The Tulsa Police Department is losing veteran officers by the droves. There is a reason for it, and you’ve heard it happening all around the country. Law enforcement officers spend their shift putting their lives on the line to protect our streets with no backup from their leadership or the people that occupy City Hall. The pay is terrible, and every day, elected politicians push divisive policies that turn the people against them.
The Tatum Report recently sat down with a 23-year veteran on the Tulsa Police Department, former K9 Handler, and Trainer Clint Jordan to discuss why he left and why he thinks others are following suit. Jordan said when he joined the force in 1998, it was to become a K9 Handler.
“I’ve always known I wanted to do K9s,” former Officer Jordan explained. “I had multiple dogs growing up who were pups from K9s from the Tulsa Police Department. I’ve always had a thing for them.” He laughs as he said he had to try “twice” for a K9 spot. But after earning his place, he said, “it flourished from there.”
Jordan started working his way into a training position and has spent the last five years training new officers and police dogs. According to Jordan, his K9s were both criminal apprehension dogs and drug-detection dogs. “The only time we got the dogs out was for a felony or a serious misdemeanor.”
The good didn’t outweigh the bad for former K9 Handler and Trainer Clint Jordan. Jordan said that goal of the Tulsa Police Department shifted during his tenure, and the new objective wasn’t going to bring him home to the family at the end of the shift.
“When I started,” he said, it was “go out there, arrest the bad guys, protect the citizens, take reports and follow up when you can,” but after a while, the culture shifted. It was no longer okay to arrest criminals without first pointing to the most recent awareness training. “It seems like there was a lot more proactive [policing] going on,” at the beginning, and now “the interest isn’t there anymore.”
Last year the Tulsa Police Department lost an officer during a traffic stop. Sgt. Craig Johnson was shot and killed while assisting Officer Aurash Zarkeshan. Jordan claimed the officers gave the suspect, David Anthony Ware, “multiple commands, thirty or something before they even used a taser.” Jordan blames the emphasis on “de-escalation,” saying, “I think that gives the people time to think about what they are going to do to that police officer.”
He said, “The culture right now with Defund the Police and people constantly filming with their cameras” made him shift his focus from safety to, “Do I want to get sued? Do I want to lose my job? For doing 100% correctly what I’ve been trained to do.”
When asked about the idea that City Hall should be diverting funds away from the Police Department budget and put it toward social workers, Jordan said it doesn’t work. “A social worker cannot handle a man with a gun. A social worker cannot handle a domestic violence situation. A social worker cannot handle an armed robbery in progress,” he responded. Jordan also pointed out social workers can be a distraction to the officers and could “get hurt” because they are not trained for those situations.
He noticed that whenever he would use his dog and arrest the suspect, the leadership inside the department had little to say. However, he said, “The only time I got a pat on the back was the one time I held the dog back from apprehending someone, which I should have, technically in that situation, let the dog apprehend.”
It all came to a head last year in September 2020, while on a call Jordan has done many times before. But this time, his focus was off. He was called in to help apprehend an armed robbery suspect who had escaped into a thicket inside a heavily wooded area. He said the focus was making sure the body camera picked up the “seven commands” he gave the subject before releasing his dog.
“I put myself in danger and put that backing officer in danger. If that guy had a gun, he could have popped us at any point in time he wanted to because he could see us, but I couldn’t see him.” Jordan called it a “numbing” situation. “I risked my everything because I was more worried about what the camera was going to see than coming home alive.”
It’s the administration “bending” that puts him off the most, and he says they need to let the officers “do their jobs safely.” Jordan decided to retire in December 2020 after the September apprehension. He no longer felt he could keep himself and his other officer safe.
Jordan doesn’t see the culture in Tulsa or the Police Department getting any better. “I only see it getting worse from here. Until we get different administration, I don’t see it getting any better. They are just going to keep bending.”
Look no further than Tulsa’s decision to name a street after Black Lives Matter, a political organization famous for screaming “death to cops” while burning down police stations. Jordan called the decision “the biggest slap in the face to officers” he has seen. “They want officers hurt. They want officers killed, and we are going to put a street sign up for them?”
Why would anyone want to be a police officer if they know City Council doesn’t have their back? Jordan said he knows of 25 Tulsa police officers who retired in May. He said, “I think it’s more dangerous now than ever for officers, and I understand why we have officers retiring at the rate that they are.”
“I think that every officer is starting to feel it across the United States,” Jordan said. When asked what his message for officers still on the job, he responded to retire if you can. “If you are not at that point,” he said, “keep your head down and do not compromise your safety for cameras or the media. Safety should come first.”
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