By FOX23.com News Staff
TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler announced his office has requested that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) investigate the deaths of seven individuals at the City of Tulsa’s Detention Facility that occurred over a nearly three-year period.
The investigation request comes after Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols requested the closure of the city’s detention facility following what he called “questions about our municipal lockup and the way our detention system operates.”
The district attorney’s office said it chose to request all investigative reports created by the Tulsa Police Department regarding the seven documented deaths to be sent to them for review.
According to the DA’s office, none of these reports had previously been sent to them.
The DA’s office said the reports they received show TPD’s homicide division was contacted following each death to document what had occurred, stating investigators determined in each case that the circumstances of the individual’s death didn’t warrant a request for prosecution.
However, following public concern and the significant number of deaths at the municipal lockup over a short time period, the district attorney’s office said it has decided to request for an independent evaluation and investigation of each death to be conducted by OSBI.
Now that the case has been referred to OSBI and has become an active investigation, the district attorney’s office said it is no longer able to comment on the details of any of the cases it has referred to the agency.
Any potential civil liability relating to these deaths is under the purview of the City of Tulsa since the district attorney’s office wasn’t involved with the supervision of the city’s detention facility, according to the DA’s office.
