District Attorney Sued Over Records From 2020 Officer-Involved Shootings

A local journalist is suing the Oklahoma County District Attorney, stemming from the 2019- 2020 officer-involved shootings. The Non-Doc Editor in Chief, Tres Savage, filed the suit after he said the DA refused to release documents from the investigations into the three shootings. 

“The question at this point becomes what transparency does the public have? What transparency can we expect from this district attorney's office,” asked Savage.

The lawsuit was filed in Oklahoma County, seeking relief for violations of the Oklahoma Open Records Act. 

“The Open Records Act is intended to ensure that the public can review documents and activities related to its government,” said Savage.

Under the Open Records Act, Savage requested documents in connection with the 2019 and 2020 officers involved shootings of Stavian Rodriguez, Bennie Edwards and Christopher Poor. 

“Certainly the topics are sensitive and the cases were major stories in the community,” said Savage.

The lawsuit states"

“The fatal shootings received prominent news media and public attention and factored prominently in the 2022 Oklahoma County district attorney election campaign during which Behenna (as a candidate) sparred with her opponent over this promise to dismiss the charges if elected.”

After taking office in 2023, Behenna hired an expert based in California to review three pending criminal cases filed against a combined seven police officers.

“(Behenna) said that formed a significant amount of her decision to ultimately dismiss those cases,” said Savage. “We simply requested the contract between Mrs Behennas office and Mr Chapman in California and we were not provided that information.”

Savage was told that the contract fell outside the scope of what the district attorney’s office was required to disclose under the Open Records Act.

“It's important to remember in Oklahoma the government entity, the government actor, has the obligation to prove that a document meets a certain exemption from the Open Records Act to withhold it from the public,” said Savage.“I think Oklahoma taxpayers want to know at minimum what the terms of that agreement were.”

Direct quotes from Chapman’s report were used in a press release sent out to the media and public when it was announced that Behenna was dropping all of the charges against the officers. 

“So it's very hard to say ‘no no no, these documents are private and privileged for the purposes of law but we did pull 30-40 words out of it to put in a press release to explain to the public what we wanted them to understand,” said Savage. “It's either all privileged or it's all not. and our argument would be that they waived whatever privilege that could conceivably claim to take.”

In an effort to save time and taxpayer dollars, Savage is hoping the DA will hand over the requested contract. 

“Then we could all move on with paying attention to the people's business,” said Savage.

District Attorney Behenna’s office said they don’t have a comment on the lawsuit at this time.

The lawsuit is available below.