Dylan Goforth had followed Monroe Bird III through a tumultuous few months for the 21-year-old. He was paralyzed after being shot by a security guard in February. His family announced he died Tuesday, not long after he’d been brought home from the hospital.
After grassroots effort gathers more than 6,600 signatures seeking investigation of TCSO, a Tulsa County judge ended a six-hour hearing Tuesday ordering a grand jury to be convened on July 20. Attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office had tried to challenge the petition’s validity on technical grounds.
The two incidents share several key details. Terry Byrum, according to the report, was on the ground, having already been handcuffed and subdued by deputies when Bates arrived, placed his foot on Byrum’s head and fired his Taser.
Robert Bates is the focus of perhaps the most high-profile criminal case in Tulsa County. So how did almost everyone miss his court appearance Friday?
The legal wrangling over the 6,647 authenticated signatures seeking a grand jury investigation of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office will extend into next week, following an order signed Thursday by District Judge Rebecca Nightingale.
And that legal wrangling, in part, will be paid for by the very people seeking the investigation in the first place.
In neighboring Okmulgee County, where the district attorney has been assigned to investigate alleged wrongdoing by the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office…
Days ahead of their self-imposed deadline, county election board officials broke some news Tuesday afternoon: 6,647 signatures requesting a grand jury investigation of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office had been verified and turned over to the court clerk’s office.
“We’re confident,” organizer Marq Lewis said. “A lot of hard work went into this. A lot of hard work by a handful of volunteers who believed in the process and believed they could make change, believed that they could change things.”
