The City of Tulsa has refused to release records related to a series of deaths at its municipal jail that would answer basic questions about how people died in custody.
An investigation by The Frontier identified seven deaths over three years from preventable causes, including overdoses, suicides, an infection and one case involving a detainee who died in a restraint device. The small, windowless jail holds people arrested on municipal misdemeanor charges — many of them experiencing severe mental illness.
City officials say the Tulsa Police Department investigated each death and found no violations of the law or jail policy. But the city has declined to release reports from those investigations or surveillance video from the facility.
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