Last Updated on December 4, 2022, 6:32 PM | Published: December 4, 2022
OKLAHOMA CITY — Embattled Oklahoma County Jail Administrator Greg Williams is expected to resign in the next meeting of the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority or Jail Trust Monday, December 5.
Consideration of his resignation was placed on the Jail Trust’s agenda Thursday but no resignation letter was attached to the same agenda.
Calls for resignation or firing
As recently as the last meeting of the trust, one member, Pastor Derrick Scobey, openly called for Williams to either resign or to be fired.
Williams did not resign and the trust did not vote to fire him at that meeting. But, the building distrust in parts of the community has grown the longer Williams has been at the helm of the Jail since the trust was formed and the Jail operations were handed over to the trust.
The latest event that showed just how much confidence has drained away from Williams, was the press conference of a group of Eastside clergy and supporting activists who called for Williams to either step down or be fired.
Fraught tenure
Williams was hired as the CEO or administrator for the Jail in the months preceding the hand off of operations of the Jail from the Oklahoma County Sheriff to the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority or Jail Trust on July 1, 2020.
But, the Jail Trust was slow in getting organized before the handoff.
As we reported in June 2020, with only 30 days to go before transferring administration of the largest county jail in Oklahoma, the Jail Trust had not even established any bank accounts.
That was months after Sheriff Taylor agreed to stay on as administrator when the Trust was not anywhere close to meeting the handoff target date.
Taylor had opposed the move from the beginning. However, County Commissioner Kevin Calvey along with Commissioner Brian Maughan pushed for the change in administration of the jail.
Once the Jail Trust took over, loud protests in their public meetings became routine as conditions in the jail deteriorated and CARES Act expenditures were questioned.
Procedural problems within the jail staff continued to result in escapes, assaults, and deaths in the jail increasing each year even as the population of the jail was reduced.
One situation that revealed a shocking lack of coordination between the newly-installed County Sheriff Tommie Johnson III and the Jail staff was the death of one detainee in a hostage situation March 2021.
Enraged detainees protesting their conditions took over an entire floor and held a detention officer at knife-point.
With no protocol established between the Sheriff’s Office and the Jail staff and with no response coming to the situation, the Jail captain in charge at the time called 911 and asked for police to respond.
When officers with the Oklahoma City Police Department did, the situation became worse. Released video of the incident shows that the detainee was shot while holding a home-made knife to the throat of the officer.
However, similar situations in the past had been handled without deaths when there was an organic connection between jailers and the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office.
In the first week of November, the Oklahoma State Department of Health issued yet another letter of noncompliance (69 pages) from a surprise visit showing numerous points of non-compliance with orders that came from a previous inspection and set of orders to rectify procedural and health problems at the jail. The letter is embedded below.
The Criminal Justice Authority will meet Monday, December 5 at 1:00 p.m. in Room 204 at the Oklahoma County Annex Building at 320 Robert S Kerr Avenue in Oklahoma City.
2022.11.23-OORA-22-500-Release
Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.
