BORING, Ore., July 13 (UPI) -- 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, police said.
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 (Portland) Oregonian reported Tuesday.
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.
The deputies were responding to a call that Owens had threatened a park employee digging a trench near her mobile home.
Lt. Paul Steigleder II, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, told The Oregonian Monday the deputies and other witnesses had believed the pellet gun was "a fully functioning firearm."
Owens died at a Gresham hospital about an hour after the deputy used a stun gun on her.
The Clackamas County's Major Crimes Team is investigating.
