Oklahoma officer cleared in fatal shooting, tactics rapped

BETHANY, Okla. (AP) – An Oklahoma police officer has been cleared in the fatal shooting of a man, although the prosecutor criticized the tactics used prior to the shooting.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater says in a letter that Bethany officer Matthew Branscum was justified in the Feb. 10 shooting of 46-year-old James Stephen McMullen.

But Prater wrote in the letter to Police Chief Phil Cole that Branscum should have known he had put himself in a dangerous position and that “supervisors should not have allowed him to be in that position.”

Police went to the home to arrest McMullen for assaulting his mother and Prater said Branscum was at the front door when McMullen answered the door while holding a gun.

McMullen was shot after refusing orders to drop the gun.