TULSA, Okla. — For the first time, Tulsa Police had a significant incident involving the downtown curfew.
“We had absolutely nothing, zero, to report since mid-October or so, when it was passed, and then Saturday night, there was an event downtown that spilled out into a fight that turned into just a lot of rowdiness,” TPD Deputy Chief Mark Wolmershauser said.
Tulsa Police encountered more than a dozen kids, all of them between the ages of 11 and 17. Wolmershauser says they were at a birthday party that got out of hand. Officers wrote tickets for 10 kids and took four to the community intervention center.
Wolmershauseris praising the curfew as a tool for officers.
“If we had not had this tool, then there would have been a lot that we would not have been able to do, and we would have had to sit there and watch 50-60 angry youth start to just get more and more pent up,” Wolmershauser said.
CURFEW EXTENSION >>> The council approved extending the curfew through October 2026
Councilor Lori Decter-Wright offered some thoughts as Wolmershauser updated the council.
“Yes, law enforcement’s going to intervene when they find out. But, from a community standpoint, we can put a juvenile curfew in place, we can have law enforcement, but we also need community members—the parents, the grandparents, next-door neighbors, whatever—to be aware these things are going on,” Decter-Wright said.
This report from TPD, as calls grow from several citizens, to increase accountability within the police department.
Mitch Gilliam was one of the speakers at Wednesday night’s meeting.
“The future of Tulsa is important to me for my students and for all Tulsans, especially regarding the safety in the community we build and how our tax dollars are allocated,” Gilliam said.
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