Oklahoma’s Tulsa County to Pay Ex-Deputy $138K in Wrongful Termination Suit

June 26, 2017

Tulsa County has agreed to pay nearly $138,000 to a former sheriff’s deputy to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit that claimed he and others were ousted in fallout from the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in 2015.

County commissioners approved the settlement this week with former deputy Billy McKelvey, the Tulsa World reported. It said the agreement boosts to $550,000 the total amount of public funds used to settle similar lawsuits and pay attorneys’ fees.

McKelvey resigned after being demoted by then-Sheriff Stanley Glanz three months after a volunteer sheriff’s deputy fatally shot Eric Harris in April 2015. Glanz left office later that year after being indicted over not publicly releasing an internal report that questioned the qualifications of the volunteer deputy who shot Harris. Glanz pleaded no contest to the charge in district court and was sentenced last year to a year of jail time, which the judge suspended.

The former deputy, Robert Bates, was convicted last year of second-degree manslaughter and is serving a four-year sentence. Bates, who is white, said he mistook his handgun for a stun gun when he shot a restrained Harris during an illegal gun sales sting. That shooting led to the temporary suspension of the reserve deputy program after a report found poor training of the volunteer officers, a lack of oversight, and cronyism. Bates is appealing his conviction.

After the shooting, questions also arose over whether Bates received special treatment from Glanz, a longtime friend. In the weeks after Harris was killed, several sheriff’s office employees claimed they were demoted, fired or forced to resign amid the growing fallout.

An outside review of the agency released last year documented numerous problems in the sheriff’s office. The 238-page report found that the office suffered from a “system-wide failure of leadership and supervision” and that it had been in a “perceptible decline” for more than a decade. Shortcomings in the reserve deputy program were just the most-visible signs of trouble within the agency, according to the review.

Topics Lawsuits Oklahoma

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