By Brittany Bombard
Enterprise Staff Writer
TUPPER LAKE, N.Y. — If he lives, a man who allegedly shot at two state troopers will face attempted murder charges.
State police say Brent A. Bates, 48, of Plattsburgh, shot and injured Trooper Douglas T. Hoffman, 31, who grew up in Lake Placid, at about 1:30 Thursday morning on Kildare Road north of Tupper Lake. Hoffman suffered a leg injury when one of Bates’ bullets ricocheted off his flashlight, and he and his partner returned fire, hitting Bates in the jaw, shoulder and abdomen.
Bates remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit of Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake this morning, according to hospital spokesman Joe Riccio. While privacy laws prevent Riccio from giving details about Bates’ condition, he said, “Generally, in these type of cases, these people are brought to the ER and have to go in for some type of surgeries to stabilize them.”
Hoffman was treated for a leg wound and released from AMC Thursday. Trooper Steven H. Euler, 28, escaped the incident uninjured.
Top state police officials held a press conference at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, exactly 12 hours after the exchange of gunfire. Many of the officials were flown in from the Albany area by helicopter to oversee the investigation.
Hoffman is a seven-year state police veteran who was previously a Tupper Lake village policeman. He grew up in Lake Placid and is married with two children. Euler has one year of service with the state police.
Franklin County District Attorney Derek Champagne said his office feels “fully comfortable” charging Bates with two counts of attempted murder in the first degree for the shots fired at Hoffman and Euler.
Champagne also said that officials learned that the car driven by Bates and the .357 Magnum handgun were both stolen during a burglary Wednesday at a Plattsburgh home, in which he said Bates will likely face additional charges.
Champagne said Bates has a criminal history dating back to 1980, with about 30 charges in the last 20 years but only three convictions: one for assault, one for petit larceny and a recent one for forgery in Clinton County, for which he is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 22.
The state police’s acting superintendent, Preston Felton, was choppered to Tupper Lake from Albany along with several other top-ranking state police officials Thursday to supervise the investigation and look in on Hoffman.
Felton said that at approximately 1:30 a.m., the two troopers were conducting their regular patrol when they came upon a 2004 Toyota Camry occupied by Bates, which was parked by Kildare Road just north of Pitchfork Pond, at which point Kildare is a dirt road. State police said Bates’ family owns a camp in the vicinity of where the vehicle was parked.
The troopers approached the car and asked Bates what he was doing on the dark, desolate road in the early-morning hours, according to the state police. Upon interviewing Bates, Felton said the troopers suspected Bates was intoxicated and asked him to exit the car. While accompanied by the troopers, Bates was asked to retrieve his identification from the car. While doing so, the troopers saw a handgun under an item on the front seat. Felton said the troopers communicated this to each other and tried to prevent Bates from reaching the gun. A struggle ensued, and Bates was able to grab the .357 Magnum and fire six rounds at the troopers, with one bullet striking the Chevrolet Tahoe police cruiser and another ricocheting off Hoffman’s flashlight and hitting him in the lower left calf muscle. State police said troopers are taught to hold their flashlights over their weapons while firing, which if Hoffman did during the incident, may have saved his life.
The troopers returned fire; Felton said each shot four rounds, hitting Bates in the lower left abdomen, the jaw and a ricochet to the shoulder, which broke his clavicle. Felton said it is still unknown which trooper’s bullets hit Bates.
The troopers then called for help. Tupper Lake Village Police Chief Tom Fee said the call came in to their dispatcher at 1:28 a.m., and officers Troy Griffin and Sloan Bolster were on the scene within minutes, which he said is exemplary considering that the distance from the beginning of Kildare Road to where the incident occurred alone is more than three miles.
Hoffman and Bates were transported by the Tupper Lake Volunteer Rescue Squad to the hospital in Saranac Lake. Felton said Hoffman was resting at his home with family in Lake Placid after being released from the hospital.
“Trooper Hoffman will remain on medical leave for a number of days,” Smith said. “He is in good spirits. He’s a trooper, and I think if it was up to him, he’d be right back to work.”
“I want to compliment our troopers, who both acted heroically when faced with an assailant who came out shooting,” Smith said. “I’m very, very proud of them.”
Smith thanked the staff at AMC, Chief Fee and his officers, the Tupper Lake Volunteer Rescue Squad and the local community for their assistance and support of the troopers.
“It was a lonely, dark road,” Smith said, “and I’m sure that they’d agree that it was good to look up and see them there.”
Felton said Hoffman and Euler are “very active” officers, which led them to patrol the Pitchfork Pond area where there are many underage drinking parties.
“They’re good at it, and that’s the type of things they’re looking for,” Felton said of the troopers’ investigation of Bates’ parked vehicle.
Confronting the heavy number of assaults on police officers in 2007, Felton said his agency is undergoing the most intensive review of their safety policies and trooper protocol in the history of state police.
“We know that we’re going to have to work a lot harder to keep this state safe,” Felton said, “and I don’t think there’s a police officer out there who’s not willing to do that.
“My number-one priority is to make sure that every trooper gets home safe to their family.”
With the latest incident, nine troopers have been shot in the past 17 months — three fatally, including one killed by friendly fire. Of those shootings, four came after traffic stops. Over the same period, two other troopers have died in vehicle accidents and another was killed while serving in Iraq.
Fee said his department was relieved that the troopers survived the incident. He added that this type of incident goes to show that having more than one officer on the road is crucial.
“I’m very upset over the whole incident,” Fee said.
Felton said the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Enterprise Managing Editor Peter Crowley contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 Adirondack Daily Enterprise