LOCAL
Kimberly Marsh, The Oklahoma Eagle
Illustration, The Oklahoma Eagle
Tulsan Mayor Monroe Nichols and Tulsa Police Chief Dennis Larsen outlined their plan for addressing rising violence in Tulsa, including the recent incidents involving teens in four separate incidents over the Juneteenth weekend.
Nichols and Larsen appeared at a press briefing at Tulsa’s City Hall on Monday, June 23. They were accompanied by local law enforcement at all levels of government and city councilors.
They said that no additional specifics will be shared about the Juneteenth festival shooting until the investigation is concluded. But Larsen added that there is reason to believe the four shooting incidents are connected and that gangs are involved.
“I want to address the devastating violence that struck our city over the weekend in four separate incidents, beginning at Cry Baby Hill, Bradford apartments, followed by a warehouse out east and the Juneteenth festival,” Larsen said. “More than 16 Tulsans, many of them teenagers, (were involved) and one young man lost his life.” The death and seven of those injuries occurred at Juneteenth, where thousands of Tulsans were celebrating at a concert on the Greenwood Lawn.
Mayor Nichols began the conference by outlining three action items in response to the violence.
He said the city will:
- Impose a curfew ordinance that would be mandatory for youth 17 years of age and younger within the downtown area (inside the inner dispersal loop/IDL). The ordinance will be proposed to the Tulsa Council and could be approved as early as June 26 for a period of nine months.
- Create a police task force to focus 30 to 40 officers who will work in their assigned districts as part of divisional street crime units, members of our Special Investigation Division, the TPD crime analyst and skilled forensic scientist. Police will work closely with state and federal partners, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, Tulsa County district attorney and the US Attorney. Larsen added that the police have several platforms available to them for investigation and analysis of where violence will occur.
- Launch a Department of Justice-funded Community Violence Intervention Program using evidence-based, community-driven models, and trusted messengers to decrease gun related crimes and homicides in Tulsa.
“Community members, faith leaders and my team have been working hard to create long term strategies on how we can better intervene in the lives of young people facing challenges,” Nichols said.
Nichols made a call to action for community members across the city to join the effort to get involved in helping to create a village for young people by sending an send an email to resilient@cityoftulsa.org to express their interest.
“Some of our youth don’t have what they need to make better choices, and that impact, that lack of opportunity, is something that is felt in every neighborhood across the city,” he said. “The vast majority of the young people caught in this terrible cycle of violence lacked that village.”
Larsen addressed questions regarding staffing at the festival Saturday. He said they increased staffing in the entertainment zone, which is relatively close to where Juneteenth was, and responded within minutes of the gunfire.
“People were celebrating Juneteenth, a federal, state, a local holiday. The crowd, 99% was joyous and celebrating, and you had certain actors and individuals who chose that setting with deputies standing nearby to actively start engaging in gunfire with each other,” Larsen said.
“I don’t know how we can police it better… But when… you have people willing, in the first instance, standing less than 25 feet away from four officers and they decide to engage in a fist fight and then a gunfight, us being there is not going to change the outcome.”
The locations of violence that took place included Juneteenth on Greenwood Avenue downtown, Cry Baby Hill on Riverside Drive, the Bradford apartments adjacent to the Gilcrease Expressway, and a warehouse in east Tulsa.
Fights broke out between males who appeared to be teenagers during the block party in Greenwood on June 19. Police have asked that anyone who has video clips and photos they took in the area that they would share with police could help their investigation.
