OK Cops Charged With Manslaughter For Shooting Quadry Sanders 15 Times

Two killer cops may face some serious jail time after they fatally shot a Black man who appeared to be surrendering.

Source: SOPA Images / Getty

On Friday, KSWO reported the District Attorney for Comanche County announced he will charge Nathan Ronan and Robert Hinkle with First Degree Manslaughter of Quadry Sanders, who had his arms raised to comply with police orders when he was killed.

On Dec. 5 of last year, Ronan and Hinkle responded to a 911 call that Sanders was in violation of a protective order at a Lawton, OK residence. According to an initial statement released by LPD, the caller said Sanders was waving a gun inside the house. A woman exited the house shortly after an LPD sergeant on a loudspeaker started to give commands. Sanders came out and ran back inside before he obeyed the officers and walked out the back entrance with his hands raised.

Bodycam footage showed that the 29-year-old only had a baseball cap in one of his hands, which he put over his head as soon as one of the officers ordered him to. Hinkle shot Sanders four times, yelled “hands, hands, hands” as Sanders laid bleeding on the ground, and fired seven more times as soon as Sanders raised his hands again. Ronan also fired four shots. LPD officers found no weapons on Sanders or near his body.

Lawton Police Department’s Internal Affairs division decided to fire both Ronan and Hinkle on Jan. 7, 2022.

 “At the conclusion of the administrative investigation, City Manager Michael Cleghorn, upon careful consideration terminated the employment of officers Nathan Ronan and Robert Hinkle. It is important to note that the City’s administrative investigation and actions taken, were separate and distinct from the investigation conducted by the OSBI (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation). The OSBI investigation was a criminal investigation while the City’s investigation was administrative,” the statement said.

The OSBI and the Chief Medical Examiner both presented their findings to the Comanche County District Attorney’s Office on April 25.

“After review of the entire case file presented by the OSBI, including the Medical Examiner’s Autopsy Report, the Comanche County District Attorney’s Office has made the determination that the shooting of Quadry Sanders was not justified,” said DA Kyle Cabelka. “Officers Robert Hinkle and Nathan Ronan have been charged with first-degree manslaughter and are presumed innocent of the charges until proven guilty.”

The DA also announced that film of the shooting would be available to the public. The graphic bodycam footage of Sanders’ violent last moments was posted to the City of Lawton’s official YouTube channel.

“I can’t find a single redeemable factor that mitigates any aspect of this shooting. It was just murder. There was no justification. These men must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said civil rights attorney Lee Merritt on an Instagram post about the police shooting.

Hinkle and Ronan each posted $25,000 in bail after they were charged on Friday. If found guilty of the first-degree manslaughter charges, the officers face a minimum four-year prison sentence. Their next hearing is set for Aug. 1. Hopefully, these trigger-happy former cops won’t get away with murder. Sanders wasn’t even the only Black man Ronan killed last year. He was also under investigation for the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Zonterious Johnson in January 2021.