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So who in the Tulsa Sheriff's Dept ordered the falsification of records?

hollywood

MegaPoke is insane
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May 29, 2001
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Gee, seems like such a mystery - I wonder who could have possibly had the motivation, the means and the opportunity to order underlings to falsify gun training records for a reserve deputy who served as the Sheriff's 2012 campaign manager and who had donated thousands of $'s to his campaign?

Better bring in Sherlock Holmes, Columbo, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade and Nancy Drew to get to the bottom of this one!

BTW, I would typically be in a position to at least praise the 3 people in the Dept who took transfers rather than sign off on the phony paperwork, but thinking about it - they are likewise guilty of obstructing justice in that they did not take this information to the DA. (They received an illegal order and only took steps to engage in some CYA, but did NOTHING to protect the public.) If they had any real integrity, the three of them would have at a minimum taken what was going on and brought it to the attention of the relevant law enforcement officials in the state.

It certainly sounds like this reserve deputy who did the shooting isn't the only one who needs to be charged with a criminal act!
 
JD, who will take the lead on investigating this? (Obvious conflict of interest for the Sheriff's Dept to investigate itself, so I am assuming some other LE Agency would have to be brought in to investigate)

Does OSBI have jurisdiction?

Do you think the Feds will move to investigate the goings on in the TSD?
 
Don't know for sure how this will shake out (as to any proof that records were actually falsified). It certainly wouldn't shock me if it turns out to be the case to some degree. However, the actual story in the Tulsa World is pretty damn thin.

Also, a little back story: the Tulsa World has long had no love lost for Sheriff Stanley Glanz.
 
Originally posted by Marshal Jim Duncan:

Don't know for sure how this will shake out (as to any proof that records were actually falsified). It certainly wouldn't shock me if it turns out to be the case to some degree. However, the actual story in the Tulsa World is pretty damn thin.

Also, a little back story: the Tulsa World has long had no love lost for Sheriff Stanley Glanz.
I've had my own dealings with local media and "unnamed sources" that turn out to be the lawyers and litigants on the other side of a case making crap up out of whole cloth.

i'm gonna take that report with a whole sea's worth of salt grains until someone goes on the record as a named source.

This post was edited on 4/16 9:41 AM by CowboyJD
 
Originally posted by hollywood:
JD, who will take the lead on investigating this? (Obvious conflict of interest for the Sheriff's Dept to investigate itself, so I am assuming some other LE Agency would have to be brought in to investigate)

Does OSBI have jurisdiction?

Do you think the Feds will move to investigate the goings on in the TSD?
I don't know that it's an "obvious" conflict for an agency to investigate it's own officers for criminal conduct. We've done it. So has every other agency in existence. The problem here is that the head of the agency is at least sideways being accused of misconduct.

No, the OSBI doesn't have authority to initiate an investigation. Except for specifically enumerated types of crime over which we have original jurisdiction, our authority to investigate comes only at the request of statutorily authorized agencies asking for us to be involved.

i will tell you, I don't want the OSBI involved in this investigation. Stanley Glanz sits on our oversight commission. I don't want to open that whole can of worms of investigating someone involved in the hiring and firing of your Director. The Governor Hall fiasco is what led to the OSBI getting a Commission rather than being under the Governor's supervision. Don't want the agency to go through that again. The AG would have authority.
 
And if all that sounds like I'm punting because I don't want to be involved in any way.....it's because that is exactly what I'm doing.
 
Maybe the ex-con fake Veterans Affairs "chief investigator" from OKC can lead the investigation?
 
Originally posted by CowboyJD:

I've had my own dealings with local media and "unnamed sources" that turn out to be the lawyers and litigants on the other side of a case making crap up out of whole cloth.

i'm gonna take that report with a whole sea's worth of salt grains until someone goes on the record as a named source.

This post was edited on 4/16 9:41 AM by CowboyJD
The dead guy's family's attorney, Dan Smolen, is at least one basement lower than any other person in Oklahoma. I'd bet the farm he was on their front porch within seconds of that coming across the scanner.
 
Originally posted by AggiesBoy:
Originally posted by CowboyJD:

I've had my own dealings with local media and "unnamed sources" that turn out to be the lawyers and litigants on the other side of a case making crap up out of whole cloth.

i'm gonna take that report with a whole sea's worth of salt grains until someone goes on the record as a named source.

This post was edited on 4/16 9:41 AM by CowboyJD
The dead guy's family's attorney, Dan Smolen, is at least one basement lower than any other person in Oklahoma. I'd bet the farm he was on their front porch within seconds of that coming across the scanner.
I'm hearing rumblings that the "unnamed source" is actually a murder Defendant in Mayes County jail that signed an affidavit making those allegations as a part of his defense. I don't know if Smolen is representing him or not. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.
 
What I saw this morning is that the individual making the accusations was fired from the Sheriff's office 7 years ago at a time when the reserve deputy in question had only been part of the team for 6 months. I also think the murder defendant is being represented by the same attorney as the victim's family. This thing really stinks. It sounds like the Tulsa World should have done a little more investigating before running with the story.
 
Originally posted by NeekReevers:
It sounds like the Tulsa World should have done a little more investigating before running with the story.
Who could've ever guessed?
 
Both sides can't be represented by the same counsel. Not even in Oklahoma.

Clark Brewster for Bates, Dan Smolen for the Harris family.
 
Originally posted by AggiesBoy:
Both sides can't be represented by the same counsel. Not even in Oklahoma.

Clark Brewster for Bates, Dan Smolen for the Harris family.
Smolen is not representing Bates and Harris....its Harris and the accused murderer in the Mayes county jail.
 
Watched national news this morning at breakfast and the deputy says he has original certificates from his classes. Not that those cant be fakes, but doesn't look good for the faked records.
Posted from Rivals Mobile
 
On the flip side, the Sheriff's Dept can't produce the training records. (That's awfully "convenient") Also the claims from Mr Bates that he got training from Maricopa County, AZ has been categorically denied by their Sheriff's Dept.

BTW, one of Bates' attorneys is (according to media reports who quoted him yesterday), is Scott "Booty" Wood, who is a former Tulsa Police Officer and a friend/classmate of mine at TU Law School. He has also represented Sheriff Glanz in the past.

JD, one question: Doesn't a PO or Deputy Sheriff have to pass their gun certification every year?
 
Poke4Life,

The accusation isn't that he doesn't have the paperwork, the accusation was that someone signed off for him to receive the certificates when he hadn't completed the training to actually earn them. Let's not also forget, that in his statement given to the Sheriff's Office in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, he claimed that he had received "Active Shooter Response Training" from the Maricopa, AZ Sheriff's dept. A claim they have denied as their Press Liason said they do not offer any training to out-of-state LE and that Mr. Bates name is not reflected in any of their records. So, it certainly would appear he was lying about receiving at least one training course.

My question at this point, since the Sheriff's Dept, can't seem to locate his records: Are anyone else's records gone missing, or is it only Mr. Bates that they can't find? If he's the only one whose records they can't locate, that's way beyond being "fishy."

Also, the person (woman who is now the Secret Service Agent) the Sheriff Dept is kind of blaming for the missing weapon certification paperwork, reportedly left the Sheriff's Dept nearly 4 yrs ago. That was why my question to JD, about how often LE personnel have to be re-qualified (particularly in regard to mandatory gun training.) If the guy has to be certified annually or semi-annually, then her being gone for any length to time beyond 2 yrs, undercuts the claim that she could in any way be responsible, as he should have had to re-qualify in the interim and more current records should be available.

This post was edited on 4/17 10:19 PM by hollywood
 
Originally posted by NeekReevers:

Originally posted by AggiesBoy:
Both sides can't be represented by the same counsel. Not even in Oklahoma.

Clark Brewster for Bates, Dan Smolen for the Harris family.
Smolen is not representing Bates and Harris....its Harris and the accused murderer in the Mayes county jail.
My bad. At the time, I hadn't read anything about the jailhouse accuser. Skimmed right over it in your post.
 
Originally posted by hollywood:

JD, one question: Doesn't a PO or Deputy Sheriff have to pass their gun certification every year?
Technically, no. I don't believe by statute there are any continuing firearms qualification requirements once someone has their CLEET certification. There are continuing education requirements each year with certain number of required hours in particular areas (mental health for example). Maybe there is a required qualification in CLEET administrative rules (which do have the force of law).

That being said, all agencies should be having at least annual qualifications due to liability concerns. Our agents have quarterly range requirements. Two are training and use of force education. Two are actual qualification.
 
I checked CLEET admin rules. Yes, there is annual certification requirements there.
 
JD,

Can you please opine what the failure of the Sheriff's Dept to produce his CLEET certifications will mean? (I understand completely if you want to pass on this one.)

If it's true that the person who they are blaming on his "missing" certifications had left the office 3-4 yrs ago, then they seem to up against it, given that there should be at least 2 intervening certification certificates issued, if not 3 to 4.
 
Open Records Act:

51 OS 24A.8


....t.

E. The Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training (C.L.E.E.T.) shall keep confidential all records it maintains pursuant to Section 3311 of Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes and deny release of records relating to any employed or certified full-time officer, reserve officer, retired officer or other person; teacher lesson plans, tests and other teaching materials; and personal communications concerning individual students except under the following circumstances:

1. To verify the current certification status of any peace officer;

2. As may be required to perform the duties imposed by Section 3311 of Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes;

3. To provide to any peace officer copies of the records of that peace officer upon submitting a written request;

4. To provide, upon written request, to any law enforcement agency conducting an official investigation, copies of the records of any peace officer who is the subject of such investigation;

5. To provide final orders of administrative proceedings where an adverse action was taken against a peace officer; and

6. Pursuant to an order of the district court of the State of Oklahoma

CLEET can't release them.

51 OS 24A.7: a public body may keep personnel records confidential which: "1. Which relate to internal personnel investigations including examination and selection material for employment, hiring, appointment, promotion, demotion, discipline, or resignation;"

so TPD doesn't have to release them.
This post was edited on 4/18 5:39 PM by CowboyJD
 
Two reporters have resigned from an Oklahoma newspaper after publishing an article that alleged supervisors in the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office were ordered to falsify training records for a white reserve deputy charged with manslaughter in the shooting of an unarmed black man, the newspaper's executive editor confirmed Monday to TPM.

Staff writer Dylan Goforth and enterprise editor Ziva Branstetter of The Tulsa World newspaper published a report Thursday that cited multiple anonymous sources alleging supervisors had signed off on firearms certifications and field training that Reserve Deputy Robert Bates did not complete.

The sheriff's office had pushed back on the report, arguing that its reliance on anonymous sources discredited the information.

But one of the reporters told TPM that the pair had merely gotten another job offer, which had been in the works for months.

Earlier, the newspaper's executive editor, Susan Ellerbach, told TPM by phone that the reporters left the publication on Monday.

"They turned in two weeks resignation and said that they had another opportunity," Ellerbach said. "So we accepted their resignations and they left today."

Asked whether management at the newspaper had any conversations with Goforth and Branstetter about problems with their sourcing, Ellerbach took a 10-second pause.

"Well, I'd say their leaving was not related to the article," she replied.

So was The Tulsa World standing by the report on Bates' training records?

"That's all I'd like to say right now," Ellerbach told TPM.

Goforth told TPM in a direct message over Twitter that he, Branstetter and two other The Tulsa World reporters had another job offer in the works for a few months. The offer came from a local news website that hasn't been launched yet.

"Word got out Friday night, and they told us stay or go today. So we're officially at the new job today," he said.

Branstetter was named Monday afternoon as a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist for local reporting alongside Tulsa World reporter Cary Aspinwall. The Pulitzer committee cited the pair's "courageous reporting on the execution process in Oklahoma after a botched execution – reporting that began a national discussion."

Aspinwall confirmed to TPM by phone that she had also left The Tulsa World for the local news website on Monday. She was adamant that the reporters' departure had nothing to do with the article about Bates' training records and that none of the reporters were asked to leave the newspaper.

"It looks very salacious, I understand it," she told TPM. "But they are in no way related. This has been in the works for months."

As for Ellerbach's response, Aspinwall speculated: "She had a rough day because she just lost four of her reporters. She was probably just caught off guard by your calling."
Posted from Rivals Mobile
 
Originally posted by ctdub:
Two reporters have resigned from an Oklahoma newspaper after publishing an article that alleged supervisors in the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office were ordered to falsify training records for a white reserve deputy charged with manslaughter in the shooting of an unarmed black man, the newspaper's executive editor confirmed Monday to TPM.

Staff writer Dylan Goforth and enterprise editor Ziva Branstetter of The Tulsa World newspaper published a report Thursday that cited multiple anonymous sources alleging supervisors had signed off on firearms certifications and field training that Reserve Deputy Robert Bates did not complete.

The sheriff's office had pushed back on the report, arguing that its reliance on anonymous sources discredited the information.

But one of the reporters told TPM that the pair had merely gotten another job offer, which had been in the works for months.

Earlier, the newspaper's executive editor, Susan Ellerbach, told TPM by phone that the reporters left the publication on Monday.

"They turned in two weeks resignation and said that they had another opportunity," Ellerbach said. "So we accepted their resignations and they left today."

Asked whether management at the newspaper had any conversations with Goforth and Branstetter about problems with their sourcing, Ellerbach took a 10-second pause.

"Well, I'd say their leaving was not related to the article," she replied.

So was The Tulsa World standing by the report on Bates' training records?

"That's all I'd like to say right now," Ellerbach told TPM.

Goforth told TPM in a direct message over Twitter that he, Branstetter and two other The Tulsa World reporters had another job offer in the works for a few months. The offer came from a local news website that hasn't been launched yet.

"Word got out Friday night, and they told us stay or go today. So we're officially at the new job today," he said.

Branstetter was named Monday afternoon as a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist for local reporting alongside Tulsa World reporter Cary Aspinwall. The Pulitzer committee cited the pair's "courageous reporting on the execution process in Oklahoma after a botched execution â€" reporting that began a national discussion."

Aspinwall confirmed to TPM by phone that she had also left The Tulsa World for the local news website on Monday. She was adamant that the reporters' departure had nothing to do with the article about Bates' training records and that none of the reporters were asked to leave the newspaper.

"It looks very salacious, I understand it," she told TPM. "But they are in no way related. This has been in the works for months."

As for Ellerbach's response, Aspinwall speculated: "She had a rough day because she just lost four of her reporters. She was probably just caught off guard by your calling."

Posted from Rivals Mobile


The last three paragraphs of your post read like the horseshit shoveled daily from the Kenyan/Clinton campaign. I have the title to a very large bridge on Lake Havasu and will sell it to "believers".
smokin.r191677.gif
 
Bobby Lorton (Robert Lorton III) is starting an online news outlet and the reporters are going to work for him. For those unfamiliar, the Lorton's controlled the world for 3 generations until selling out to Warren Buffett a couple years ago.
 
Yep. This is getting very ugly. Tulsa County will be writing a big check at some point.
 
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