Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said Wednesday he has asked the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to examine seven deaths over the past three years at the Tulsa Municipal Jail.
Kunzweiler said in an emailed statement that he reviewed reports of deaths at the facility after asking the Tulsa Police Department for them. The department had not previously forwarded any of the reports to the district attorney’s office, he said. None of the Tulsa Police Department’s previous investigations found prosecution was warranted, Kunzweiler said.
“However – given the large number of deaths in such a short period of time, it is reasonable to refer these cases to an outside investigative agency for their independent evaluation,” Kunzweiler said.
The Frontier published an investigation in March that identified seven deaths over three years from preventable causes, including overdoses, suicides, and a treatable infection.
Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols on Friday ordered the city to immediately begin moving detainees out of the municipal jail. The announcement came one day after The Frontier reported on the death of Justin Benner, a 48-year-old man who died at the facility in September 2025 after detention officers placed him in a full-body restraint device and left him alone in a cell. Kunzweiler said he asked the Tulsa Police Department for the reports on Friday after the mayor’s announcement.
City officials previously told The Frontier that the Tulsa Police Department investigated each death and found no violations of the law or jail policy. But the city declined to release reports from those investigations or surveillance video from the facility. Nichols on Friday also ordered the city to expedite any outstanding open records requests related to the jail.
Tulsa Police Department and Allied Universal, a security firm the city paid to operate the jail, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Garrett Yalch was hired in 2024, joining The Frontier’s Tulsa newsroom. He covers corporate and government accountability issues, with a focus on the Tulsa area. He can be reached at Garrett@readfrontier.com
