(Update: Representing Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office filed a response to the petition in the litigation described below. The following article remains in its original form.)
In the fast lane of the American news highway, it’s easier than ever to pass the big stories of yesterday in pursuit of the next nightmare coming down the road.
In late 2020, mere months after protests about police violence and accountability erupted across America, a pair of deadly law enforcement encounters played out like bad dreams in Oklahoma City.
OKCPD officers shot and killed 15-year-old Stavian Rodriguez on Nov. 23 when he moved his hand to his waist after dropping a pistol on the pavement to surrender. About two weeks later, Sgt. Clifford Holman fatally shot 60-year-old Bennie Edwards in the back on Dec. 11. A man with a documented history of severe mental illness, Edwards died with paper stuffed in his ears as he ran from police while carrying a knife.
As the public and media asked questions, then-Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater filed manslaughter charges against Holman and against five officers who shot Rodriguez. Locked in a gas station during a failed armed robbery, Rodriguez was shot moments after climbing through a window at the request of officers.
The felony cases against OKCPD officers — as well as the prosecution of a policeman in The Village who fatally shot Christopher Poor during a domestic violence call — became a key topic in the 2022 election to succeed Prater as DA of Oklahoma’s largest county. A former police officer, Prater had successfully prosecuted law enforcement officers in 2014, 2015 and 2017.
When Democrat Vicki Behenna defeated Republican Kevin Calvey and became Oklahoma County district attorney in January 2023, a primary difference in their campaign positions had been how they would handle the police-shooting cases. Calvey promised to dismiss the charges immediately. Behenna said Calvey was “pandering to law enforcement” and pledged a thorough review.
Seven months after taking office, Behenna dismissed the charges against all officers in each case. Announcing her decision at a late Friday press conference, Behenna said she had hired “use-of-force expert” Clarence Chapman to review the cases.
“Once Mr. Chapman finished his review of the case, then he issued reports to us about what his belief was and whether or not it was a justifiable use of force or an excessive use of force,” Behenna said during her July 28, 2023, press conference.
Even before Behenna announced she was dismissing the cases, I had requested her contract with Chapman, a 40-year law enforcement officer whose career as an expert witness has historically involved testimony favoring police defendants. In the early 1990s, when Chapman was still employed as a captain by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he was paid to testify in defense of the county in dozens of excessive force cases, an arrangement that drew allegations of financial double-dipping and spurred the formation of his consulting company, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Despite Chapman’s extensive background at the sheriff’s department and his tenure as chief for the University of California Los Angeles Police Department, Behenna said she believed he offered a neutral perspective on the manslaughter cases she had inherited.
“Actually, I looked diligently to find a use-of-force expert that was not, what I considered, tied too closely to law enforcement,” Behenna said. “There aren’t a lot of use-of-force experts in the United States, and one of the reasons we landed on Mr. Chapman was because he did not.”
In a press release announcing her decision, Behenna’s office included direct quotes from Chapman’s reports. Regarding the fatal shooting of Rodriguez, the release stated:
Officers are trained to continuously assess a suspect’s actions and be prepared to shift as needed to the appropriate force needed.
In Chapman’s opinion, Stavian “created a sufficiency of fear” in the minds of the officers. He was repeatedly told to show his hands and to get on the ground. Instead of complying, Stavian lifted the front of his shirt and pulled a semi-automatic pistol from his waistband and dropped it on the ground. After which Stavian continued ignoring the officers’ commands and lowered his left hand to the side of his waistband. “The act of a suspect facing and making eye contact with uniformed armed police officers while disobeying orders and lowering his hand to his waistband area as if retrieving a firearm can be reasonably interpretated (sic) as an imminent deadly threat requiring defensive action. The five officers acted lawfully and appropriately in the fact of an imminent and credible deadly threat.”
Over the months that followed, I made additional requests to Behenna’s office for her contract with Chapman and the entirety of his referenced reports. Each request was denied.
‘Make a decision based on facts’
One year later, I’m not exactly thrilled to be filing another lawsuit alleging violations of the Oklahoma Open Records Act, but that’s what had to be done Friday, July 26, in Oklahoma County District Court.
You can find our petition requesting relief embedded below. Our preceding correspondence with Assistant District Attorney Aaron Etherington can be reviewed in the exhibits.
As we await Behenna’s response — which will be uploaded here when filed — it’s important to remember that government actors must establish that an Open Records Act exemption applies to documents in order to withhold them from the public. Considering the gravity of police-shooting cases as well as the topic’s impact both historically and moving forward, our organization has turned to the courts in pursuit of contractual documents and Clarence Chapman’s reports, snippets of which have already been disclosed in a press release.
“I know how highly-charged the topic of law enforcement use-of-force is in the current environment,” Behenna said in the release. “It is critical to evaluate each case independently and make a decision based on facts, not emotion. No matter what the ultimate decision is, there is a family that is going to be changed forever. I do not take these decisions lightly and they are not made in a vacuum.”
Indeed, they are not. But as a matter of law and fact, I must challenge the decision to withhold these records.
Read the NonDoc v. Behenna petition
(Correction: This article was updated at 9:15 a.m. Monday, Aug. 5, to correct the age of Stavian Rodriguez. NonDoc regrets the error.)
