TULSA, Okla. — The attorney for a former Tulsa woman suing the city and Tulsa police officers said a number of alleged policy violations led to his client being raped.
"They essentially told this man by just abandoning her, law enforcement's not going to step in here, do what you want," said Christopher Brecht. "And he did."
Brecht, an attorney at Smolen Law, is representing the woman who was assaulted in 2023.
Local News
'Avoidable rape' lawsuit filed against Tulsa PD, officers
In the complaint filed against the two police officers, former police chief Wendell Franklin and the City of Tulsa, outlines a number of violations in the response to the woman's call.
One of those being that no incident report was filed.
According to court documents, the woman called 911 because Denzil Berryman, her ex-boyfriend, had slapped her and was making violent threats.
The suit said officers responded, but left the scene without filing an incident report, making an arrest or turning on their body cameras at the beginning of the call.
After officers left, Berryman strangled the woman and raped her. He was convicted earlier this year.
"Not only could this, the rape of my client have been avoided, I actually think that the police created it," said Brecht. "They created the opportunity, they emboldened this rapist to take it a step further."
2 News Oklahoma's Erin Christy breaks down the timeline of the call:
Brecht said one of those officers still works for TPD. 2 News was not able to verify that.
Franklin is named in the suit because he was chief at the time of the incident. Also, documents show one of the responding officers had a history of not following the body-worn camera policy while he was in charge of the force.
Brecht said he believes the portion of the call that is on camera doesn't include his client.
“Which is a real shame here because it’s our position that when these officers arrived at the scene that she had very clear visible injuries of domestic violence, so they should have always treated this with the severity that it called for but now because they didn’t follow their own policies and procedures, a certain portion of forensic evidence doesn’t exist, when it should have.”
The woman no longer lives in Tulsa. Documents show that she was advised to relocate for safety reasons after the internal affairs investigation that followed her call.
2 News Oklahoma's Stef Manchen asked Brecht who gave his client that advise and why.
"The information that we have is that there was some opressive conduct that was related to that internal affairs investigation and she did not feel safe any longer in Tulsa," he said. "The law enforcement obviously knew where she was living... I'll just leave it if she didn't feel safe based upon the conduct that occurred as part of that internal affairs investigation."
Brecht said all of the defendants have been served, but none have yet responded to the suit.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- Watch LIVE 24/7 on YouTube
