Practically an entire Oklahoma sheriff’s office just quit.

Nowata County Oklahoma had their sheriff, undersheriff, and every single road deputy resign yesterday. Most of the jail staff resigned as well, aside from four employees and three dispatchers.

The sheriff cited 8th Amendment violations as well as blatant corruption on the part of at least one judge as her reasons for resigning. The jail had to move all of its inmates to another county’s jail due to conditions in the Nowata facility, including exposed live wiring that had shocked inmates and staff, carbon monoxide levels that had sent multiple people to the hospital with a still unknown leak source, and failed fire inspections, among other issues.

The judge involved, according to the sheriff, attempted to bribe her with an increased salary after his attempt to get her to “take a vacation to Greece” while he got the inspections “signed off on” failed. When the promise of a salary bump didn’t work, he threatened to put her in jail for contempt of court if she continued to refuse to move inmates back into the facility.

Jail staff interviewed indicated they were staying on because they need a paycheck rather than any sense of wanting to be there. Dispatchers stayed on so “somebody would be there to answer the phone.”

While I think if the sheriff alone had resigned, one could potentially argue it was something else, the fact that practically the entire agency resigned is pretty telling to me. No word yet on if the FBI plans to investigate the corruption and bribery allegations.

a reply to: Shamrock6

No word yet on if the FBI plans to investigate the corruption and bribery allegations.

I hope they do and if the story is true the Judge ends up behind bars.. I would bet it would be a club fed jail instead of a don't drop your soap jail !!

I'll be interested to see ATS' reaction to this. A few years ago when a judge found the conditions of the Maricopa County Jail to be unconstitutional the general consensus on here was that it didn't matter because these people were criminals.

I wonder if they'll feel that way in this case or if they were simply using that as an excuse in the past so they didn't have to condemn alt-Right hero Joe Arpaio.

Either way, if the claims are proven true, then good on the sheriff and her department. Hopefully this judge goes to jail for a long time.

Wow it seems like there is some deep deep corruption. From what I read it seemed like the judge kept trying to get the sheriff on his side.

I find it hard to believe that it's just one judge that's making this area so corrupt. The judge must be working with the mayor and other people

Hopefully this judge is investigated

a reply to: Xcalibur254

I hope people don't really think like that. When people stop caring about the conditions of jails terrible things happen. Not everybody in jail is a horrible murder.

Hopefully some sense will come to that county..

a reply to: Xcalibur254

Typical.
Have to try to politicize everything huh.

a reply to: blueman12

The sheriff said in one interview she knew the county had some pretty rampant corruption, and her election platform was built on trying to change that.

We can see how well that went.

It is good to see the force stading up to this kind of corruption.

If this is what it takes to root out corruption, then so be it.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

Maricopa County Jail

Still better than the ones in Mexico.

a reply to: neo96

So the Constitution doesn't matter so long as something is "better than Mexico?"

a reply to: watchitburn

Just pointing out that this site has a history of not caring about jail conditions.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

No if your going to whine about American prisons.

Foreign prisons are a hell of a lot worse.

It's not only the prisoners who are exposed to the carbon monoxide and other chemicals that cause ill health, it is the Sheriff and officers too. The county could get into a lot of trouble if a prisoner sued them because they got carbon monoxide poisoning. Fix the damn jail already.

a reply to: neo96

Foreign countries also have stricter gun laws. I guess that means you can't whine about the ones we have here.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

Sure I can.

Although there would be a lot less inmates breathing carbon monoxide if they were less severe.

If I'm not mistaken it would be the state police who would investigate them. I remember some corruption issues in a city I lived near that ended in the firing of a significant portion of that department, the investigation which was run by the state police and prosecuted by the local DOJ. I could be mistaken but that's where I would be going if I was this sheriff.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
I'll be interested to see ATS' reaction to this. A few years ago when a judge found the conditions of the Maricopa County Jail to be unconstitutional the general consensus on here was that it didn't matter because these people were criminals.

I wonder if they'll feel that way in this case or if they were simply using that as an excuse in the past so they didn't have to condemn alt-Right hero Joe Arpaio.

Either way, if the claims are proven true, then good on the sheriff and her department. Hopefully this judge goes to jail for a long time.

There is a big difference between CO2 poisoning and electrocution compared to wearing pink jail clothes and sitting in the heat wouldn’t you say?
I guess you are a big proponent of making the criminals as comfortable as possible.
Maybe you could volunteer to go down and give foot rubs to the prisoners.

a reply to: Shamrock6

It's not the FBI's job to investigate this. it is the State Attorney General's.

a reply to: RazorV66

You may want to look into the MCSO's history. We're talking inmates dying because they're denied medication and inmates dying during "interrogation."

Not to mention things like rotten food being served.

a reply to: RazorV66 I'm sure you'd love to sit in a tent in 110+ degree weather. We don't have to go the extra mile to make people feel comfortable but we don't need to torture them either.