Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum wants to take a page from Denver’s city government playbook and set up a new layer of police oversight.
The Office of the Independent Monitor will review Tulsa Police Department internal investigations as they happen and issue public reports on its findings.
"We’ve seen a clear need to take use-of-force reports and citizen complaints and have an externally facing entity that can validate how those are being reviewed for citizens," Bynum said.
The OIM will be located outside city hall and TPD buildings. It will have access to all the information investigators do, and it will issue reports on its findings regularly and after high-profile incidents.
Bynum said the office has one major goal.
"There are clear gaps here in our community around citizen trust in law enforcement. We recognize we need to be doing more as the city government here in Tulsa to give our officers the tools they need to build that trust," Bynum said.
While 43 percent of Tulsans overall say they trust the police "a lot," just 18 percent of black Tulsans say they do, compared to 49 percent of white Tulsans.
Bynum wants a $500,000 placeholder for the OIM in the next city budget, noting Denver’s is staffed with former district attorneys and public defenders.
"We don’t want to be hiring somebody that just graduated from law school. We want people who are seasoned professionals, attorneys who can look at these cases and that both citizens and police officers can have confidence in their findings," Bynum said.
The Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police said Wednesday afternoon they had not heard about the OIM proposal before Bynum announced it this morning.
"We believe the Mayor may have overreacted. Is the problem with our performance or is it a problem communicating with citizens?" Tulsa FOP President Mark Secrist said in a statement. "We always see th eneed for improved communications with the public but do not see the need for a new government entity and board to do that."
Bynum intends for OIM funding to begin with the new city budget on July 1. City officials will first set up a citizen oversight board for the OIM. That board will help choose its director and monitor their work.
The OIM will also evaluate community policing initiatives, something the U.S. Department of Justice no longer does. That ongoing evaluation is one of two community policing recommendations out of 77 that the city has not yet implemented.
