OCPD Says Outside Counties Aren’t Picking Up Their Fugitives

Oklahoma City police officers are having to leave the county to take wanted felons back to the county they committed the offense in.

Wednesday, November 23rd 2022, 10:10 pm

By: Feliz Romero

OKLAHOMA CITY -

The Oklahoma City Police Department is working hard to keep people with felony warrants off the streets.

Staffing shortages and other constraints from smaller agencies across the state are now forcing them to make the drive to the county where the warrant was issued.

“We’re not simply just going to let someone with a warrant with a violent crime just walk around the streets here,” said Mst. Sgt. Gary Knight with the Oklahoma City Police Department.

A program developed in the last few years has allowed them to arrest people with out-of-county felony warrants, leaving the county they come from to extradite them.

“Whether it is manpower constraints or budget constraints a lot of these counties are not extraditing them. They are not coming and getting the people we arrest and taking them back to their counties for prosecution,” he said.

The recent shortage leaving OCPD with the time-consuming task of driving them to their county.

As it stands, if an officer arrests someone with a felony warrant not issued in Oklahoma County, they call their watch commander and then drive them back to the county their warrant was issued in.

“If they are going to come take them then we will take them to our jail but if we call and say, ‘this person’s got an arrest warrant for shooting somebody’ and they’re saying ‘sorry, we can’t come and get them’ we are going to drive them right then up to that county and make sure they are in jail,” said Knight.

OCPD said some of the crimes these people are charged with include domestic assault and battery, failure to register as a sex offender, assault and battery on an officer and carjacking robbery.

“We transport them there it really is anywhere within the state of Oklahoma. There are programs, overtime programs, we have looked at to address that to make sure there’s adequate officers on the streets,” said Knight.

So far this year OCPD has transported more than 70 people, a number they said is more than in previous years.

Feliz Romero

Feliz Romero joined News 9 in February of 2021. A proud New Mexican, Feliz graduated from the University of New Mexico Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Public Communications and a minor in Spanish.