After a month-long legal battle, a Tulsa County judge lifted a temporary restraining order filed by the police union to stall the release of police disciplinary records requested by The Frontier. 

Tulsa County District Judge Caroline Wall said she did not see a “significant difference” between records already produced by the City of Tulsa and those the Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police sought to keep private. 

The police union was seeking to halt the release of six documents showing officers who accepted a reduction in vacation time as a result of discipline instead of a loss of pay. The union argued those records were not releasable under Oklahoma’s Open Records Act because they should have been purged due to a collective bargaining agreement between the union and the City of Tulsa. 

Records the Tulsa Police Department has so far released include disciplinary actions for violation of agency polices, ranging from failing to clean a police vehicle to driving under the influence and excessive use of force. 

Since 2016, the Tulsa Police Department has disciplined five police officers for driving while intoxicated, two officers for showing up to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol and nine officers for violating the department’s use-of-force policy, according to disciplinary records previously released by the department. 

The department declined to comment on the disciplinary actions, citing pending litigation. 

The police union sued to prevent the City of Tulsa from releasing any more disciplinary records in April after learning about The Frontier’s open records request. The Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police argued in court the City of Tulsa was supposed to purge and expunge the records from officer disciplinary files, in keeping with its collective bargaining agreement. City officials disagreed and said the documents are public record. 

The Tulsa Police Department’s internal affairs division is required to maintain the records, according to the agreement. Destroying the records would violate the Oklahoma Open Records Act, said Leslie Briggs, a Tulsa attorney with the nonprofit Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press who is representing The Frontier.