Published: April 01, 2008 08:50 am         

Noble officers receive deferred sentences in boy's death

NORMAN, Okla. — Two former Noble police officers received deferred sentences, community service and fines Monday after pleading no contest to manslaughter in the death of a 5-year-old Noble boy.

District Judge Tom Lucas accepted the pleas after earlier rejecting an agreement worked out between the district attorney’s office and defense attorneys.

Officer Robert Shawn Richardson was given a five-year deferred sentence and one day a week community service for a year. He was fined $500 and is to be supervised on probation for one and a half years.

Officer Paul Bradley Rogers received a 30-month deferred sentence and was ordered to perform community service one day a week for 26 weeks. He was fined $250 and is to be supervised for nine months.

Both men forfeited their law enforcement training certification and were forced to pay $500 to a victim’s fund. They are to do their service either at the Little River Zoo or the Norman Animal Control center.

The sentences stem from the shooting death of Austin Haley.

The Noble police officers responded to an animal control call Aug. 3 about a snake stuck in a birdhouse in a back yard. The officers attempted to knock the snake out of the birdhouse, but when that was unsuccessful Richardson, the field training officer, told Rogers, just out of law enforcement training school, to shoot the snake. The bullet missed the snake and struck Haley in the head while he was fishing at a pond with his grandfather.



The Norman (Okla.) Transcript