FEDERAL AGENTS KILL MAN DURING SEARCH

SALLISAW -- Federal agents who were serving a search warrant for
possible weapons and drugs shot and killed a Sequoyah County man.
Eugene Hartsell, 46, was killed Wednesday after Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms agents moved into his house in the Akins
community near Sallisaw.

ATF spokesman Tom Crowley said agents knocked and announced themselves
before they entered Hartsell's house. Hartsell confronted the ATF
agents, Crowley said, provoking the shooting.

"ATF agents did the shooting," Crowley said. "He did exit the bedroom
with a shotgun and was told repeatedly to drop the weapon and did not."

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was called in to
investigate the shooting.

The ATF completed its drug- and-weapons search once the OSBI was
finished, but Crowley did not know whether any weapons or drugs were
found.

Prosecutor Monte Strout said one expended shotgun shell was found in
the house. Although a final OSBI report was not yet available, Strout
predicted that the homicide will be ruled justifiable.

"It's always unfortunate, but I found nothing to indicate it wasn't
totally justified," he said. "I see nothing irregular at this point."

In 1995, Hartsell was convicted of two Sequoyah County drug counts and
served three years' probation, according to state Corrections
Department records.

Hartsell was the second man killed by law authorities in Sequoyah
County this year. In January, an Oklahoma City man, Roy Gene Williams,
was shot eight times and killed during a traffic stop by a Roland
police officer. The Sequoyah County district attorney's office ruled
that shooting as justifiable homicide.

Williams' mother has filed a federal lawsuit against the Roland Police
Department for her son's death.