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Oklahoma

Tulsa Police Officer Charged With First-Degree Manslaughter

By Justin JuozaPacivious and Sean Murphy for AP - TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Prosecutors charged a white Oklahoma police officer with first-degree manslaughter Thursday, less than a week after she killed an unarmed black man on a city street and just days after police released graphic videos, saying in court documents the officer "reacted unreasonably." Tulsa officer Betty Shelby fatally shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Sept. 16.

ACLU Of Oklahoma Calls For Criminal Charges Against TPD Officers

By Bryan Newell for ACLU - We call today on law enforcement officers and law enforcement agencies around the state and around the nation to condemn the murderous actions of the Tulsa Police Department. In a world where our government continues to prove how little regard it has for the lives and the dignity of black Americans, to remain silent is to be complicit. It is well past time for the good men and women who serve their communities faithfully to speak out, and condemn this murder of a defenseless black man.”

Oklahoma Officer Fatally Shoots Unarmed Black Man In Alarming Video

By Chris D’Angelo for The Huffington Post - The Tulsa, Oklahoma, police department on Monday released several videos showing last week’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white female officer. Terence Crutcher, 40, was shot and killed Friday after officers responding to an unrelated call spotted his vehicle stalled in the middle of the roadway, Tulsa World reports. The police department earlier said Crutcher refused orders to put up his hands, but the footage appears to show him walking toward his vehicle with his hands above his head.

Frack, Rattle And Roll: Drilling Into Oklahoma’s Earthquake Epidemic

By Joshua Frank for Counter Punch - When one thinks of earthquakes, what comes to mind is usually the vast fault line straddled lands of southern California or the great subduction zones off the coasts of Chile and Japan. Surely, it isn’t the cattle fields of Texas or the rolling plains of Ohio and Oklahoma. Natural disasters in the central and southern United States typically blow in with the winds in the form of deadly tornadoes and storms. Yet, thanks to the insatiable rush to tap every last drop of oil and gas from the depths of the earth’s crust, earthquakes are fast becoming the new norm in “fly-over country”.

Glitter Activists Found Not Guilty In Oklahoma

By Staff of GPTSR - Judge Phillipa James announced today a Not Guilty Verdict in regards to last month’s Disorderly Conduct trial of local environmental activists Moriah Stephenson and Stefan Warner. Stephenson and Warner were arrested nearly two and a half years earlier when glitter spilled off of a Hunger Games-themed banner that the activists hung in the open-to-the-public atrium of the Devon Energy building.

Earthquake Rattles Oklahoma Amid Warnings Of ‘Inherent’ Fracking Risks

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Oklahoma was hit with a 5.6-magnitude earthquake on Saturday, with reports of tremors felt in six neighboring states—making it one of the strongest quakes in Oklahoma's history and fueling a growing consensus that the cause lies with wastewater disposal from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. CNN reported that the event also rattled Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa, citing geophysicists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who said it "occurred as the result of shallow strike-slip faulting."

Is Coal Ash Killing This Oklahoma Town?

By Staff of Inside Climate News - The wind that blows through Bokoshe, Okla. is an ominous one. A small, low-income town near the Arkansas border, Bokoshe sits in the shadow of a coal power plant. Its toxic byproduct, coal ash, is trucked daily to a nearby dump, and when the wind blows through town, that ash rains down on its residents. They believe it is to blame for the asthma and cancer that runs rampant there. For six years, one photographer has documented the story, and struggles, of the people of Bokoshe.

Cops Called On Reporter Asking About Climate At Oil & Gas Convention

By Steve Horn for Counter Punch - On October 1, I arrived at the Oklahoma City headquarters of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) — a congressionally-chartered collective of oil and gas producing states — hoping for an interview. There to ask IOGCC if it believed human activity (and specifically oil and gas drilling) causes climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, my plans that day came to a screeching halt when cops from the Oklahoma City Police Department rolled up and said that they had received a 9-1-1 call reporting me and my activity as “suspicious” (listen to the audio here). What IOGCC apparently didn’t tell the cops, though, was that I had already told them via email that I would be in the area that day and would like to do an interview.

City Turns ‘Columbus’ Day To ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’

By Mackenzie Wright for Newsiosity. Anadrako City, OK - For decades, celebrating 'Columbus Day' has been hotly debated. Many feel Christopher Columbus is largely responsible for the decimation of the Native Americans, and giving him a day of celebration just adds insult to injury. In a progressive move, a town in Oklahoma has changed all that. The Anadarko City Council voted on September 14th to change 'Columbus Day' to 'Indigenous Peoples’ Day.' The vote was unanimous, and from now on, instead of honoring Columbus, the town will honor Native Americans. The idea originally came from local Native Americans who convinced the council why it's insulting for Americans to honor Columbus, who they consider a genocidal imperialist. Considering Oklahoma's large Native American population, it felt like an appropriate place to begin making a change.

40 Earthquakes Hit Frack-Happy Oklahoma In Last 7 Days

By Cole Mellino in EcoWatch - Yesterday Oklahoma recorded five earthquakes centered near Crescent, Oklahoma, some of which were felt in at least five states—Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. Three of the quakes measured above 4.0-magnitude and the biggest of these was a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, the strongest earthquake in the region since a magnitude-4.9 near Conway Springs, Kansas, on Nov. 12, 2014. The strongest magnitude earthquake on record occurred onNov. 5, 2011 and registered as 5.6-magnitude. There was no reported significant damage from the earthquakes, but the rate of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by about 50 percent in the last two years, greatly increasing the chance for a damaging quake, according to the USGS. There have been eight quakes of magnitude 3.0 or larger near Crescent since Saturday and during the past seven days,Oklahoma has experienced about 40 earthquakes.

In Oklahoma, Fracking Companies Can Be Sued Over Earthquakes

By Emily Atkin in Think Progress - If you live in Oklahoma, and you’ve been injured by an earthquake that was possibly triggered by oil and gas operations, you can now sue the oil company for damages. That’s the effect of a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which on Tuesday rejected efforts by the oil industry to prevent earthquake injury lawsuits from being heard in court. Instead of being decided by juries and judges, the industry was arguing that cases should be resolved by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, a state regulatory agency. The state’s high court rejected that argument. “The Commission, although possessing many of the powers of a court of record, is without the authority to entertain a suit for damages,” the opinion reads. “Private tort actions, therefore, are exclusively within the jurisdiction of district courts.”

Why These Kansas Ob-Gyns Are Suing To Stop New Abortion Ban

By Samantha Lachman in Huffington Post - Hodes and Nauser are serving as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a new law that could block them from using the most common method for second-trimester abortions, called dilation and evacuation (D&E). The suit, filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, seeks to have the legislation blocked before it takes effect July 1. A hearing for the suit hasn't yet been scheduled. The law in question bans what the anti-abortion advocates behind it describe as "dismemberment abortion" by prohibiting doctors from using forceps, clamps, scissors or other instruments to remove a fetus from the womb. Reproductive rights advocates say the measure is a public relations stunt, aimed at using graphic language to turn people against the procedure altogether.

Video Shows Cop Mocking Unarmed Man Dying From Police Bullet

Video released by an Oklahoma sheriff’s department on Friday shows an unarmed black man named Eric Harris fleeing police as they exit their cars to chase him. After officers catch up to Harris and bring him to the ground, an officer calls out the word “Taser” twice, before firing a single shot at Harris. The shot, which was fired by Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, was fatal. Harris was pronounced dead an hour later. The shooting appears to be a tragic accident. Bates did say “Taser” before shooting Harris, and immediately after pulling the trigger, Bates drops the gun and says “Oh! I shot him. I’m sorry.” At a press conference on Friday, a Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson claimed that Bates was a “true victim” of something called “slips and capture” — a police term for when someone does one thing while believing they are doing something else in a high stress situation.

Oklahoma Bill Would Ban AP US History Class

An Oklahoma bill banning Advanced Placement U.S. History would also require schools to instruct students in a long list of “foundational documents,” including the Ten Commandments, two sermons and three speeches by Ronald Reagan. The bill, authored by Oklahoma Rep. Dan Fisher, designates a total of 58 documents that “shall form the base level of academic content for all United States History courses offered in the schools in the state." Many of the texts are uncontroversial and undoubtedly covered by the Advanced Placement U.S. History course, such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg address. But the bill also has an ideological and religious bent. In addition to 3 speeches by Reagan, the curriculum as includes a speech by George W. Bush but nothing from any Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson.

Marijuana Prohibition Is The Real Nuisance

The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma have launched a lawsuit againstColorado claiming the state's 2012 voter initiative legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana is causing marijuana to come into their states, creating a public nuisance and consuming law enforcement resources. Leaving aside the fact that states, and for that matter the federal government, cannot force states to criminalize marijuana, the lawsuit gets things backwards – it is Nebraska, Oklahoma and other states with marijuana prohibition that are creating a public nuisance. As anyone who has ever taken an economics class knows, demand drives supply. If people want something, someone somewhere will make it and sell it to them. The U.S. has spent decades trying to stop marijuana and other drugs but the demand for them, like the demand for alcohol during Prohibition, ensures that they are widely available.
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