Last Updated on August 6, 2023, 2:52 AM | Published: October 21, 2022
OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — Friday, a coalition of Eastside OKC pastors, other religious leaders, and community activists called on the Jail Trust to remove Greg Williams as administrator of the Oklahoma County Detention Center or Jail.
The call for Williams’s ouster comes after the beleaguered Jail has seen 14 deaths so far this year, as well as one highly publicized rape among many other issues relating to conditions in the Jail.
Williams was hired as the CEO or administrator for the Jail in the months preceding the hand off of operations of the Jail to the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority or Jail Trust on July 1, 2020.
Concerned Clergy Coalition
The coalition of mostly Eastside ministers, but also leadership from the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, is led by Pastor John Reed.
The idea for the press conference came out of a meeting on Monday, October 17 to discuss the path forward for the community in the face of an increasingly high rate of death among detainees at the Jail.
The group of ministers, numbering approximately 20, met in the fellowship hall of Fairview Missionary Baptist Church to hear details about the history of the Jail under the Trust’s oversight and Williams’s supervision.
Activists Jabee Williams and Jess Eddy took time to go over many detailed descriptions of horrors that have taken place in the Jail under Williams.
Eddy pointed out that the County Jail had fourteen deaths last year, with an average population of under 1,800. By comparison, the much larger facility of Rikers Island in New York City has an average population of nearly 6,000 and had 16 deaths last year.
The count so far in 2022 is also 14 deaths.
At Monday’s meeting, absent was one notable member of the group, Pastor Derrick Scobey. Scobey was recently added to the Jail Trust as a voting member. Because of the nature and content of the meeting, Scobey chose not to participate in the Monday meeting or the press conference.
One member of the Trust was present, however. M.T. Berry, former Chief of Police and Assistant City Manager under Jim Couch, attended the meeting as a representative of the Trust.
After nearly two hours of discussion among the pastors and advocates, Berry asked for the opportunity to speak to the group. Of course, Pastor Reed allowed Berry to address some of the questions and statements made during the meeting.
Berry began by saying that many of the claims made were not true, but failed to refute any of said claims.
Berry continued to implore the group to meet with the Trust and Williams to “hear their side.” Reed ultimately decided that it was no longer a time to hear more from the Trust’s side, and moved forward to call for a press conference later in the week to ask for Williams’s resignation or removal by the Trust.
Call for Unity
At Friday’s news conference, Dr. Reed was joined by Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Council of Churches. They, along with Jabee Williams, Jess Eddy, NAACP President Garland Pruitt and a dozen other ministers from across the City and County, made a united statement calling for Greg Williams to be removed.
Pastor Reed began with comments about the reason they were coming together to make this appeal. Reed referred to ministers as the “moral agency of our community,” requiring them to stand for justice and against oppression.
Reed continued by saying that the community was encouraged by the creation of a public-facing Trust to operate the Jail, and remains committed to the Trust model as being a source of redress for the community.
However, Reed said that the Trust must find new leadership.
“Mr. Williams is incapable of righting the ship,” Reed said. He pointed out that the African-American community is far over-represented in the Jail, but that the Clergy stand for all people, regardless of race, creed, religion, or political beliefs.
“No one should suffer the conditions,” Reed said before calling on all people of conscience to stand with the Clergy in this appeal.
NY City’s Rikers Island compared
Rev. Dr. Fleck then shared comments, citing the disparity of the death rate at the relatively small County Jail to the much larger Rikers Island. Fleck said that the rate of detainee death in Oklahoma County is 8.2 per 1,000.
“To say the Jail is struggling is putting it kindly,” Fleck said. “The trauma reverberates throughout the community.”
Fleck specifically addressed the treatment of women in the jail, citing the recent story of a detainee who was sexually assaulted by another detainee while handcuffed to a rail with no direct supervision. The accused offender was shortly released on bond, and a warrant was later issued for his arrest.
Fleck said that not enough care is taken to keep the women who are detained protected, describing the booking process as “stripping away a woman’s ability to keep herself safe.”
Not an attack on the Jail Trust
Eddy and Jabee Williams also made comments and expressed support for the continued work of the Jail Trust, but with some caveats.
Williams said that the Trust is responsible to the community, and that the community is not to be pacified by the Trust, but to be included in the conversations about jail operations.
Williams also went to lengths to explain that this call is not an indictment of the character of the Jail CEO, but simply a statement that he has failed at the job he was hired to execute. “He should be evaluated by performance,” Jabee said.
Replacement ideas?
During the news conference, Free Press asked the coalition if they had ideas or suggestions for the process of replacing Greg Williams.
One of the spokespeople answered that they believe an interim CEO be appointed, and that the Trust should look to the community for feedback and input on that selection.
Following an interim CEO’s selection, a transparent and nation-wide search should be done by a committee including community members.
According to Eddy, the most important part of the Jail CEO’s work that has been missing in the past two plus years is a failure to build relationships with the community. He emphasized that the new CEO needs to excel in that area.
Jail Trust response
At the press conference, the Jail Trust released a peremptory statement on the employment and success of Greg Williams as CEO.
The statement, attributed to Trust Chair Jim Couch, said that Williams has provided great service to the community in his time as CEO, “especially to the staff and detainees at the jail.”
Couch went on to say, “As the Jail Trust acknowledges, much work remains to improve safety and security and, most importantly, to do everything we can to stop deaths in the facility. We work constantly to increase staffing levels and remain vigilant against contraband. We thank members of the faith community and others who have shared their concerns and their desire to make things better, and we remain committed to making improvements to protect staff and detainees.”
CEO Response
On Friday afternoon, Jail CEO Greg Williams released the following statement through Public Information Officer Mark Opgrande:
“Since the day I took this job, I have been focused on improving conditions and operations at the Oklahoma County Jail. While much work remains to be done, and some problems are not solvable in our current building, I will continue to work hard every day to make our facility as safe as it can be for our staff and our detainees.
“I’d like to thank the community members who share their input with us, and especially the groups who come to the table with solutions to help lower the jail population and connect detainees with assistance we are unable to provide inside the facility.”
Pastor Reed on the racial makeup of jail population
As President of the Concerned Clergy, Dr. John Reed, Pastor of Fairview Missionary Baptist Church, was the main spokesman for Friday’s call to action.
Free Press was able to talk to Reed after the formal part of the news conference was over.
As to the potential of the Trust to make meaningful change in our Jail, Reed said that the conditions now are worse than they were under Sheriff Whetsel. During Whetsel’s term as Sheriff, Reed was in the Jail often and became friends with the Sheriff over time, Reed said.
“I think that if the Trust would really unite together and present a solid front making the changes that are needed at the jail, I would have no problem with the Trust,” said Reed.
“Some of the people on the trust I know quite well,” continued Reed. “M.T. Berry, [is] a tremendous individual and all. But my thing is, now what the trust needs to do is unite together and take a stand for what is really right and with the changes that need to be made in the jail, and if it means that Greg we must be terminated then he must go, simple as that.”
“I have a problem with the fact that African Americans comprise the larger percentage of those incarcerated when we’re living in a city with almost a million or more people,” Reed told us.
“And the African American population is only 15 or 16%. And you want to tell me that the jail population is predominantly African American? Now there is something wrong with that,” Reed said.
He continued, “And that’s another thing that as pastors and all we’re concerned about, to really arouse the conscience of our city not only with the operation of the jail, but it goes to the operation of the courts, the county courts, the district attorney, the police department and all of them are included.”
“So as far as I’m concerned, you know, the whole structure of our city government, the whole structure of our county government, in some ways is corrupted,” Reed concluded.
The Jail Trust, being a public body, will not be able to legally discuss the call for Williams’s removal until their next meeting. The next scheduled meeting of the Jail Trust is Monday, November 7, at 1:00 p.m. The agenda for that meeting will not likely be filed until the Friday before.
Columnist covering local government in Oklahoma City and Oklahoma County from May 2019 through June 2023.
