An Arkansas K-9 police officer was charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting a fellow officer who knocked on his door last June.
Calvin Salyers surrendered after shooting Officer Scott Hutton, who stopped by his home to pick up a patrol car parked inside a metal structure nearby.
Ryan Jacks, an investigator with the Arkansas State Police wrote in an arrest affidavit that Hutton texted, “are you awake”, as he arrived as Salyers’ home.
He then decided to walk to the front door and knocked when he did not get a response.
Salyers was off-duty at the time and was watching a movie with his girlfriend, Ashlee Cummings, to whom he said he would check who was at the door.
He grabbed his Glock .40 caliber handgun before he went to the door, peeped through the hole and saw a “figure standing on his porch with a dark shirt and a gun on his hip.”
Salyers claimed that his gun went off as he transferred it from his right hand to his left and reached for the doorknob, and learned that the figure he saw was Hutton.
He called 911, to which the deputies from Saline County Sheriff’s Office responded.
The affidavit states that Salyers can be heard saying on a 911 call, “All I seen was a gun, it was an accidental discharge.”
Police found Hutton being given CPR by an Alexander Police Department officer as they arrived on the scene.
He later died after he was taken to the hospital.
When George Floyd’s death sparked the police brutality protests in Minneapolis, Salyers allegedly told Sergeant Matt Wharton that he would “shoot through the door” if any protester showed up at his home.
The Alexander Police training sergeant advised Salyers against this, pointing out that the act would be “reckless and negligent,” and as officers, they could not shoot anyone without first identifying them and confirming they were a threat.