May 26, 2016
From OregonLive.com
Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea, 53, called his friend Robert Dempsey, 54, to apologize for shooting him in the back during a hunting trip. O’Dea told him that he had put his .22-caliber rifle down, went to get a drink and it suddenly fired when he picked it back up.
At the time of the shooting, O’Dea told a deputy that he didn’t have his rifle in his hand, having placed it on his chair and walked a couple of steps to open a drink when he heard his friend suddenly groan in pain.
The deputy said he smelled a strong odor of alcohol on O’Dea’s breath and described O’Dea as nervous with glassy, bloodshot eyes, shaking and quickly drinking a bottle of water as he talked.
The conflicting versions of what happened are in an Oregon Fish & Wildlife report required after hunting accidents. It includes the deputy’s interviews with O’Dea and five other men after the shooting near Fields, statements Dempsey made before he was airlifted to a hospital and then a later phone interview with Dempsey.
“Mr. Dempsey said Mr. O’Dea put his gun down and went to get something to drink,” the deputy wrote based on the May 14 interview. “Mr. Dempsey said when Mr. O’Dea returned, he picked his gun back up and Mr. O’Dea accidentally shot him.”
The two had been sitting on lawn chairs, shooting at ground squirrels.
In the hunting accident report, Deputy Chris Nisbet cited as contributing
factors: careless handling of firearm, apparent use of intoxicants and faulty equipment.
A bullet went into the lower left side of Dempsey’s back.
Aside from O’Dea and Dempsey, the others in the group were: Steve Buchtel, Brian Carroll, Michael Lieb, James Miller, and Jeffrey Purvis.