 1: has got here checking.
Speaker 2: Out saw back up. So there was a little pond,
Speaker 2: little farm pond that it's on private property, but it's
Speaker 2: commonly being used by the public for fishing. Pretty small pond,
Speaker 2: and so he just went there to check see if
Speaker 2: anybody's there fishing that morning, and these people are there,
Speaker 2: so he's checked their fishing licenses, now having Oklahoma fishing licenses.
Speaker 2: So this contact progresses into him checking them for the warrants.
Speaker 2: So the county comes back and tells him, yes, this
Speaker 2: this one individual's got the felony warrant. So I immediately know, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to his location, back him up, helping whatever.
Speaker 2: So I radio to him and tell him, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: just down the road. I'll be there in a minute.
Speaker 2: So I'll pull up there. He's parked kind of up
Speaker 2: on this hill above the pawn The ponds one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yards away or so from where he's parked,
Speaker 2: and he's got this woman at his truck, and I
Speaker 2: already know that she has warrants as well, and he's
Speaker 2: there with her. So I pull up and I immediately
Speaker 2: am looking down at this pond these other two guys,
Speaker 2: knowing one of those guys has this warrant and he's
Speaker 2: with this girl. So I'm just my thought process is
Speaker 2: I got to go down here to this guy and
Speaker 2: take care of this, whether that's hook him up right
Speaker 2: now or whatever. I'm gonna get over there. So I
Speaker 2: confirm with that it's, you know, this one particular guy,
Speaker 2: whatever he was wearing. But I already knew that because
Speaker 2: when I pulled up, even from one hundred and fifty yards,
Speaker 2: I could see the look on his face in his
Speaker 2: body language that he was the guy. He knew when
Speaker 2: he's seen me pull up, everything about him changed, and
Speaker 2: I knew that's that's the guys.
Speaker 3: So what did what did you see? What did he do?
Speaker 2: I just just could see it. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: couldn't describe it, but it was it was written all
Speaker 2: over him in his body language that I could tell
Speaker 2: he was the guy that was going to have this warrant.
Speaker 2: Most likely it was probably him looking at me directly
Speaker 2: and watched me pull up there, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: so I pull off and have to drive around down
Speaker 2: the county road and come back around the other side
Speaker 2: to get to where these these guys are parked on
Speaker 2: the other side of this pond. I was looking across
Speaker 2: the pond from him. They've got a truck parked down
Speaker 2: there by the pond. And I get out. This other
Speaker 2: guy is a middle aged man. I recognized him from
Speaker 2: another contact, and this to be a little side story
Speaker 2: that can go into this. So this guy, I took
Speaker 2: him to jail a year or two prior. He had
Speaker 2: an outstanding warrant. And I'm taking this gentleman to jail
Speaker 2: or we're making the drive and he's telling me that
Speaker 2: this is a big mistake, which I've heard, you know,
Speaker 2: it's always well, I paid it, but you know they
Speaker 2: lost the whatever. You know. Well, he's telling me that
Speaker 2: he's a victim of identity theft and that somebody stole
Speaker 2: his identity and that person got arrested using his identity
Speaker 2: and then they bailed out of jail. Didn't never come
Speaker 2: back after they posted bond never showed back up to court.
Speaker 2: So now he's on the hook because it was his identity.
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm you know what I'm thinking, Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: he keeps telling me about it, and I start to
Speaker 2: believe in you know, I'm thinking, you know, this sounds legitimate.
Speaker 2: He's pretty adamant about it. And I told him, I said, well,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll look into it,
Speaker 2: so take him to jail, book him in which I
Speaker 2: explained to him. He knew, like he it's not like
Speaker 2: I can't take you to jail now, but we'll look
Speaker 2: into it. So sure enough, the following week, because that
Speaker 2: was the weekend, I followed up and I ended up
Speaker 2: finding these, you know, the photos from the booking of
Speaker 2: this guy. It's not him, and so he's telling.
Speaker 3: Me the truth.
Speaker 2: And so I wrote up a deal and gave it
Speaker 2: to the district attorneys and you know, told him what
Speaker 2: i'd found, what i'd discovered, and got this guy off
Speaker 2: and got his charges dropped and all that deal because
Speaker 2: he truly was a victim of identity theft. Anyway, So
Speaker 2: now I'm on I'm at the pond, and there he
Speaker 2: is and he's kind of excited to see me, you know,
Speaker 2: he you know.
Speaker 1: He knows you've done yeah, he or he.
Speaker 2: Knows that this deal all worked out and and he
Speaker 2: got off those charges because of that deal, and he
Speaker 2: knew that I had took care of it, yeah, or
Speaker 2: figured it out and got it took care of So anyway,
Speaker 2: he shows me his fishing license because Cody hadn't checked
Speaker 2: him yet. I guess maybe he was at a different
Speaker 2: part of the pond or something whatever. So he shows
Speaker 2: me his fishing license. And this other guy's standing at
Speaker 2: the pickup truck and he's standing there at the bed
Speaker 2: with his hands his arms rested up on the bedrail,
Speaker 2: and I have he's cross, you know, looking across the
Speaker 2: bed of the pickup front from me. So I have
Speaker 2: to look walk around to the back of him, and
Speaker 2: I do. And I decided that I'm just going to
Speaker 2: handcuff this guy, you know, and get him into custody.
Speaker 2: And so I told him and said, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: whatever I said. I don't remember if I told him
Speaker 2: you've got warrants for your rest or whatever, but I
Speaker 2: instructed him to put his hands behind his back and
Speaker 2: go through that motion. And as he's doing that, I'm
Speaker 2: reaching for my handcuffs at the same time, and he
Speaker 2: puts his hands behind his back, and then he bolts
Speaker 2: and he runs and he takes off to the right.
Speaker 2: The pawn's right behind us, twenty yards or so, the
Speaker 2: edge of it, and so he bolts to the right
Speaker 2: and just takes off sprinting, and I presume and you know,
Speaker 2: probably in twenty yards, I've tackled Dean, and so now
Speaker 2: the fight's on where he's not complying. You know, I've
Speaker 2: tackled him, but he's not going to lay there and
Speaker 2: let me cuffing. You know, he's scrambling, trying to get up.
Speaker 2: And he's quite a bit bigger than me. He's probably
Speaker 2: got forty pounds on me, and you know, taller, a
Speaker 2: little bit taller than me too. He's pretty stout guy.
Speaker 2: And so it's all I can handle, not handling him.
Speaker 2: Can't keep him on the ground. He gets up, well,
Speaker 2: instead of disengaging and trying to run again, now he's
Speaker 2: attacking me, and so he's trying to wrestle me to
Speaker 2: the ground. And so now I've went into defense and
Speaker 2: trying to keep my feet and so this this wrestling
Speaker 2: match of him trying to drag me to the grounds
Speaker 2: going on, and I'm merely just trying to stay on
Speaker 2: my feet at this point. And you know, in my mind,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, Okay, I got to keep my feet, but
Speaker 2: I got to get back control of this guy because
Speaker 2: right now he's just I'm just defending and I've got
Speaker 2: to get back on offense and get him under control.
Speaker 2: And this is going on, and I mean it's it's
Speaker 2: mere seconds, but it really felt like it's minutes of
Speaker 2: fighting going on. And you know, he's got me by
Speaker 2: the collar, trying to drag me down, trying to sling
Speaker 2: me to the ground, whatever he can do. But I'm
Speaker 2: maintaining throwing punching. Now he hasn't thrown any punches. He's
Speaker 2: just grappling you, just trying to get me, trying to
Speaker 2: drag me physically, drag me down, is what he's trying
Speaker 2: to do. And I'm maintaining my feet and keeping that
Speaker 2: from happening. But I'm thinking in my head, where's this
Speaker 2: other guy at? And I'd start thinking, I gotta check
Speaker 2: this other guy because I may be fixing to get
Speaker 2: smoked in the back of the head or something. And
Speaker 2: I managed to get to a point to where I
Speaker 2: could get a look, and I see the guy standing
Speaker 2: where he was standing when I left him, and he's
Speaker 2: just standing there looking, you know, not doing anything, which
Speaker 2: at the time for me, I thought, that's fine, that's great,
Speaker 2: just stand there. You know, he's not not trying to
Speaker 2: help me, but he's not doing anything to try to
Speaker 2: hurt me either. This wrestling continues, and eventually this guy
Speaker 2: just lunges and just in a perfect form, tackle shoulder
Speaker 2: in my in my gut and wraps me up and
Speaker 2: we just launch into the pond and I'm on my
Speaker 2: back and so he's you know, I'm under the water
Speaker 2: now and on my back and he's on top of me,
Speaker 2: and he he's you know, in full mount, you know,
Speaker 2: he's I assume, of course I can't see, but I
Speaker 2: assume his knees are laid over me right of like
Speaker 2: where my gun belt would be in my gun in
Speaker 2: my side arm, because I can't get to it. I'm trying,
Speaker 2: you know, and I can't. Well, he's got me. Of course.
Speaker 2: My first instinct was to get up, but I can't
Speaker 2: get up because he's on me. But he also grabs
Speaker 2: a hold of me like by the collar or the
Speaker 2: shirt my chest, and he pushes me down and he
Speaker 2: actually started shaking me under the water like he was
Speaker 2: trying to, you know, drown me, like you would see
Speaker 2: somebody on TV shaking somebody under the water. And he's
Speaker 2: doing that and I'm laying there and in my mind,
Speaker 2: I'm it's slow. I mean, everything went real slow. And
Speaker 2: I was sitting there thinking, Okay, I know where I'm at,
Speaker 2: and I know what I know what I got to do,
Speaker 2: and I don't have any recollection of how but my
Speaker 2: next my next thought is, or my next memory is
Speaker 2: he's off of me, and I'm standing up, and I'm
Speaker 2: telling myself, get up and get your gun, Get up
Speaker 2: and get your gun. Get up and get your gun.
Speaker 2: And so I come up out of the water and
Speaker 2: I'm getting my gun and he had bolted, well, I
Speaker 2: say bolted. He was off to my left, and uh
Speaker 2: I had I think I had hollered at him. But
Speaker 2: he's coming at me like he was over here on
Speaker 2: my left as what I was, what I remember, And
Speaker 2: he's coming at me, and I believe I had hollered stop,
Speaker 2: you know, but he's coming through the water. We're still
Speaker 2: in he's still in the water. I'm still in the water,
Speaker 2: but the water is like knee deep, and he's coming
Speaker 2: at me, and it's like somebody trying to run or
Speaker 2: hurry through the water. He's really side to side and
Speaker 2: working at trying to get to me quick. And I have,
Speaker 2: you know, drawn my gun, and I've got the gun
Speaker 2: cleared the holster about the time he's right at me,
Speaker 2: and I shoot him twice, and in my mind I
Speaker 2: had well, I'll just say I shot him twice. And
Speaker 2: he he turns to his right and kind of puts
Speaker 2: his his hands up and says, I give up as
Speaker 2: he falls into the water, face down, And so I
Speaker 2: command him, put your hands behind your back, you know,
Speaker 2: and he does. He hears me, and he complies, puts
Speaker 2: his hands behind his back. I holster my gun and
Speaker 2: I cuff him, and I roll him over on his
Speaker 2: back and I drag him out of the water onto
Speaker 2: the bank, and that, you know, from there, I was
Speaker 2: trying to administer a first aid. I had stood up,
Speaker 2: actually back up, I had stood up, and I look
Speaker 2: up and my partner, he's driving the truck. I see
Speaker 2: him pull up. He is just now pulled up to
Speaker 2: the scene. This whole time, he has no idea that
Speaker 2: this is going on, because about the time that I
Speaker 2: got over there, he got that gal loaded up in
Speaker 2: the truck and they started driving over there, and all
Speaker 2: that took place. And I think they had the time
Speaker 2: frame from radio traffic that it was like a minute
Speaker 2: had took place from him getting in his truck and
Speaker 2: driving over there and discovering what had just took place.
Speaker 2: And so I stand up from this pond and see him,
Speaker 2: and he gets out, and I holler at him to
Speaker 2: throw me as first aid kit because we all have
Speaker 2: a you know, a kit in our truck, and he does.
Speaker 2: And anyway, I try to give this guy some some
Speaker 2: aid to his gunshot wounds. I try to find them,
Speaker 2: but I can't find them. Took a shirt put pulled
Speaker 2: his shirt up and was trying to find these these wounds.
Speaker 2: I knew I should I shot him twice, but I
Speaker 2: can't find these gunshot wounds. And and I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: what in the heck, because in my mind I knew
Speaker 2: exactly where they were at when I pressed the trigger,
Speaker 2: they weren't there. And anyway, he he didn't make it, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: and we we radioed for help and you know, Cody
Speaker 2: was able to secure the other guy that was there,
Speaker 2: and we ended up having to you know, give directions
Speaker 2: to the county where we were at and how how
Speaker 2: to get there, you know, and they they showed up
Speaker 2: and and took over the scene and all that. So
Speaker 2: you know, from there, you've got, uh, this one guy
Speaker 2: that sat there and watched the whole thing, and and
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, you know, that guy, he's going to
Speaker 2: have to tell this story. And I remember wondering what
Speaker 2: story was he going to tell?
Speaker 1: You know, And but this is the guy that you've helped,
Speaker 1: but this is also his obviously a buddy, a friend
Speaker 1: of his or whatever.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Fast forward to me having to sit down with investigators
Speaker 2: and and or the investigator for the Ocloma State Guirreau
Speaker 2: of Investigation and and tell my story.
Speaker 3: You know, can I can? I ask you?
Speaker 1: I don't want to disrupt your flow, but what's what's
Speaker 1: going through your mind when you know this guy is
Speaker 1: not going to live?
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 1: I mean like kind of just thinking what you know
Speaker 1: you're now up against in terms of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this this time, you know, this was twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: there was a lot going on with law enforcement there
Speaker 2: was riots, and and you know, there had been some
Speaker 2: incidents that were you know, in the news that from
Speaker 2: people that were unarmed that got shot by law enforcement officers,
Speaker 2: and that those sort of things were going on, and
Speaker 2: that actually crossed my mind, you know, not during the event,
Speaker 2: but right after it happened. I'm now thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: here we are with all this stuff going on, and
Speaker 2: law enforcement's getting you know, hammered in the media and
Speaker 2: getting portrayed to be the bad guys constantly, and here
Speaker 2: this guy is. He ain't armed, you know, And I
Speaker 2: thought about that while I was standing there. And this
Speaker 2: guy's not made it, you know, he's passed away.
Speaker 1: Less than a year earlier, on August ninth, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: eighteen year old unarmed Michael Brown was killed by police
Speaker 1: in Ferguson, Missouri, which created a national uproar in riots
Speaker 1: in the streets. When officers in twenty fifteen, this very
Speaker 1: year that all this took place with Officer Kramer, these
Speaker 1: officers in Ferguson were found justified in the use of
Speaker 1: deadly force. They were essentially acquitted. It's hard to forget
Speaker 1: the tension in the air since that time, as law
Speaker 1: enforcement has been under intense scrutiny and has had to
Speaker 1: continue to do their job upholding the law. These were
Speaker 1: incredibly intense times and Officer Kramer has found himself right
Speaker 1: in the middle of it. What a nightmare. And secondly,
Speaker 1: you remember the woman that his partner had arrested that
Speaker 1: was connected with this crew. Well, his partner and this
Speaker 1: woman were completely out of view of the fight. They
Speaker 1: never saw a thing. But later in court she claimed
Speaker 1: that she had witnessed the fight and told a completely
Speaker 1: different story than Officer Kramer and this other guy that
Speaker 1: was standing right there beside him.
Speaker 2: My lawyer and I show up to give a you know,
Speaker 2: the formal statement to the investigators. They've already interviewed these
Speaker 2: other witnesses and whatever, and they're waiting to do mine.
Speaker 2: And we sat down and do it. And so I
Speaker 2: tell that story just like I told it to you,
Speaker 2: and probably close to word for word. And after it
Speaker 2: was done, the investigator asked me if I wanted to
Speaker 2: see what the eyewitnesses story was. What he said, okay,
Speaker 2: So they handed me the statement and I read it,
Speaker 2: and it was almost word for word or what I said,
Speaker 2: and the only the only thing that was there might
Speaker 2: have been a couple of little things different because there
Speaker 2: always will be, but it was, I mean, it was
Speaker 2: the exact story. The main difference for me, and it
Speaker 2: was a piece of the puzzle that I've never been
Speaker 2: able to get back myself was he stated that I
Speaker 2: kicked this guy off of me, and that the guy
Speaker 2: landed on his butt in the water and then got up.
Speaker 2: But I have no recollection if that's what really happened
Speaker 2: or not. I just know that the guy's off of me,
Speaker 2: you know, and I got to get up.
Speaker 1: Well. Wouldn't that make sense though, I mean, because because
Speaker 1: it's it's like you're under water and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he's off of you. If he was trying
Speaker 1: to leave you, feels like he would have kept going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he didn't. He re engaged again for the
Speaker 2: second time, you know, and decided he wanted to, I guess,
Speaker 2: play this one one more time. But in my mind
Speaker 2: I had to, you know, I had to make that
Speaker 2: decision of I'm not going to fight this guy in
Speaker 2: the water again. You know, that's not happening when I'm
Speaker 2: not going back down there.
Speaker 1: I'm not going back down there. I think that phrase
Speaker 1: paints a clear picture of the direness of the situation
Speaker 1: for Officer Kramer. Sometimes you just wonder what in the
Speaker 1: world someone is thinking. Who's fighting a law enforcement officer
Speaker 1: who has the legal right to protect themselves with deadly force.
Speaker 1: Do people know this? Are they just rolling the dice?
Speaker 1: Are they crazy? Are they high? Do they care if
Speaker 1: they live or die? It's hard to know, but it
Speaker 1: happens every single day. This logic makes it easy to think, well,
Speaker 1: this criminal got what he deserved and what he asked for.
Speaker 1: But I can't help think of what a sad state
Speaker 1: of life, what dire straits a person would have to
Speaker 1: be in to act this way. I cannot understand it
Speaker 1: or reconcile it. Fighting a law enforcement officer is like
Speaker 1: fist fighting a black mamba. You're probably going to get struck.
Speaker 1: But what's gonna now happen for Officer Kramer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and another kid bit there about the that witness.
Speaker 2: He did say at some point he told the truth
Speaker 2: because he believed I was a good guy, because I
Speaker 2: had helped him out and made that right for him,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't gonna lie.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, that's man, that's when when you told that
Speaker 1: part of the story. I was like God was looking
Speaker 1: out for you mean, he really was, because that could
Speaker 1: have gone completely the other direction, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: just to have a witness there that you had just
Speaker 1: randomly done a good thing for.
Speaker 3: I mean, what are the chances of that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because who knows how it would have turned out
Speaker 2: if that guy wasn't present that day and now it's
Speaker 2: you know, you got my story and and get this
Speaker 2: other so called witness and her story. It would have
Speaker 2: been a completely different deal. I mean it would have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if that guy had corroborated the same false story
Speaker 1: the woman told, this story could have turned out completely different.
Speaker 1: But what happens now the thing is just starting for
Speaker 1: Officer Kramer. Actually this was just the start of years
Speaker 1: of lack of resolution.
Speaker 2: Wow. But that's that's the short, not really the short,
Speaker 2: but that's the gist of what happened there on the
Speaker 2: on the scene. And you know, from there there was
Speaker 2: of course the criminal side of it, which you know,
Speaker 2: every officer that is involved in such is going to
Speaker 2: be there's going to be a criminal investigation. And of
Speaker 2: course that that was determined to justify, you know, I
Speaker 2: was justified in my actions, So there was no criminal
Speaker 2: ramifications or whatever coming there. But that following year, I
Speaker 2: think it was about right out a year after the incident,
Speaker 2: the family of the suspect they filed the federal lawsuit.
Speaker 2: So that was basically accusing me of violating Fourth Amendment right,
Speaker 2: you know, unlawful search and seizure, taking this guy's life.
Speaker 2: And that played out for years, several years really yeah,
Speaker 2: just a lot of it was I think just the
Speaker 2: slow process of the federal court system. But the short
Speaker 2: version of that was it was it was deemed by
Speaker 2: the judge, federal judge that it would go to a
Speaker 2: trial and that I was being represented by the okahom
Speaker 2: Attorney General's office, and they filed an appeal with the
Speaker 2: tenth Circuit District Court out of Denver, and they decided
Speaker 2: otherwise that it would be dismissed. So that was the
Speaker 2: end of that.
Speaker 1: But when all that was going on was that I
Speaker 1: was that stressful.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's that's the worst part, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I say it was the worst part. It was because
Speaker 2: of the duration how long that took.
Speaker 1: You know, can you walk me through your training in
Speaker 1: a situation like that, Like, I know, any level of
Speaker 1: law enforcement training these days I mean there is a
Speaker 1: prescribed action basically for any category of situation like you're
Speaker 1: I know, there's there's probably there's gray areas that they're
Speaker 1: they're just naturally it's going to be. But like there's
Speaker 1: certain just laws that if this happens, I do this,
Speaker 1: and I mean that's just part of your job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the you know, we're being trained and have
Speaker 2: to abide by what we call the use of force
Speaker 2: continuum laws governing the use of deadly force, which you
Speaker 2: know basically say that you know, if somebody is trying
Speaker 2: to do me physical harm, trying to kill me, or
Speaker 2: serious bodily injury, that elevates to the justification of the
Speaker 2: use of deadly force to prevent that from happening. You know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be on me, It can be
Speaker 2: on any citizen that they're you know that I am
Speaker 2: justified to use that level of force to prevent somebody
Speaker 2: from harming you in that manner, taking your life, or
Speaker 2: doing serious bodily injury. So that's the first and foremost
Speaker 2: is you know, was the person capable of inflicting that injury,
Speaker 2: did they have the intent to do it, and did
Speaker 2: they have the opportunity to complete it, and all three
Speaker 2: of those things have to be present in order for
Speaker 2: it to be justified for me to make that decision
Speaker 2: to use that deadly force. You know, they could have
Speaker 2: the intent and the means to do it, but it
Speaker 2: may not have the opportunity to actually do it, and
Speaker 2: so it doesn't it won't work. I would be unjustified,
Speaker 2: you know. And in this case, you know, the guy
Speaker 2: his means was his physical ability to hold me under
Speaker 2: the water and you know, subdue me and make that attempt.
Speaker 2: And it's clear to me that he had that ability there.
Speaker 2: He obviously showed the intent and the opportunity was there
Speaker 2: and he seized it. So he met all that criteria,
Speaker 2: which is in my mind just my training. Not thinking
Speaker 2: about that. I'm not checking those boxes. They're just that's
Speaker 2: just trained in me. But I will say that at
Speaker 2: the those split seconds of time where I'm seeing what's
Speaker 2: happening and I'm I've got my gun drawn, there was
Speaker 2: a thought process of is is this good? You know,
Speaker 2: I'm asking my I'm running that down. Is this good? Right?
Speaker 2: And that was the only question I asked myself, and I.
Speaker 3: Had to make that decision.
Speaker 1: I guess the water is what if you're uncoverable with
Speaker 1: this question, we don't have to put this on there.
Speaker 3: You probably wouldn't have shot him if it hadn't been
Speaker 3: for the.
Speaker 2: Water, though, right, that was his means.
Speaker 1: I mean, because like if you were just wrestling on
Speaker 1: the ground with a guy that was just trying to
Speaker 1: get you down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he never would have. He would have had to
Speaker 2: have done something something.
Speaker 1: Being reached for your gun or if he had had
Speaker 1: a weapon.
Speaker 2: Right, that's totally different. The water is what the means were.
Speaker 2: That's the means of him having the ability to take
Speaker 2: my life. Was the water that was his weapon. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's that's exactly right. If it wasn't for that,
Speaker 2: it'd have been just to fight on the ground, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'd have been trying to do it.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't have been justified, right and deadly force.
Speaker 2: Just if he would have had to have done something else.
Speaker 2: You know, he'd had to have been picking up a
Speaker 2: rock and trying to beat me in the head with it,
Speaker 2: or you know, a stick or something. He would have
Speaker 2: had to have some other kind of weapon to to
Speaker 2: reach that threshold.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 2: But we're still standing in the water. You know, and
Speaker 2: he's re engaging to attack me again while we're still
Speaker 2: in the water, and so that that's what justified that.
Speaker 3: Godly, that's wild man.
Speaker 1: You know, probably never in a thousand lifetimes of a
Speaker 1: wildlife officer did something.
Speaker 3: Like that happen.
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 3: Would you say? That's probably accurate?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know of another, you know, incident like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Similar to justify the use of lethal force, the perpetrator
Speaker 1: has to have three things, the intent, the means, and
Speaker 1: the opportunity. And in this case, the most unusual and
Speaker 1: unprecedented thing was the means to kill being water. The
Speaker 1: water was equivalent to a gun or a knife, or
Speaker 1: a rock or a club. And if you've ever almost drowned,
Speaker 1: I think you'll understand that. It goes without saying that
Speaker 1: any time a human life is taken, it's extremely serious.
Speaker 1: And just because someone is a convicted felon on the run,
Speaker 1: it doesn't lessen their value as a human and a
Speaker 1: fellow partaker of the breath of life. It is wild
Speaker 1: that this took place less than seventy miles away from
Speaker 1: where Bucky Garrison drowned in nineteen seventy one. Here's Officer
Speaker 1: Kramer with a very interesting detail about the psychology of
Speaker 1: these types of situations.
Speaker 2: And I will backtrack to say to fill in a
Speaker 2: spot that I left open there about his gunshot wounds.
Speaker 2: And I don't remember the terminology of what it is,
Speaker 2: but the I guess it's pretty common that in that situation,
Speaker 2: In those situations, that your brain is not processing in
Speaker 2: real time, and so my brain is seeing or telling
Speaker 2: me what I think were what I know, and that
Speaker 2: this guy was squared up to me, and because I
Speaker 2: believed that I knew where I had hit him, but
Speaker 2: the reality was was he had turned to his let
Speaker 2: to his right when I had shot, but I didn't
Speaker 2: see that. My brain didn't process that it was behind.
Speaker 2: So I'm pressing the trigger, but my brain is still
Speaker 2: behind on where he's located. And I guess that's pretty
Speaker 2: common for somebody to get shot in the back, but
Speaker 2: that's not what the officer intended because in their mind
Speaker 2: they were still facing them, but they had turned, and this.
Speaker 3: Was exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: He's actually turned before those shots went off, and so
Speaker 2: he was hit in the side with the ribs and
Speaker 2: I'm looking for him on the front of his torso
Speaker 2: and can't see him because in my brain I thought
Speaker 2: that I know exactly where they're at, but they weren't.
Speaker 2: They were around the side because he had turned to
Speaker 2: move away, tried to get away from me, you know,
Speaker 2: when he realized what was fixing to happen, you know.
Speaker 2: And I didn't never knew that until I was told,
Speaker 2: you know, this is where he was hit. And that
Speaker 2: was a complete shock to me because I would have
Speaker 2: bet the farm and I knew exactly where they went.
Speaker 1: The razor edge of time is faster than the human
Speaker 1: brain can compute such a precarious thing. To be a
Speaker 1: law enforcement officer, Why couldn't this guy have just run
Speaker 1: away when Officer Kramer's kicked him off?
Speaker 2: He didn't.
Speaker 1: He came right back. I've got another question, did that
Speaker 1: affect your career? I mean, did it make you Did
Speaker 1: you think, man, I maybe ought to get out of
Speaker 1: this business or or did it.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't, I don't think i've I didn't
Speaker 2: really ever think about that about getting out, you know.
Speaker 2: But it's definitely changed. I mean, I'll never be the
Speaker 2: same person. And uh, it's it's uh, it has created
Speaker 2: uh an opportunity for the good where we have some
Speaker 2: training now because up to up to that point, we
Speaker 2: hadn't had in a incident game warding involved shooting incidents.
Speaker 2: Sense I don't remember. I think it was in the
Speaker 2: nineties retired officer now, but had gotten in it, had
Speaker 2: shot a guy and the rumors of that, how that
Speaker 2: played out with the agency and everything, it wasn't good.
Speaker 2: It just was kind of like a disaster for the
Speaker 2: officer involved. And now, you know, we know as law
Speaker 2: enforcement agencies around the country, this is not uncommon to
Speaker 2: have these incidents, so they know more about mental health
Speaker 2: and how things should play out, what you do and
Speaker 2: how you do it. And my agency didn't have any experience.
Speaker 2: There wasn't anybody working at our administrative level that was
Speaker 2: working at the time when the last one happened, So
Speaker 2: there wasn't any new scenario. Yeah, it was completely new.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Thankfully those that were in that those positions, you know,
Speaker 2: they handled it correctly. And the fact that they didn't
Speaker 2: do anything if they were unsure about what they were doing,
Speaker 2: and that's just and I'm saying that in regards to
Speaker 2: to towards me, But after this took place, I decided,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, our agency needs to be prepared how
Speaker 2: do we handle this? And so now we have some
Speaker 2: some good training on how do you respond, Like if
Speaker 2: you're an officer that's out working and you get the
Speaker 2: call that there's been an officer involved shooting, how how
Speaker 2: do you respond to that? What do you do? What
Speaker 2: do you need to do when you get there, you know,
Speaker 2: And and then the other side of the for the agency,
Speaker 2: like the supervisors of that officer, the things that they
Speaker 2: should be doing to to help that officer you know,
Speaker 2: through this, you know, because there there can be a
Speaker 2: lot of struggles, you know, mentally the mental health thing
Speaker 2: can go south, you know, and it can be a
Speaker 2: bad It can turn out to be a really bad deal.
Speaker 2: And and that's for me, that was an that was
Speaker 2: something I experienced. Was nothing real negative. Nobody did anything
Speaker 2: to me that you know, caused some negative impact. But
Speaker 2: your brains is it's a weird deal. I mean, it
Speaker 2: does some crazy stuff. And I remember immediately after, you know,
Speaker 2: the next day and the next next two couple of days,
Speaker 2: there's everybody's trying to call me, you know, and people
Speaker 2: are wanting to know what happened, and you know, then
Speaker 2: a lot of them are just wanting to you know, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're all right, you know, and they got
Speaker 2: that out of the way. Well I figured out that
Speaker 2: that's that's all we do, is we we get that
Speaker 2: out of the way and we.
Speaker 3: Go on about our lives.
Speaker 2: So what happens is it goes from all these all
Speaker 2: this attention and people, you know, saying these good things,
Speaker 2: and then it's crickets and you don't hear nothing, and
Speaker 2: that starts screwing you know, was kind of screwing with me, like,
Speaker 2: you know, what's going on? How come nobody's called you know?
Speaker 2: You know, is this bad? You know, because there's there's
Speaker 2: an investigation going on. Yeah, yeah, you know, am I
Speaker 2: being blacklisted or something? And you don't. It's like so
Speaker 2: that those kind of things that we're aware of now
Speaker 2: that that's going to happen, so we kind of know
Speaker 2: how to handle it, how to prevent it from turning
Speaker 2: into something that it shouldn't or whatever.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: That's probably a similar thing with any kind of traumatic event,
Speaker 1: is that you you get a lot of people who
Speaker 1: care about you contacting you, and then yeah, it kind of.
Speaker 3: After some period of time, Yeah, it's like nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you you you know.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and your brain, you know, I guess maybe vulnerable
Speaker 2: would be a good term you get in you're just
Speaker 2: it's like it's very susceptible to manipulation, and you know,
Speaker 2: you're you don't you know, you don't know what's what's
Speaker 2: right and what's you know, like, is this normal that
Speaker 2: they're not calling me? I mean you can't. You're not
Speaker 2: processing that, you're not understanding' not grasping. Well, okay, well
Speaker 2: this is just everybody has said what they wanted to
Speaker 2: say and that's it.
Speaker 1: Now you start thinking the worst. So what can what
Speaker 1: could we learn from all this? Like when you tell
Speaker 1: the story, I know, to law enforcement officers there's a
Speaker 1: lot in terms of just like training and response and stuff.
Speaker 1: What do you what value is there too to us
Speaker 1: to hear the story?
Speaker 2: You know, it's as a as a game warden. You know,
Speaker 2: it's solidifies that you know, we're we're law enforcement officers
Speaker 2: out there dealing with the same people that may want
Speaker 2: to do us harm, just like any other law enforcement
Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of times.
Speaker 3: We get.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe downplayed on what you know, we're just
Speaker 2: a wildlife cop, you know, or not a real cop
Speaker 2: you you know whatever, But you know that's yeah, this
Speaker 2: deal started out it's a wildlife related thing. But the whole,
Speaker 2: the whole reason that happened was because this guy was
Speaker 2: a criminal that was wanted, you know, and we're going
Speaker 2: to take him to jail. We're going to make him
Speaker 2: you know, see the judge. So ah, I guess that
Speaker 2: would be one thing that this you know, comes should
Speaker 2: come of this situation as people realize, yeah, we're out
Speaker 2: there dealing with bad guys.
Speaker 1: You know. I just think about how you see these
Speaker 1: videos now of people engaging with law enforcement and like
Speaker 1: in a fight or something, and it's just like, you
Speaker 1: gotta be crazy. I mean, people should know when you
Speaker 1: feel like everybody should know. And obviously people aren't in
Speaker 1: their rational mind when they like put their hands on
Speaker 1: an officer. But it's like the rule of law that
Speaker 1: we have in this country because we all can walk
Speaker 1: around the streets and feel safe in most places this
Speaker 1: country is because we have law enforcement that has the
Speaker 1: right to protect the public but also themselves. And you
Speaker 1: lay your hands on a law enforcement officer, you might
Speaker 1: be in big trouble. I mean that that blows my
Speaker 1: mind when I see, you know, of people that start
Speaker 1: thinking straight.
Speaker 2: Well, like in this incident, this guy, he come out,
Speaker 2: you know, in testimony from the witnesses that they had
Speaker 2: just got done doing math. Well you know, and I
Speaker 2: think that was part of why he was wanted, you know,
Speaker 2: probably with some drug. I don't remember exactly, but I
Speaker 2: believe it was something to do with that. But he
Speaker 2: had already told this other this other guy, that he
Speaker 2: wasn't going back. He already had that conversation before I
Speaker 2: got over there. He made his mind up. It was
Speaker 2: about not going back to jail. You know, he's going
Speaker 2: to do whatever he needed to do to not go back.
Speaker 3: So he'd already made.
Speaker 2: That decision, yea, And that explains why he was, you know,
Speaker 2: re engaging. He realized that I wasn't going to let
Speaker 2: him go, wasn't going to let him just run off,
Speaker 2: you know, So he knew I believe he knew that
Speaker 2: he needed to take care of me.
Speaker 1: In order to go away, to get away, I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, the ill saying you'd be surprised at what
Speaker 1: people do if they're really desperate. It is eye opening
Speaker 1: to go behind the scenes with law enforcement officers, especially
Speaker 1: in the most stressful, difficult times of their career. I
Speaker 1: can't thank Officer Kramer enough, first of all for his
Speaker 1: service and protecting our communities and our wildlife resources, but
Speaker 1: secondly his willingness to tell this story anytime human life
Speaker 1: has taken It's an incredibly serious situation, and I think
Speaker 1: that we can all learn a lot from this. I
Speaker 1: cannot thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease Brent's
Speaker 1: This Country Life and Lakes Backwoods University. I hope that
Speaker 1: everyone has a married Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
Speaker 1: And while you're opening up those Christmas presents on December
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, remember keep the wild places wild, because that's
Speaker 1: where the bears live.