PINEVILLE, Mo. —  Southwest City police Officer Brian Massa fired four shots in five seconds at a fleeing Bobby Stacy, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigation.

The final shot passed through the rear passenger-side window of the Chevrolet Suburban that Stacy was driving and slammed into the right side of his head, taking his life hours later at a hospital in Tulsa, Okla.

The officer-involved shooting in the early morning hours of March 28 on Frye Road east of Southwest City was the subject of a state patrol investigation that culminated in the McDonald County prosecutor charging the officer on Wednesday with first-degree involuntary manslaughter.

The patrol’s probe determined that Massa, 34, fired four shots at Stacy, 26, after the Suburban ran off the right side of the road and then struck Massa’s patrol car coming back up out of the ditch and headed back toward Southwest City, according to a probable-cause affidavit. The final two shots were fired after the Suburban hit a bridge abutment and became high-centered and unable to move, the affidavit said.

Massa reportedly told the patrol’s lead investigator, Sgt. James Musche, that he shot at Stacy because he feared the Suburban was going to hit him. The patrol came to a different conclusion after examining footage obtained from a video camera mounted in Massa’s car and a digital video recorder he was wearing on his jacket, as well as bullet trajectories and tire track evidence.

Musche wrote in the affidavit that Massa’s statements during interviews March 28 and April 6 “do not match the physical evidence.”

“Based on the evidence, Officer Massa fired the fatal shot approximately five seconds after (the) Suburban had passed by his location and could no longer be a threat to his or any other person’s immediate safety,” Musche concluded in the affidavit.

Trajectory analysis

The investigation found that the pursuit began when Massa tried to pull Stacy over in town for a traffic violation and Stacy took off down Frye Road. The Suburban ran off the right side of the road about a mile from town, and Massa pulled up to it in his patrol car and came to a stop, according to Musche’s affidavit.

The court document states that before Massa could get out of his vehicle, Stacy drove up out of the ditch headed back toward Southwest City, with the driver’s door of the Suburban glancing off the front bumper of the patrol car as Stacy regained the roadway. The collision caused only minor damage to the patrol car, according to the affidavit.

Massa exited his patrol car as the Suburban passed his driver’s door and opened fire with his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. No evidence has been reported that Stacy was armed in any manner.

The affidavit states that the first two shots struck the driver-side rear door of the Suburban and the window of the driver-side rear door. Neither round struck Stacy. The trajectories of both shots were from behind the vehicle toward the front, the affidavit states.

A third round was fired four seconds after the first shot, passing through the passenger-side rear cargo area window and striking the roof of the Suburban. The final shot traveled through the window of the passenger-side rear door and struck Stacy in the head. The trajectories of both those shots also were from behind the vehicle toward the front, according to the affidavit.

The patrol’s crash team determined from evidence left at the scene that the Suburban “swerved to the right while going around Massa’s patrol car,” and once past the patrol car, “continued traveling northbound until striking a bridge abutment on the west side of Frye Road” about 40 feet north of Massa’s patrol car.

The impact caused the vehicle to get hung up on the abutment, with the rear wheels off the roadway and the Suburban coming to rest slanted at about a 45-degree angle to the road, the document states.

“Based on the evidence left by the Suburban, the passenger side of the Suburban would not have been exposed to Officer Massa until after it struck the bridge abutment,” the affidavit reads.

Musche recovered just three shell casings at the scene. He found all three near the front of Massa’s car, the affidavit states.

On April 12, the patrol’s investigator interviewed Deputy Richard Gidcumb of the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department, who had responded to the scene in the aftermath of the shooting. Gidcumb told Musche that he saw Massa pick up a shell casing that was in the road between the patrol car and the Suburban.

Paid leave

Massa turned himself in Wednesday morning to McDonald County deputies on the arrest warrant that was issued. He was released on his own recognizance by order of a judge.

The Globe was unable to reach Massa for comment on the charge.

Monte Brannon, Southwest City’s police chief, said Massa will remain on administrative leave with pay until the court case is resolved. Brannon declined any other comment on the matter but provided the Globe with a statement issued by the town’s mayor, Ryan McKee.

In the statement, McKee refers to the matter as “a tragedy” and says it has never been the policy of the Southwest City Police Department “to serve as judge and jury.” But the statement claims “the real disaster” is that Stacy “will not get the opportunity to face his charges or his accuser.” The statement also appears to defend Massa, or at least Massa’s right to the presumption of innocence.

“Sometimes a decision must be made in a split second,” it reads. “That same decision will be reviewed and investigated for months to come, and end up with someone, who did not have to make the decision, deciding on whether or not it was the right or just one. This is indeed how the system works in these rare instances. But, the tenet of innocent until proven guilty does not stop at the badge. The officer should be afforded his right to face his accusers. The system should get the chance to prove the case against the officer involved.”

The Suburban that Stacy was driving had been stolen that night from a residence northeast of Southwest City. The owner did not realize it was gone or report it stolen until several hours after the vehicle pursuit and shooting, making it unlikely that Massa knew it was a stolen vehicle.

Stacy’s father, who lives in Oklahoma, referred questions about his reaction to the patrol’s findings and the charge filed against Massa to his attorney, Shannon McMurray, of Tulsa. McMurray told the Globe that her client feels neither pleased nor displeased with the investigation at this point.

“He’s looking forward to justice for Bobby, and he feels it’s moving in the right direction at this point,” McMurray said.

She declined any comment on her client’s behalf with respect to the sufficiency of the charge. But she said Larry Stacy is perplexed with why Southwest City would choose to keep Massa on its payroll, especially since he was convicted of a misdemeanor earlier this year and was allowed at that time to remain on the police force.

Massa was convicted in February of misuse of official information while working as a dispatcher in McDonald County in 2008 and was fined $350.

“That outrages the Stacys,” McMurray said. “They don’t think he should have still had his badge in the first place.”

Efforts to reach Bobby Stacy’s mother for comment were unsuccessful.



Pocketed evidence?

A McDonald County sheriff’s deputy told a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigator that he saw Southwest City police Officer Brian G. Massa pick up a shell casing at the scene of the shooting of Bobby L. Stacy.