By DYLAN GOFORTH
The Frontier
On the same day the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation announced it was officially looking into the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, another high-ranking member of the department was placed on administrative leave.
Capt. Bill McKelvey was placed on leave Monday, a spokesman for Sheriff Stanley Glanz said. The move that comes four days after McKelvey was named in a lawsuit alleging a former employee was subject to “hostile and malicious conduct.”
Vanessa McFadden alleges in the lawsuit she was mistreated by a sergeant named Judy Pounds during her time at the jail and later fired by the Sheriff’s Office when she filed a grievance.
The lawsuit alleged that McKelvey altered a police report about a 2013 assault by an inmate on McFadden.
According to the lawsuit, McFadden called the Sheriff’s jail investigations unit to find out why charges had been dropped against the inmate who assaulted her. Employees in the unit “informed Plaintiff that they were told that ‘if McFadden ever called about the dropped charges, she can call McKelvey himself about it.’ ”
News of McKelvey’s leave is the latest in an ongoing shakeup at TCSO. The announcement he had been placed on administrative leave comes three days after Glanz announced Maj. Shannon Clark had been fired.
Maj. Shannon Clark
No reason has been given for Clark’s banishment, but sources have told The Frontier it was not related to the Robert Bates scandal. The former major had been jail administrator and served for years as TCSO’s public information officer.
He has declined requests by The Frontier for comment on his firing.
To date, Clark is the only person to have been fired since Bates shot Eric Harris on April 2 during a botched gun sting. Terry Simonson, who took over as TCSO spokesman when Clark was placed on leave, said last month that former Undersheriff Tim Albin and Maj. Tom Huckeby were “in effect” terminated after an investigation by Glanz.
Undersheriff Tim Albin, left, and Maj. Tom Huckeby, right, resigned following the Eric Harris shooting.
However, both Albin and Huckeby were allowed to resign, keeping their retirement packages in tact. Albin is currently on vacation, and his last day at the sheriff’s office will be Aug. 1, Simonson said.
dylan@readfrontier.com
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