Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols responded Thursday to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s recent legal dispute with the city and the Muscogee Nation.
Stitt filed a writ of prohibition Wednesday with the Oklahoma Supreme Court seeking to block a settlement agreement between the city and the tribal nation meant to clarify police jurisdiction.
In a statement, Stitt said the agreement “has essentially made Tulsa a sanctuary city with two systems of justice.”
At a press conference Thursday, Mayor Nichols strongly disagreed.
“The notion that there’s been any time where we have not enforced the law in the city is false,” Nichols said. “It’s incorrect. It’s an outright lie. The governor knows that. [The] governor does not care about that.”
Muscogee Nation Principal Chief David Hill released a statement on social media, calling the governor’s petition “divisive” and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Nichols said the governor’s assertion that the settlement would compromise public safety doesn’t square with city data.
“Crime is down this year in our mid-year report,” he said. “It would be hard for anybody to argue that this community is less safe.”
Nichols decried the decision of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to pull resources away from metro areas, a move Stitt supported.
“Not only are we doing the job of the city, we’re also now doing the job of the state.”
Nichols took more swipes at the governor throughout the press conference.
“The law gets enforced, and if Kevin Stitt doesn’t think that, he can ask his brother,” he said.
Stitt’s older brother, Keith, unsuccessfully sued Tulsa over a municipal speeding ticket, arguing he could not be prosecuted by the city while within the bounds of a reservation. The Stitts are Cherokee Nation citizens.
“One of us behaves like an adult,” Nichols said. “The other one of us decides to handle things a little bit differently by throwing political grenades that are pretty flimsy from a legal standpoint.”
The settlement agreement between Tulsa and the Muscogee Nation would transfer misdemeanor cases of Native citizens to their respective tribal courts.
According to court documents, a U.S. district judge overseeing the case has yet to rule on the settlement.
