LAWTON Okla_ The description of the suspect on the loose after Wednesday's shooting caused a bit of confusion and paranoia in Lawton.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
said Police Officer Eric Weatherly is still in the hospital, recovering from
two gunshot wounds.
Officials say Weatherly
was shot once in the torso and once in the leg during the shootout, but doctors
say he will make a full recovery. OSBI said based on eyewitness accounts and
analysis, they've been able to determine 22-year old Demetrius Miller shot Weatherly.
Miller was also shot, but officials have not released information on his
condition or who shot him.
Late Wednesday
night, 7News reported police arrested 22-year-old Jamal Erwin Johnson, who was
identified as the second suspect in the shooting. He was taken in on unrelated warrants after a
lengthy manhunt.
It was the
vague description of that second suspect that prompted a lot of reaction from
7News viewers. The original description that police broadcast was of a black
man wearing a black hoodie. Many of our viewers said in northwest Lawton, at this time of
year, it didn't really narrow things down much. They said that put just about
every black male in that area under suspicion.
Lawton police
dispatch had given officers all they knew in the busy aftermath of yesterday's
shooting.
"Anonymous
caller is advising two black males: one approximately 6'1", the other 6"2' in a
black hoodie and a blue hoodie. One possibly had on red pajama bottoms and ran
south on 27th when the neighbor pulled into the garage."
When police
went on air with that information, viewers on our 7News Facebook page sounded
off.
Michelle
Pearsall wrote, "Not to be disrespectful, but that description could fit
any number of people. Isn't that how Trayvon Martin got shot by Ol' George Zimmerman?
A little bit more of a description would be nice and very helpful."
Mark Payne
wrote:
"I would
hate to be a black male wearing a black hoodie in Lawton. Lol."
So, we asked Lawton
Police if such a vague description was effective, and we had seen several
people searched who fit it. In an
emailed response, Captain Craig Akard replied:
"Unfortunately,
there were multiple individuals that fit that description yesterday, but you
need to remember, a police officer was shot by an individual that appeared to
be possibly burglarizing a house. One of the suspects involved in the shooting
escaped. If we inconvenience a citizen for a couple of moments to verify that
he was not the person sought, although unfortunate, it is better than the
opposite, where we do not do anything, let the suspect go, maybe burglarize
another house or shoot someone else."
Akard said many
times, that's all the information they have to work with, especially when the
officer is in a life or death situation. He also said the description didn't
create panic. The panic was created by the person who decided to shoot a police
officer. He said law enforcement was trying to keep the public safe.
