On the early morning of February 3, 2020 at 12:01am in the city of Tulsa, I heard three loud bangs at the corner of 5th Place and Atlanta Avenue. Upon investigating, I saw two or more individuals setting off fireworks at Velda Rose apartments, and then throwing the fireworks over a fence into the backyards of nearby homeowners. I called the police, told them I was going to confront the individuals, and would appreciate if the police checked in on the situation as soon as they could. The police said they'd send someone over to check it out. I swept the parking lot of Velda Rose apartments and found dozens of expended fireworks, but the individuals had left. While I was there, I heard an animal very loudly cry out in either pain or fear one block north of me. The animal cried two or three times. I walked over to investigate and on the second-floor balcony of 530 S. Atlanta, I witnessed a man put a large piece of tape over a black or brown dog's muzzle, preventing the dog from opening its mouth.

I asked, "is everything okay?"

The man responded, "yes."

I asked, "what are you doing to that dog?"

The man responded, "why?"

I responded, "because it looks like you're taping that dog's mouth shut."

The man responded, "why don't you mind your own fucking business?"

I responded, "because you're taping a dog's mouth shut."

The man continued to tape the dog's mouth shut, and I proceeded to take two photographs of the man as he did so. The man yelled down to me, "go ahead, keep filming, but I am going to come down there to fuck you up." As he continued to shout expletives at me, I saw what appeared to be a police officer in an unmarked vehicle (i.e., the vehicle had a search light and the man driving was wearing a dark uniform) turn south on Atlanta Avenue and investigate the Velda Rose apartment complex parking lot, so I began to sprint towards the vehicle to get police assistance. The driver of the vehicle did not see me and drove away faster than I could run to him. When it was clear that I could not catch the vehicle, I turned around and headed back to the apartment where I had the confrontation. When I returned, the dog's owner had gone back inside his apartment, but the dog was still sitting on the balcony with his muzzle taped shut.

I called the police and informed them of the situation and asked for police intervention. The dispatcher said to me that this situation falls under a Tulsa Animal Welfare issue and, as such, I should call 311 in the morning and report what I saw because the police were not capable of doing anything because it was outside the scope of their duties. I explained to the dispatcher that if he did not send the police to help me deal with the situation, then I was going to deal with the situation myself. The dispatcher then put me on hold, and a few minutes later came back to tell me that his supervisor told him to tell me that the police were on their way. I told him I would stay until I saw the police arrive.

Around 12:45am, a security officer approached me and told me that the police sent him to check out this incident, and that he had already checked on the dog, and that the dog was okay and no longer had tape around his mouth. The security officer told me that he would submit a report about it. I explained that I would like to also file a police report, but that I needed the exact apartment unit number to the specific apartment I saw the incident occur at. He told me he would go back inside the apartment complex and figure out the exact number of the unit. 10 minutes later, the security guard reappeared and informed me that he did not have access to get inside the apartment, but that everything was probably fine now. I left the apartment complex under his direction.

At 1:19am, I received a phone call from the Tulsa police informing me that there were police officers outside of the apartment complex at 530 S. Atlanta Ave. I ran to meet them and apologized for leaving the scene as I had understood that the security guard had been sent in their stead. The police asked me if I had access to the building, which I did not. Officer R. Gaines told me that they would take care of the situation, and I asked them to follow up with me once they knew the exact unit number of the apartment. They agreed, but cautioned me that they probably could not take much action as “dogs are just property in the state of Oklahoma.” I left the property, and at 1:30am, Officer Gaines called me and informed me that the incident happened at unit 5, and that the man admitted to taping the dog's mouth shut because it had gotten too loud. Officer Gaines said he explained to the man that it was borderline animal cruelty and that the apartment complex would probably be following up later with him. I thanked Officer Gaines for this information and then submitted this police report after having access to a computer.

At 8:01am, I reported this incident to Tulsa Animal Welfare via phone call. At 9:33am, I was notified that the case was closed and no action was taken because “animal control was unable to make contact” with the offending individual.

CALL TO ACTION:

In June 2019, the offices of Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum referred to the animal welfare situation in Tulsa a "crisis" and put together the Tulsa Animal Welfare Commission to investigate the verbiage of animal-related laws. To date, I have attended every one one of these meetings, and the focus has been how to change the legal jargon so that animals are protected and Tulsa Animal Welfare can appropriately investigate these cases. But here we have a clear case of animal cruelty, with pictures clearly showing the abuse, and both the police and Tulsa Animal Welfare refused to engage in anything actionable.

To be clear, this is not the first time I have requested action by Tulsa Animal Welfare that resulted in inaction. The issue in Tulsa isn't that those in authority don't have enough leverage with the way the law is written, and the issue isn't that people don't care. The issue is that the people in authority don't care to leverage the law they've been given to work with, even in cases of clear animal abuse. Tulsa's crisis will continue for as long as there is a culture of inaction at Tulsa Animal Welfare.

I am calling upon the city to create a sub-agency within the police department with officers who are specifically tasked with knowing the animal cruelty laws and are willing to act upon them when they receive a credible report. If you don't have any officers who would like to take on this responsibility, then I will drop everything I am doing, go through the police academy, and volunteer to be the point person on this issue, so please don't tell me that you don't have the resources to tackle this crisis when citizens are chomping at the bit to assist the city in whatever way needed.