Deputy Accidentally Shoots Bear With Wrong Bullet
STATELINE, Nev. (CBS13) — The Douglas County sheriff's office says a deputy accidentally shot a black bear with a live round rather than a rubber bullet during a Friday incident that resulted in the death of the bear.
The sheriff's office says it was called to a residence at the Tahoe Shores Mobile Home Park in Stateline last Friday night for a report of a mother black bear in a garage and her two cubs bears outside.
The property manager says it's no surprise the mother bear and her cubs showed up. "She grew up in this neighborhood," Chuck Arnold told CBS13's Maria Medina. "She's been here for almost a decade."
The deputies tried to scare off the bears with loud noises and lights, but only one bear ran away. The other two bears ran up a nearby tree.
Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Halsey says deputies fired rubber wildlife control rounds at one of the bears, but it had no effect.
A second deputy also fired a rubber round at the mother bear, but it also failed to scare her. The same deputy then fired again using what he believed was another rubber bullet, but it turned out to be a rifle slug similar in size and shape to the wildlife control round.
"I guess all the deputies were surprised," Arnold said after the mother bear was shot. "They weren't sure what to do after that. There was a short moment of confusion."
Then deputies realized the bear was injured and had to be put down.
With their mother gone, the two 6-month-old cubs will have a difficult time surviving.
"I feel bad for the babies," Elizabeth Sorley said. "I think they're still looking for their mom. It's very sad."
The sheriff's department issued a release saying it is standard procedure for deputies responding to bear calls to stack two rubber-projectile bullets and then two rifle slug rounds in their shotguns. The bullets are loaded in case the bear charges a deputy instead of running away after being hit by a wildlife control round.
They say in this case, the deputy incorrectly stacked his rounds by mistake, possibly due to the darkness.
The sheriff's office is investigating.
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
