Police mistake pellet gun for handgun, kill 87 years old woman

Police mistake pellet gun for handgun, kill 87 years old womanccording to police reports, an 87-year-old Oregon woman who died after police used a stun gun on her was armed with a pellet gun, not a handgun.

The (Portland) Oregonian reported on Tuesday that the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said a deputy used the stun gun on Phyllis A. Owens after mistaking the pellet gun for a handgun as he and another deputy approached her at her mobile home park.

The sheriff's office had initially reported Owens held a handgun in the Thursday incident at Big Valley Woods Mobile Home Park near Boring, about 20 miles southeast of Portland.

It was further noted that the deputies were responding to a call that Owens had threatened a park employee digging a trench near her mobile home.

The deputies and other witnesses had believed the pellet gun was "a fully functioning firearm," Lt. Paul Steigleder II, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, told The Oregonian on Monday.

Owens died at a Gresham hospital about an hour after the deputy used a stun gun on her.

It has also been reported that the Clackamas County's Major Crimes Team is investigating. (With Inputs from Agencies)