Last week we wrote about a stunning case of corruption and malfeasance where the Wagoner County Sheriff Department was ordered to harass and threaten an officer of the court, a process server attempting to serve court papers upon Wagoner County Commissioner James Hanning. In the story we covered omissions in the Open Records releases despite the existence of the records being obvious from the other released records. And yet absolutely nothing was done, we received no additional releases after pointing out they were missing.
Specifically the traffic stop video on the first attempt to serve the court papers is missing, the one where they pulled over the first process server, Christian Fogleman, asking he saw the signs and threatening him with arrest if he returned to serve the court papers. The Wagoner County Sheriff Department vehicles are all equipped with automatic cameras that automatically save the video from 90 seconds before the emergency lights are turned on and continue to save the video until 90 seconds after the lights are switched off. The system then burns the footage to a DVD, all completely automatic. Yet this video was withheld despite, perhaps because of, it depicting harassment and intimidation of an officer of the court.
Then there is the August 24th phone calls where the process server, the father of the first process server, calls into the Wagoner County Sheriffs Office to advise the deputies that he was out there attempting to serve court papers. On that recording we will hear the deputies discussing the call that Hanning made to 911 demanding the process server be arrested yet that phone record wasn't released nor was the additional calls from Hanning where he demanded “something be done about the process server.”.
Wagoner County appears to be attempting to deal with this horrendous case of corruption by hiding evidence rather than simply turning over the records and letting the chips fall where they may. No doubt Sheriff Chris Elliot, his wife Judy, Commissioner James Hanning, and several others in power want to continue abusing those who speak out or who refuse to lay quietly as they rampage, destroy, and steal. But there are others that share the power and the responsibility to respond to these Open Record requests and yet they sit on their hands and become sullied by their lack of response. Perhaps a good lawsuit is in order.
