Medical examiner says emergency delays didn’t cause death of IRS agent

PHOENIX (CN) — A federal agent accused of accidentally killing a colleague was dealt a heavy blow in court Thursday when a medical examiner said the victim couldn’t have survived the gunshot in any circumstance.

In a federal involuntary manslaughter trial in Phoenix, Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Larry Brown claims Special Agent Patrick Bauer died not from the hollow-point bullet fired from Brown’s Glock 19 handgun but from an unreasonable delay in medical care caused by systemic failures in the IRS’ emergency response.

But Kevin Horn, a forensic pathologist and the Maricopa County medical examiner who autopsied Bauer, threw a blanket over the defendant’s theory.

“Even with immediate expert medical care, it’s my opinion that the chances are very high that he would have died regardless,” Horn told a federal jury Thursday morning.

Though U.S. District Judge Steven Logan sustained an objection to that statement — defense counsel claimed that the expert opinion was never disclosed to them — federal prosecutor Nathaniel Walters asked Horn again whether any delay in treatment contributed to Bauer’s death.

“No,” Horn replied.

Brown accidentally shot Bauer after a firearm safety exercise at a federally owned gun range at a state prison in north Phoenix on Aug. 17, 2023. Last week, witnesses said they heard Brown — himself a use of force instructor — scream, “I fucked up. I shot Pat,” as he ran out of a small cement structure on the range around 11 a.m. Nobody else was in the room when Bauer was shot.

Bystanders immediately called 911, but emergency services were delayed. No one on the phone knew what address to give to 911 dispatch, and EMTs mistakenly began traveling to another shooting range within close distance. IRS agents denied officers from other federal agents from bypassing an ambulance and driving Bauer to the hospital in their truck.

Nearly 60 minutes passed before Bauer was wheeled into an emergency operating room. Brown’s attorneys say that Bauer would still be alive today if only he were treated sooner.

Investigators forensically matched the bullet that struck Bauer to Brown’s gun. While Brown doesn’t deny the bullet came from his weapon, his defense counsel suggests the weapon misfired outside of Brown’s control.

Investigators say that’s unlikely.

“The only way to fire the weapon was by pulling the trigger,” FBI firearms examiner Doug Halepaska told the jury.

Halepaska inspected the weapon after the shooting and tested it by striking the firing pin with a mallet to see whether the gun would discharge under pressure. As is typical with an accidental discharge test, the striking damaged the gun, preventing investigators from examining it further.

Brown’s attorney Jason Lamm, of Jason D. Lamm Attorney at Law, asked whether Halepaska disassembled the weapon to check for internal errors before the discharge test. Halepaska said he didn’t because he wanted to test the gun in the exact condition it was in at the time of the shooting. He also never performed a drop test despite the FBI requesting it.

“So you don’t know if it fires when dropped?” Lamm asked.

“That is correct,” Halepaska replied.

The government rested its case Thursday afternoon, and Brown motioned for a rule 29 judgment of acquittal in which Logan, a Barack Obama appointee, could bypass the jury and declare Brown not guilty based on a lack of evidence.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Jacobson of the Tucson-based Jacobson Law Firm told Logan that the government has failed to prove that Brown acted with any negligence.

“Repeatedly, witness after witness has said they don’t know how it happened, and they don’t know why it happened,” Jacobson said.

Logan denied the motion.

The defense first called Phoenix firefighter William McGonagall to testify. McGonagall, who responded to the 911 call, said he suggested to EMTs that they call a helicopter for quicker extraction, but EMTs declined. But he admitted upon cross-examination that ground transport via ambulance was likely the quickest way to the hospital.

McGonagall said he was surprised to learn that Bauer had died.

“All I know is that he was still breathing,” he said, although he didn’t ride with Bauer in the ambulance nor see him in the hospital.

If found guilty, Brown could face up to eight years in prison.

Testimony is expected to conclude early next week.

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