Karen Keith’s fellow county commissioners are defending the Tulsa mayoral candidate against allegations of youth abuse connected to the local juvenile detention center.
A federal lawsuit accuses the commissioners of failing to shield dozens of youth from sexual abuse, intimidation and neglect in the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice. Homeland Security searched the center in July after two guards were charged with sexual abuse.
The commissioners took over the center from Tulsa County’s juvenile courts later that month. They have argued they did not oversee operations in the center up to that point.
Mayoral candidate Monroe Nichols has brought up allegations from the lawsuit on social media during the campaign trail and sparred over the issues with Keith during debates.
A super PAC-funded mailer that circulated in October claims that “children were raped, neglected, and abused” under Keith’s watch, citing excerpts from the lawsuit.
In a news release on Tulsa County letterhead, Republican commissioners Kelly Dunkerley and Stan Sallee called the claims “bald-faced lies,” “offensive” and “unacceptable.”
“We trust that voters will recognize the despicable nature of these advertisements and ignore them. We request that those involved immediately cease these false allegations,” the release says.
Nichols called the county’s statement expected.
“It doesn’t surprise me that two of the other members of the Board of County Commissioners — who are also as a body named in the federal lawsuit — would respond in that way,” Nichols said Friday.
Nichols accused Sallee and Dunkerley of “electioneering-type” actions in the news release. An emailed response from the commissioners referenced the mailer, and said Dunkerley and Sallee “stand by” their previous statement.
Keith brought one of the inflammatory mailers to an Oct. 22 mayoral debate and accused Nichols of stoking toxic rhetoric. Nichols claimed he saw the mailer for the first time before the debate.
"There was a federal lawsuit that the county commissioners were named in. Do not make that as though I made that up, because I did not, and I did not send out that mailer," Nichols said.
When the topic of the juvenile center has come up, Nichols has pointed to the fact that state authorities told commissioners about noncompliance in the center as early as May 2022.
Keith has consistently pointed out that Juvenile Judge Kevin Gray oversaw the center until July of this year, when the commissioners took it over. Juvenile Center Administrator David Parker, who was appointed at the same time the commissioners took over the center, has reported progress in the facility.
"If you have a rent house, and your renter goes out and robs a bank, are you responsible?" Keith said at the debate. "The judges were running this."
