Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith said she will take comments from the public Tuesday on the commissioners’ decision to approve the hiring of an outside law firm to represent Sheriff Stanley Glanz in his effort to fend off a grand jury inquiry.
Simple and clean, the layout provides unobstructed views of the Tulsa skyline from the new entrance off Jackson Street to the new stage near the river’s edge.
While jail operations ran deficits, Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz and his employees spent more than $500,000 the past three years on travel and training — much of it from jail funds — ordering cheesecake and ice cream delivered via room service, paying $36 daily valet parking fees and billing taxpayers $500 per night to stay in a resort with free golf and afternoon tea, an investigation by The Frontier shows.
The Frontier reviewed travel claims by Glanz’s office since 2009 and found numerous questionable expenses and a few potential violations of the county’s travel policy, including Glanz’s trip to a lavish resort with his former undersheriff, Tim Albin.
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.
By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Oklahoma’s use of a controversial new drug in lethal injections, clearing the way for the state and others to resume executions.
The decision in Glossip v. Gross means Oklahoma can use the sedative to carry out three pending executions and others in the future. Executions have been on hold in Oklahoma and most other states since the inmates challenged use of the drug midazolam following a botched execution.
Tulsa County’s quarter-cent jail sales tax may be used to pay for the day-to-day functions required or permitted by law to operate the Tulsa Jail, according to a state Attorney General’s opinion issued Thursday.
“We got exactly what we wanted, exactly what we wanted,” said attorney Jim Orbison.
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?
