Tulsa police to start documenting lower levels of physical force but not when officers point firearms toward people

The Tulsa Police Department will begin documenting more lower-level uses of physical force but not instances in which officers point firearms toward people.

TPD offered the City Council an oral presentation Wednesday during a committee meeting on actions it will take after a university study into its use-of-force policy and practices. The department is moving to use dogs mostly for searching rather than apprehension, expanding and improving use-of-force data collection, and reviewing and tweaking its overall force policy.

Historically, Tulsa police don’t document physical control tactics — such as arm bars — unless there is an injury or it’s a carotid artery restraint, which the study notes puts TPD outside the national majority of 87% of law enforcement agencies that document weaponless force.

The department is working to begin reporting all instances of a firm grip or other physical control, but three councilors voiced support in favor of broadening reporting further to include every time an officer points a weapon at a person.

Police Maj. Matt Kirkland, who gave the presentation, said TPD doesn’t intend to collect that data.

“There is a very low likelihood of injury with the display of a Taser or a firearm from one of our officers,” Kirkland said. “We’re not touching them, and the application of actual force on a person is what we are going to collect and measure.”

Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper said capturing that data is a nationally recommended best practice, adding that it’s “ridiculous” that the department won’t do so.

“We do not believe that that is the best practice for the Tulsa Police Department,” Kirkland said.

Councilor Kara Joy McKee said she echoed Hall-Harper regarding officers displaying weapons.

McKee said that a weapon directed toward a person might create a heightened sense of anxiety within that person, which could put the officer in more danger or escalate a situation.

“I think that Councilor Hall-Harper is correct that it might be worth documenting that, so just something for your consideration,” Joy McKee said. “My 2 cents on that.”

Councilor Jeannie Cue said she also is supportive of trying to track that data.

Cue said that she’s received many reports from community members concerned about specific encounters in which police pull weapons on them. She told a brief story about people inside a convenience store who were “profoundly affected” by police who were searching for a suspect from a neighboring crime, but no arrests were made there.

With no written record of the convenience store event, Cue said it was difficult for her and TPD to find out what happened to explain to community members “why it went down the way that it went down.”

“So having a record of when weapons are pulled, even if nothing happened, I think could be a very valuable tracking tool,” Cue said.

Kirkland said anyone who feels that an officer inappropriately displayed a gun or Taser can reach out to the department, which will then review body-cam footage to determine whether the display violated policy.

He added that Police Chief Wendell Franklin is focusing on accountability, which includes emphasizing that it’s no longer acceptable to stop or mute body-camera recordings. He said Franklin opened 19 internal affairs complaints against officers in his first month as chief, sustaining seven complaints of officers failing to properly activate body-worn cameras.

After the meeting, Hall-Harper referenced “Campaign ZERO” as one of the organizations touting documentation of weapons pointing as a best practice.

Campaign ZERO, a national police reform advocacy group, in September 2016 released a report on eight use-of-force policies that it found were associated with police departments having fewer fatal shootings.

Sam Sinyangwe, the study’s researcher, said reasons to require officers to report when they point firearms are two-fold: to learn how officers apply the technique and whether they needlessly escalate a situation by prematurely pointing a gun.

“When an officer points a firearm at you, that’s definitely experienced as a force being used,” Sinyangwe told the Tulsa World in September 2019. “It’s a traumatic event, and it’s something worth tracking.”

Councilor Lori Decter Wright asked in part whether TPD is soliciting and considering input from the community to be “fully transparent and collaborative” as it reworks its use-of-force policy.

Franklin responded that the answer is no.

“I think that we are paid a salary to be the professionals and be the ones that know the ins and outs of policing and what’s going on,” the police chief said. “So again, I’ve mentioned before of ceding authority to us to allow us to do that, and we will use best practices and things of that nature to drive our decision-making on the Tulsa Police Department.”

Franklin said officers as a matter of practice are allowed to view draft policy and offer comments on it to be reviewed by the chief’s office.

The public meeting was conducted virtually. A police spokeswoman said Franklin was on vacation until Thursday, so he didn’t do any media interviews Wednesday.

The study was funded by a grant from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the research was carried out by the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of Cincinnati. The months analyzed were January 2016 through June 2018.

Featured video

Gallery: Protesters gather to honor George Floyd at Central Park in Broken Arrow