Creek County Sheriff Bret Bowling was the guest speaker for the May 12th Lions Club meeting. Bowling highlighted the events that affected the Sheriff’s Department in 2020, saying that the year started out rather uneventful until the pandemic hit.
“It really has changed the world, and certainly for law enforcement, it has turned it upside down. We are out there having to deal with this pandemic, but we are also having to serve the public. It has created a lot of new challenges, not in respect to call for service, but at the jail.”
Bowling said the difficulty is to keep the inmates and the staff safe. He stated that from March to October there were “literally” no Covid-19 cases except those that came in from other counties. Then suddenly, several inmates and staff contracted the virus. “It was scary, but we managed it.” He said the challenge “was having to quarantine prisoners. We had all these new inmates coming in and we were needing to keep them away from the others. Bed space became very ‘high demand.’” Another issue was keeping the children safe in the juvenile detention center. The Sheriff started searching for solutions.
“So we worked really closely with the District Attorney’s office and the judges to come up with solutions on how to get some folks out of the jail without upsetting the public.” He said, “When someone goes to jail, you guys want them to stay in jail.”
Bowling said the department worked through that, however, the hard part was when the staff became sick or exposed. While other county agencies were able to shut down, that was not an option for the Sheriff’s Department. “We can’t shut down dispatch, we can’t shut down the jail, we can’t shut down service.”
Locating PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) also proved problematic. “Everybody was scrambling trying to get this equipment.” Installation and implementation of it was another hurdle, along with legal issues, such as whether or not clients should make their court appearances in person.
Bowling was thankful that the Department worked through it without any major illnesses, and that he has never tested positive for the illnesses antibodies.
“So we were going through all that, which alone was a huge challenge, and then along comes McGirt.”
The McGirt ruling is a startling landmark decision that essentially says that the Five Tribes of Oklahoma still have reservations, and as a result, the state can’t prosecute tribal members for many crimes.
Bowling lamented that there were “so many lawyers,” and that each one had their own opinion, thus making it difficult to know the correct course of action for the department.
Sheriff Bowling told the club members that the reason for the new color schemes for the deputy’s cars was to make them more visible. This was in response to complaints of “we never see the Sheriff.”
According to Bowling, it has also been hard keeping and recruiting deputies, due in part to the pay scale. “We lose deputies all the time to other agencies. When we go to the excise board, we are obviously going to try to get our pay scale up, competitive with our police agencies.”
One of the members asked the Sheriff if the department was experiencing “disrespect” and “negativity” due to the social upheaval currently going on in the nation. Bowling replied, “We are getting a lot of, ‘I know the law, I know my rights, I don’t have to answer this.’”
Another member asked if the large number of dispensaries in the area was creating a problem for law enforcement. The sheriff thought there “might be an uptick of people driving around high,” but other than that, he was unaware of any real problems with the establishments themselves. He followed that with, “Here is one problem I have with the dispensaries and the grows right now: We are on tribal land, right? We are on a reservation officially—the Supreme Court said [so].” He reminded the audience that cannabis is not legal according to federal law and that reservations are considered federal land.
Ultimately, Bowling said he wanted the public to know that law enforcement and fire personnel have worked diligently through this pandemic.
