Posted 4/28/15
TCSO scandal: Glanz knew of problems with Bates in ‘09, records show
By Cary Aspinwall, Ziva Branstetter and Kevin Canfield
Staff Writers
The Frontier
Sheriff Stanley Glanz was at least aware of allegations in August 2009 that Reserve Deputy Bob Bates’ training records were falsified and that employees were concerned about unethical behavior in the department, internal documents from Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office show.
An Aug. 5, 2009, memo titled “unprofessional behavior” from employee Bonnie Fidler addressed to Glanz appears to be hand-initialed “SG” in the corner. The document outlines several incidents that concerned Fidler, including former Undersheriff Tim Albin’s telling her to make a training certificate for reserve deputy Bob Bates.
“I believed that the training was not done and it is false, but Chief Albin signed it and so did the Sheriff,” Fidler writes in the memo to Glanz. Reporters for The Frontier obtained the memo and other documents from an anonymous source.
The documents surfaced after Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, reportedly mistook his gun for a Taser and fatally shot Eric Harris on April 2 during an undercover gun sting conducted by the Sheriff’s Office. Glanz, Albin and other TCSO officials have maintained that Bates was properly trained and was not allowed to participate on the violent crimes task force solely because of personal and financial relationships with the department.
GLANZ’S RESPONSE
Glanz on Tuesday acknowledged being made aware of concerns about Bates in 2009 and said the Sheriff’s Office responded in a timely fashion.
“We did something about it,” Glanz said. “That is where the 13-page report came from.”
The sheriff said he believes that as a result of the investigation Bates was not allowed to use his car to patrol for a year-and-a-half and thus could not patrol alone.
“I don’t know that that is true, but that is what I think,” Glanz said.
Glanz said then-Undersheriff Brian Edwards took some positives steps in response to the special investigation but that he has asked Edwards “to keep his mouth shut because these are personnel issues.”
“If it needs to come out, it needs to come out in the courtroom,” Glanz added.
ALBIN AND FIDLER
Glanz announced Albin’s resignation on Monday, and a spokesman for Glanz said on a Tulsa talk radio show Tuesday morning that the sheriff was “misled” by his own staff. The spokesman claimed Glanz never knew the outcome of an Internal Affairs report detailing preferential treatment for Bates and retaliation within the department for anyone who objected.
But records show Glanz’s signature is on the training document stating Bates had completed eight hours of “law enforcement driver’s orientation.” That certificate is dated May 28, 2009, which corresponds to the date Fidler’s August memo said the incident occurred.
Fidler wrote that she believed the training certificate was “falsified” because there was no log of Bates’ being at the track with the sergeant when his training supposedly took place.
“I also know that Bob Bates did not take a deputy test until he had already been working as a reserve for some time,” Fidler wrote. To her knowledge, he also had never had an MMPI psychological evaluation done, she wrote.
The psychological evaluations are required of all reserve deputies.
Glanz said Tuesday that Albin has told him that he took Bates out to the track for driver training.
“He (Albin) said he wouldn’t have authorized that if he hadn’t done the work and (that) he’s never, ever done that,” Glanz said.
Glanz said Fidler’s memo was one of several he received from employees who were unhappy with Albin’s management style Her concerns about Bates were one of several issues she raised about Albin, Glanz said.
BATES’ TESTING
Bates did not have to test for Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training certification when he joined the reserve program, according to documents provided by Glanz on Tuesday, because he had served on the Tulsa Police Department. CLEET instead provided a letter stating that Bates had been grandfathered into the CLEET certification.
Bates and other Sheriff’s Office reserves with law-enforcement experience were not always required to take initial written and aural examines for the same reason, Glanz said.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
Terry Simonson, chief of governmental affairs for the Sheriff’s Office, said Tuesday that Glanz didn’t know about the IA report’s “damning findings.” When Glanz saw the internal affairs report he was “terribly hurt by something he never saw happening. … Kind of like infidelity,” Simonson told KFAQ radio’s Pat Campbell.
Glanz told The Frontier on Tuesday that the first time he saw the special investigation report in total was “a week ago Friday when I sat down and read it from cover to cover.”
The special investigation report is dated Aug. 12, 2009, and it was addressed to Edwards by Sgt. Rob Lillard. Fidler sent her memo to Glanz one week earlier.
Edwards declined to comment for this story.
Lillard interviewed at least seven employees of the Sheriff’s Office, including a chief, three sergeants and a captain. He also spent 10 days reviewing files of all reserve deputies.
His report concluded that “policy has been violated and continues to be violated by both Capt. Tom Huckeby and Chief Deputy Tim Albin with regard to special treatment shown to Reserve Deputy Robert Bates with regard to his field training.”
The report also found that Huckeby and Albin created “an atmosphere in which employees were intimidated to fail to adhere to policies in a manner which benefits Reserve Deputy Bates.”
Glanz said Tuesday that in the wake of the 2009 special investigation, Huckeby was formally reprimanded, though Glanz has been unable to find a document to verify that.
HUCKEBY TAKES VACATION
Glanz also told The Frontier that Huckeby began a one-month vacation on Tuesday and that his position with the Sheriff’s Office will be one of the many issues Glanz examines as he undertakes his own investigation of the Sheriff’ Office operations.
Even before the Bates shooting, Glanz said, he had hired a private firm to review all Sheriff’s Office operations. The company, Community Safety Institute, will also examine the shooting, Glanz said.
OFFICIAL STATEMENTS VARY
Statements by Glanz and his office about the internal affairs investigation have shifted several times. On April 10, the day the Sheriff’s Office played the video of Harris’ shooting, Capt. Bill McKelvey and a consultant for Glanz’s office were asked if concerns had ever been expressed about Bates’ training.
“Not that I’m aware of,” McKelvey said. The consultant, Tulsa Police Sgt. Jim Clark, also said he was unaware of such concerns.
During a press conference April 20, a Tulsa World reporter asked Glanz whether he was aware of a previous internal affairs investigation into possible falsification of Bates’ training records. Glanz said he was aware of the investigation and believed it had found no policy violations.
When Harris’ family and others initially demanded release of the report, the Sheriff’s Office said the report was missing. Earlier, the Sheriff’s Office had said it was unable to find key training records for Bates.
After reporters for The Frontier and other media organizations obtained a copy of the 2009 internal affairs report, TCSO General Counsel Meredith Baker announced that the release of the report was unauthorized and that TCSO was investigating the source of the leak.
In a statement to The Frontier on Friday, Maj. Shannon Clark, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, questioned whether the document was authentic and whether the department had such a report in its files.
Yet Glanz said Monday that the special investigation report had been in the Sheriff’s Office’s files.
“When we were asked by the DA (District Attorney), we released it to him,” Glanz said.
OTHER REPORTS REFLECT CONCERN ABOUT BATES
Fidler’s memo to Glanz is not the only record showing that Glanz was made aware of concerns about Bates’ training and performance. Glanz met with Sgt. Randy Chapman, then-coordinator of the reserve program, about Bates, according to the IA report. Chapman and other employees met with the sheriff after Chapman learned Bates had been stopping motorists in a vehicle he had donated to the county.
Chapman had earlier confronted Bates about stopping cars, despite not having the required 480 hours of documented training from a field training officer.
“Well I can do it and if you don’t like it, you can talk to Tim Albin or Sheriff Glanz because I’m going to do it,” Bates told Chapman, according to the IA report.
Albin later chastised Chapman for confronting Bates about his lack of training and other issues.
“You’re dicking around with Bates,” Albin told Chapman. “You need to stop messing with him because he does a lot of good for the county.”
After that conversation with Albin over Bates’ training, Chapman “met with the Sheriff in a meeting with other employees to bring this to the attention of the Sheriff,” the IA report states.
“Albin came to him ( Chapman) and stated, ‘I know you had a meeting with the Sheriff, well we’ll have one too,” the IA report states.
Glanz, Albin and others at the Sheriff’s Office had repeatedly publicly claimed the investigation found no policy violations or wrongdoing.
However, the report states that “special treatment was shown to Robert Bates” by Albin and Huckeby.
Huckeby’s 24-year-old son, Michael, was also a task force member and can be seen with his knee on Harris’ head after he was shot. While speaking on KFAQ Tuesday, Simonson said Michael Huckeby should not have been appointed to the task force because he did not have enough law enforcement experience.
ROBERT BATES AND ERIC HARRIS
Bates was a longtime friend of the sheriff’s and managed his 2012 re-election campaign. He also donated at least five cars and expensive surveillance equipment to the violent crimes task force on which he was serving.
Bates became an insurance agent after serving one year as a Tulsa Police Department officer in 1964. He and Glanz became friends after he assisted the sheriff when Glanz’s son was in a traffic collision years ago. Bates now owns Commercial Insurance Brokers Inc., in Tulsa.
On April 13, Bates was charged with second-degree manslaughter, 11 days after he shot Eric Harris during a botched undercover gun sting conducted by the sheriff’s office’s Violent Crimes Task Force.
Harris’ brother, Andre Harris, said he felt “a little relief,” after reading on Facebook that Albin had resigned. He also felt a little anxiety, he said, and hoped that the story didn’t end at one resignation.
Undercover task force members had met with Harris a handful of times before, purchasing drugs from the 44-year-old ex-convict, but the April 2 sting was centered around a gun Harris had previously bragged about.
That day, cameras worn by deputies captured Harris entering an undercover vehicle parked at a Dollar General store in north Tulsa and pulling a handgun out of a backpack, handing it to an undercover deputy. Almost as soon as the gun was out of his possession, an unmarked car swerved into the background.
A startled Harris quickly exited the vehicle and ran north, fleeing up an empty sidewalk and into the street, where a pursuing deputy tackled him. Seconds later, the 73-year-old Bates appeared for a brief instant and yelled “Taser! Taser!” before firing a single gunshot, which struck Harris under the right arm.
Bates said “Oh, I shot him. I’m sorry,” and Harris could be heard crying out in shock and pain. After Harris was shot and said he was losing his breath, one deputy yelled “fuck your breath” at him. He died later that day at a Tulsa hospital.
Following the shooting, sources began to reach out to reporters, alleging that Bates had not received the training necessary for the responsibilities he was given. However, Sgt. Shannon Clark said Bates was classified as an advanced reserve deputy, a designation requiring more than 400 hours of field training.
Attorneys for Bates produced documents showing Bates had about three weeks of field training — a fraction of the 480 hours required. They said many of his training records had been lost and provided a handwritten note on Bates’ corporate letterhead claiming he had obtained the necessary training hours.
Ziva Branstetter
zbranstetter@gmail.com
@readfrontier
