Tulsa’s latest push to create an independent police monitor failed Wednesday when city councilors split the vote and one abstained.
After listening to 10 speakers during public comment, councilors voted 4-4 on establishing an Office of Independent Oversight over all public safety departments. Councilors Karen Gilbert, Christian Bengel, Phil Lakin and Carol Bush voted against the measure. Councilors Vanessa Hall-Harper and Lori Decter Wright — the ordinance’s authors — as well as Laura Bellis and Jackie Dutton voted in favor of the oversight office. Councilor Anthony Archie abstained.
Without a majority, the proposed ordinance failed.
Immediately after public comment closed — with five speakers on either side of the issue — Decter Wright made a motion to approve the ordinance, which Bellis seconded. Dutton then attempted to further sell the measure.
“The cost of lawsuits coming out to $47 million pales in comparison to the $500,000 it’s going to cost (to create the office),” Dutton said.
Archie questioned whether the council communicated effectively with the departments that would be overseen by the oversight office, but Bellis said the office would serve all Tulsans, not just public safety officials.
“It is every person in our city who at various points in life engages with elements of the public safety apparatus,” said Bellis.
Bush and Lakin said public safety leaders emphasized the amount of oversight that already exists within their departments.
“They all basically said the same thing,” Bush said. “They already have such a level of accountability and reporting that they have to do.”
Earlier in the day, newly appointed Tulsa Police Chief Jonathan Brooks raised concerns about how the ordinance could impact officer recruitment and retention during a nearly five-hour Urban and Economic Development meeting — what councilors say could have been one of the longest meetings in city history.
“They have cameras on them. Everybody in the community is always providing feedback. They have the entire chain of command looking, internal affairs looking at them…” Brooks said. “Those are just some of the things that’s on my mind.”
Archie proposed tabling the item, but Decter Wright said she was not interested in pushing the vote — again.
“We’ve talked it to death for 10 years,” she said.
Just before the vote, Gilbert said she believes the topic of public safety oversight needs more discussion.
“This is not about opposing accountability or transparency; those are important responsibilities of local government,” Gilbert, the executive director for Tulsa Crime Stoppers, said. “It is making sure that whatever we put in place is effective, thoughtfully developed and built on collaboration, rather than just rushing a proposal through before we had an opportunity to due diligence.”
Tiffany Crutcher, who founded the Terence Crutcher Foundation after her twin brother was shot and killed by a Tulsa police officer, called the vote “a hard pill to swallow.”
“After 10 years of relentless advocacy, tonight the wind was knocked out of me,” Crutcher said. “But we will continue to find solutions.”
The oversight office would have monitored and reviewed specific city investigations concerning incidents or allegations involving public safety departments. The ordinance would have also allowed the mayor to request an internal investigation by the oversight office into possible misconduct by public safety department personnel.
Additionally, the ordinance would have created an 11-member citizen oversight board to govern the office.
Since 2019, members of Tulsa City Council have considered numerous ordinances to establish an oversight office to oversee the police department. Hall-Harper and Decter Wright, who have held the District 1 and District 7 seats since 2016 and 2018, respectively, introduced this version of the ordinance in September.
‘Depoliticizing’ future proposals
When Brooks met with councilors earlier in the day, he said these council discussions surrounding independent public safety oversight tend to get “politicized.” The challenge for councilors, Bengel and Lakin said, is to “depoliticize” the conversation.
Bengel asked whether Decter Wright and Gilbert could work together on an oversight proposal to do just that. Gilbert said three weeks ago she was drafting an ordinance of her own to create a citizen advisory board for public safety oversight.
Lakin said he would like to see Gilbert’s proposal for a civilian oversight board that meets with public safety leaders quarterly.
“I’ll never try to make decisions from my seat that would affect that you guys are doing your business without talking to you all first and getting a lot of information, given that I have never spent a day in your shoes,” Lakin said to Brooks. “And I strongly support Councilor Gilbert’s creation of a public safety committee.”
Dutton took aim at Bengel and Lakin over their comments surrounding an oversight office being “politicized.”
“I keep hearing, ‘we don’t want to make this political, we don’t want to make this political,’ but this is political,” Dutton said. “It’s political when you’re at your particular party’s meeting headquarters and you’re recorded saying, ‘I will never vote for that.’ That’s political, and that’s from the get go — and that’s probably what you’re going to see from council tonight with the vote. It’s going to be divided. It is political.”
Bengel asked if Dutton was “poking people in the eye.” Dutton said Bengel could “take it however he wants.”
No matter how the vote went, Brooks said he and TPD are going to get to work to improve transparency.
“We don’t want to present to anybody that we’re on opposite sides, ‘cause we’re not,” Brooks said. “We’re trying to solve the same thing, and whatever this council has to decide, we’re going to work on it too.”
News decisions at the Tulsa Flyer are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
