Regalado plays politics

Blaming the press is just part of the story

There must be something in the air at 303 West 1st, home of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, that brings out the worst in our sheriffs—some atmospheric anomaly, mold maybe, that turns seemingly hard-working law enforcement officials into petty crooks, press-mistrusting stonewallers, tone-deaf community leaders, and, in the case of the current occupant, Tea Party mouthpieces.

The liberal media has to be held accountable for a great deal of the controversies that exist.

That was Sheriff Vic Regalado speaking with Pat Campbell on 1170 KFAQ, grandstanding about the horrific shootings in Dallas last month, where five police officers were murdered. Regalado wanted it to be known that their gruesome deaths were not the result of a lone, deranged gunman, specifically, or a festering societal mistrust between police and African Americans, generally, but rather the fault of reporters not employed by stations like 1170 KFAQ.

It was a despicable, unnecessary sop to the fringe, a fact-challenged rant that was incendiary, bellicose, and ignorant, not to mention counter-productive. 

They show these images. They don’t give all the facts. And what happens? The uninformed have a knee-jerk reaction to it. And then we get this civil unrest.

Come for the generalizations, stay for the accusations.  

Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens are murdered, one day after an unarmed black man, Philando Castile, is shot by a policeman while sitting in a car in Minneapolis with his girlfriend and her little girl, two days after another black man, Alton Sterling, was shot outside a convenience store in Louisiana—and the best the Tulsa County sheriff can do is pull out a tiresome, lazy trope about the liberal media?

Leaders don’t do that—parrots do. 

“Police have been targeted even way back before I got on the department (more than 20 years ago),” Regalado said. “It’s getting worse.”

No it’s not. In fact, about half as many police are murdered every year now, as compared with the 1970s.

Regalado surely knows how easy statistics are to manipulate and that by trumpeting police murders without context, he ratchets up fear and paranoia. But instead of calling for calm, perspective, facts, and ongoing dialogue between law enforcement and community leaders, he strapped on the riot gear and auditioned for Hannity.

I think we’re in an era that is similar to the civil unrest of the 1960s. The difference is, in my opinion, is that in the ‘60s, the civil rights movement was in full effect. It was a worthy cause.

Thanks for the validation—you’re a prince—but that’s not why you brought it up, is it?

Of course not.

I don’t believe it justified any killing. You move forward now and you have 11 police officers shot just doing their jobs, protecting, ironically, protestors. And for what?

Really, you don’t know? 

That cops were there protecting those assembled was not ironic—it was their job. It’s your job. You don’t get to pick and choose which groups are worthy of law enforcement presence. 

And how dare you conflate hundreds of protestors—even loud, obnoxious, troublesome ones—with murderers like Xavier Johnson and Gavin Eugene Long?

Then again, we shouldn’t have been surprised by Regalado’s posturing, for in the months since he became sheriff—and it’s only been since April—he’s brought an impervious, thin-skinned arrogance to the job, a circle-the-wagons mentality to the position that his predecessor, Stanley Glanz, who recently pled guilty to one misdemeanor count and no contest to another, would have been proud.

I called Ziva Branstetter, editor-in-chief of The Frontier, who’s been following the decay in the sheriff’s office since before following the decay was cool, and asked for her take on our new sheriff, both stylistically and substantively. 

“When Sheriff Regalado ran for office, he promised transparency, which people certainly expected since Stanley Glanz was indicted, removed from office, and convicted largely due to a cover-up and culture of intransigence when it comes to open records,” Branstetter said.

I think you probably know what’s coming. Branstetter and The Frontier, by the way, are suing the sheriff to see some of those records. 

“The last thing we in the media expected, however, was for Sheriff Regalado to come in and actually be less transparent that Sheriff Glanz … by slow-playing other requests made by the media and by making himself unavailable to discuss these issues.”

We will end patronage and politics in decision-making. We will look to bring a new spirit of cooperation and citizen involvement to solve long-standing problems.

To Branstetter’s point, that was Regalado, victory night, April 5, 2016, specifically talking about the busy pipeline between the sheriff’s and appraiser’s offices, jobs that were being handed out like “Massage in your Room” pamphlets on the Strip in Las Vegas. 

Glanz told the newspaper that he appoints people to the sheriff’s appraiser positions as a reward for supporting him and serving the community. “I’m sure there’s maybe a perception problem, but I don’t consider it one,” said Glanz at the time.

Clearly, rewarding political support with cushy county jobs is something you’d stop if you wanted to show the community there was a—wait for it—new sheriff in town. What made this particular patronage situation such a unique cesspool was the fact that Glanz had appointed both the wife and daughter of his personal attorney, Clark Brewster, as appraisers—jobs that paid them over the years close to $1 million. 

(The daughter of Robert Bates, who shot Eric Harris, was also appointed and made about $250 grand.)

As disturbing as all this is, there’s nothing illegal about it (Oklahoma’s funny that way), but still, most agreed, it was pretty gamey. 

Regalado promised to end the program.

According to county records, Cassie Barkett, Leslie McCrary, and Deborah Brewster still have their jobs. 

Damn liberal media.

Regalado has also failed to make even the most cursory of staff changes inside the office, especially getting rid of those who embody the philosophical and ethical black hole the place had become. 

Speaking of Terry Simonson, guess who still works there?

Yeah. The same Terry Simonson who tried to squelch the initial grand jury investigation of Glanz by claiming those collecting signatures were offering hotdogs at the sign-up tables, the same Terry Simonson who misled the public on the Bates investigation, the same Terry Simonson who strong-armed the fire chief in an earlier life to get his son a gig as a fireman, and the same Terry Simonson, who, as a journalist, thought gang-on-gang violence was a good idea—is the TCSO intergovernmental affairs and contract administrator.

The gob hasn’t been this smacked since the last time we discovered he hadn’t been fired.

None of this, though—none of it—not the failure to clean up the mess left by Glanz, not the impending disaster at the jail that’s coming, including negligent death lawsuits and investigations and broken necks and kickbacks, not the staffing changes he refuses to make, not even his dissing of the press—could have prepared us for this:

“We’re unique when you look at Ferguson (Mo.) and Dallas,” he said. “These two incidents happened in our back yard and yet they don’t happen here. I do believe it’s the relationship law enforcement has with the community. It’s been a long time fostering that relationship, but I think it’s paid off in spades.”

He actually went there. 

In spades. 

“He shot me! He shot me, man. Oh, my god, I’m losing my breath,” Harris says as officers pin him to the ground following the lethal gunshot.

“Fuck your breath,” an officer replies.

Good thing those things don’t happen here. We’ve got good relationships. They have paid off in spades. 

One more thing: Regalado will almost certainly be re-elected in November.

And Eric Harris is still dead.

For more form Barry, read his interview with Mayor G.T. Bynum.