Local publication suing Oklahoma County District Attorney, claiming violation of Open Records Act
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Local publication NonDoc has filed a lawsuit against Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, which alleges she violated the Open Records Act after dismissing multiple officer-involved shooting charges.
"I think the way that our requests for basic contractual records were handled, again, raised red flags and made us feel like we need to pursue this for the public,” NonDoc’s editor-in-chief Tres Savage said. "We attempted to avoid reaching this point."
When Behenna was sworn in after the 2022 election, she inherited three officer-involved shooting cases. One of them was the shooting of 15-year-old Stavian Rodriguez after a failed armed robbery attempt. The others were for the shooting death of Benny Edwards in northwest Oklahoma City and the shooting of Christopher Poor in the Village.
Former District Attorney David Prater filed manslaughter charges in those cases. Seven months after Behenna took office, those charges were dropped. Behenna said at the time that an expert witness in use-of-force cases, Clarence Chapman, was hired to review the cases.
"This was a difficult and very factual intensive decision in review,” Behenna said in a July 2023 news conference.
"When we learned that she had hired a consultant, you know, standard request was, let's see the contract,” Savage said on Monday.
However, they were denied. Savage said they also requested Chapman’s reports as well.
"Those reports were quoted in the press release that was put out,” he said.
They were denied again. Tres and NonDoc are now moving to litigation in search of that information.
"It really just raised some red flags about why can't we see what public money is being spent on in terms of reviewing these high profile cases,” Savage said.
News 4 reached out to Behenna’s office for comment, and a spokeswomen for her office said they were made aware of the lawsuit when we requested comment. Since they have not yet been served with it, they said it would be premature to comment.
At that same news conference in 2023, Behenna laid out a new plan to handle officer-involved shooting cases. They now all go to the grand jury for review.