Tulsa County DA calls on OSBI to investigate seven deaths at Tulsa Municipal Jail

“All cases were investigated by the proper authority, and all standard procedures have been followed. While we are confident in those investigations, we welcome any additional eyes and reviews to increase transparency.

Due to current litigation, we don’t have further comment, but we wanted to share the following background in case it’s helpful:

The City of Tulsa has long known that its municipal court and lockup facilities would need to relocate as we prepare to vacate the Municipal Court/Police Headquarters building downtown to make way for the new convention center hotel and transition operations to the new Public Safety Center. From the beginning, the courts and lockup were never intended to move into the Public Safety Center, so identifying a new location has always been part of this process.

For much of the past year, the City has been in discussions with Tulsa County about what a transition back to the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center could look like. Those conversations were always part of our planning. We needed multiple options available, and because preparing a facility to serve as a lockup takes significant time and coordination, returning to the County, even on an interim basis, was always a possibility.

Negotiations with Tulsa County on a longer-term agreement have been underway for several months and continue today. In fact, last week's decision allowed us to move forward more quickly based on our ongoing conversations with the County so we could focus on the transition process ahead.

In the meantime, we are finalizing an amendment to our existing overflow agreement to support the immediate transition. We can say that this move progressed rapidly - we had approximately 60 individuals in the municipal lockup last Friday and now the lockup is empty.

Right now, our focus is on finalizing the amendment to the overflow agreement and continuing negotiations on a longer-term agreement with Tulsa County. We do not have finalized cost estimates to share at this time, but we will provide those details as they become available."

The Tulsa Police Department maintains a long-standing, professional partnership with Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler. Regarding the jail incidents, the department followed its investigative policies and procedures at the time. While standard protocol does not mandate forwarding these specific cases to the District Attorney's Office, we have always promptly fulfilled any requests made by his office.

We respect and support District Attorney Kunzweiler’s prerogative to have the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) review these cases as an independent, non-involved law enforcement agency. We welcome this external evaluation and are providing any assistance the OSBI requires.