Officer Convicted, but Still Seen as Hero After Videotaped Shooting

May 10, 2006 — -- When Otero County Sheriff's Deputy Billy Anders took an emergency call on a cold December night in 2004, he had no idea that a little video camera would change his life forever.

"A call came out and it said, 'Shots fired with an argument,'" Anders said.

Anders said he didn't know what was going on at that point, but he knew it should be recorded, so he turned on his patrol car's dashboard camera.

That decision would undo a stellar 31-year career in law enforcement. Anders had moved to the rugged mountains of southern New Mexico in 1998, after 23 years as a big-city cop in San Antonio, where he had been a SWAT team commander.

At 63, he was one year from retirement from the sheriff's department, where he was well-liked and respected.

"I loved my job," Anders said. "I loved the community I worked in."

Anders and his best friend and partner, Bob Hedman, were known as "mountain deputies" -- assigned to cover a vast and untamed territory around the tiny mountain town of Cloudcroft.

"We had about 4,000 square miles in the mountain that we had to cover, not much backup or anything like that," Anders said.

So when the call came in that night of shots fired at a cabin seven miles east of town, Anders, who was suffering from the flu, had no intention of letting his partner respond alone.

"I mean. … You can't let a guy go by himself," Anders said. "You know, Bob wouldn't've let me go by myself. It's your responsibility."

'Something Really Wrong'

When the two officers arrived at the cabin, they noticed blood on the porch. They unsnapped their holsters and pounded on the door, which was finally opened by a shirtless man who appeared nervous and agitated, Anders said.

Next to him was a 3-year-old girl, who appeared shaken.

"You can see that she is upset, not screaming, but obviously, obviously upset. Obviously, there is something really wrong," Anders said.

Anders recalled that Hedman had asked the man whether anything was wrong. The shirtless man replied, "Just go on and leave us alone," Anders said.

The officers continued to press, though, saying they needed to make sure everyone was OK. The man told them he had just shot a deer, Anders said.

"And I said, 'Well just show us the deer, and we're gone,'" Anders said. "The guy didn't react, and he wasn't gonna let us in. And we knew, for the little girl's sake, we knew we had to get in there."

Anders said that he and Hedman then lunged for the door, but the man slammed and locked it before they could get in.

Anders said he and Hedman also noticed pools of blood on the rear bumper of a car parked near the front door of the cabin.

"You had a feeling that someone had been shot and killed," Anders said. "And that he was in the process of getting rid of the body. Obviously, by where the blood was, he had gotten the body up as far as the back of the car."

At the time, Anders and his partner had no idea that the shirtless man they were facing was a violent ex-convict and white supremacist named Earl Flippen, who had a history of burglary and assault charges and was wanted for parole violations.

Anders' suspicions later proved to be true. Flippen had just taken a .357 magnum and shot his girlfriend, who was eight months' pregnant, in the face and neck, all while her 3-year-old daughter watched.

"I said, 'Somebody has been killed here. Somebody's been shot here. … We gotta get help,'" Anders said.

As Anders radioed for backup, Hedman ran to the back of the house. Within seconds, Anders heard a shot fired from that direction. As he rushed toward the front door, he said Flippen also shot at him.

"An explosion goes off in my face, you know," Anders said. "I didn't know if it hit me in the chest. I didn't know if it took my head off. I didn't know if I was gonna live or die."

Camera Tells a Different Story

The camera in Anders' truck recorded it all, including the moment the veteran police officer fired his gun for the first time in the line of duty.

"I fired four quick rounds. And this is in way less than a second," he said.

Anders hit Flippen in the arm and the forehead.

"Then there's just silence except for the little girl who's crying and screaming," Anders said. "I back up, and I'm waiting for the guy to come around the other side of the car and shoot at me. I'm thinking. … Where's Bob? … And every yell, you know, is like another clue that, that something is terribly wrong."

"My recollection is that I see this guy and I remember I thought [I was] seeing a gun about four or five inches off his left hand," he said. "It's dark and it's really hard to see what you're seeing. But um, I shot him again. I shot again, fired another round."

Anders said he fired the shot that killed Flippen in self-defense -- before he handcuffed him and before he ran around the house looking for his partner.

The videotape from the camera inside the police car tells a very different story.

In the grainy video, Anders appears to handcuff the badly wounded Flippen after he falls in the first volley of shots. Anders even offers words of comfort to the wounded man.

Then he runs around the cabin and out of camera range, calling for Hedman.

He discovered Hedman dangling upside down from the back porch railing and blood everywhere. Hedman had been shot in the head.

Moments later, Anders reappears on camera in front of the cabin. The video shows him shooing the little girl out of the way as she pleads with him not to shoot Flippen.

And then the video shows Anders turning toward Flippen and, without hesitation, putting a bullet in his chest.

'Total Confusion'

When describing that night, Anders said it was "pretty much total confusion."

"I wound up just kinda standing by the … rear of my truck, holding onto the tailgate," he said. "I remember consciously thinking that I probably was gonna, um, black out [or] something."

When backup arrived, a third body was discovered. Deborah Rhoudes, the little girl's mother, was found shot to death, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and stuffed in a closet.

Sheriff John Blansett raced to Anders' side. He said his deputy was not himself -- initially, Anders didn't even seem to recognize Blansett.

Despite his confused state, Anders was questioned by New Mexico State police Sgt. Stephen Cary, who conducted a routine investigation of the shooting.

Initially, Cary said Anders' allegation of self-defense seemed justified. After a more thorough investigation, Cary said the shooting didn't make sense.

A bullet casing indicated that Anders was likely standing directly over Flippen when he shot him -- not several feet away, as he had said.

Investigators searched Anders' truck, but the videotape recorder they had hoped would help them understand what had happened was empty. It was a full 10 hours before Anders remembered that he had recorded the slaying -- and that the tape was safely locked in the truck's tool box.

Anders said he had no intention of trying to get rid of the tape.

"If I wanted to get rid of that tape, I coulda got rid of it, believe me," he said. "I was trying to protect it. I thought the tape would be my vindication."

Anders couldn't have been more wrong. The tape confirmed investigators' suspicions that Anders had shot the severely wounded Flippen at close range, apparently after he had handcuffed him.

Armed with the video evidence, District Attorney Scot Key said he had no choice but to prosecute a man whom most in the community considered a hero.

"But without the videotape, it'd be a questionable prosecution at best," Key said.

Anders, who was under extraordinary stress at the time, said that he had never intended to deceive investigators about the shooting. He said he just remembered things very differently from what the tape showed.

Anders had seen his best friend shot and killed, and he said, "I will tell you, I felt a lot of emotions there. I felt helplessness, frustration. I don't ever remember feeling angry."

Key said that the trauma Anders experienced certainly explained some of his confusion. But, he said, "it doesn't explain the videotape. And it doesn't explain his insistence that he shot Flippen from a distance."

Year in Jail for Man Many Say Is a Hero

Faced with the overwhelming evidence, Anders agreed to accept a plea offer of voluntary manslaughter.

"I am very sorry that a man died on my watch. Today is a day that society and you will decide how to punish me," he said at his sentencing hearing.

With his wife and family looking on in tears, Anders was sentenced to the minimum -- one year in prison.

The small community is still struggling with the loss of its two mountain deputies -- one felled by a violent gunman and the other sent to prison.

Blansett took Anders to jail the day he was sentenced, and he said he shed tears that day. "It was a horrible feeling knowing that I just sent one of my men to prison."

Even now, Blansett finds it hard to understand how things could have gone so terribly wrong that night.

"What went through Billy's mind, I can only imagine -- pure terror. I just can't even speculate what he was thinking," Blansett said.

For Anders, the memories of that night still haunt him.

"Bob was backwards from the door. He was. … His legs were straddled. … His hat was off and his glasses were, like … twisted on his face, and his gun and his radio were laying on the ground," said Anders, who broke down while recounting the night.

Hedman's wife, Cheryl, sees the man who tried to save her husband as a hero.

"Billy Anders should have been praised for what he did," she said. "I know my husband would have not wanted to see this happen to Billy. There is no way. I thank Billy for everything. And … I'm glad he was Bob's friend."

Given the same circumstances, though, Anders said he would roll that camera all over again.

"I never had any intention of murdering anyone," Anders said. "My intention was to get help for my friend, and protect that little girl."

Despite having to spend a year in prison, Anders said he was neither bitter nor angry.

"The Bible says that we'll have hardships. It says we'll have a quiet growth in grace and character," Anders said. "And my grace and character is growing pretty quietly and steadily as we speak. You know. … That was my job. And I loved my job. I have loved my career. And, and like I told you. … Good things will come out of this."