TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa Police Department and volunteers have cleared out an encampment near 71st Street and Highway 169 in south Tulsa.
TPD found very few people at this encampment, but what they did find was evidence of drugs, stolen property and even abandoned pets.
Tulsa police have gotten familiar with the area because people have called in a list of issues including large amounts of trash, increased thefts at nearby businesses, aggressive panhandling, loose dogs, harassment of neighbors using the trails and shots fired.
“I was in San Francisco and it’s really sad to see blocks and blocks of homeless people, but then, like a business owner like myself, it just makes your business go down because no one wants to go around homeless people just to walk into your business,” said Damian Hernandez, a business owner.
The cleanup was just a week and a half after a deadly shooting at a camp in another part of town near Admiral and Peoria.
Tulsa police arrested Cameron Lynn nearly a week later just up the street from where the shooting happened.
Lynn is charged with first degree murder and assault with intent to commit murder in Indian Country.
Lynn falls under the McGirt ruling, so he is being federally prosecuted.
According to court records, Lynn fired shots into two tents, fatally striking Alcides Monroig, hitting another person in the stomach and barely missing another.
Witnesses said Lynn had a pistol and walked over to the camp before the shots were fired.
The affidavit shows witnesses heard two gunshots and then several more.
Lynn’s next court date is March 12 for a preliminary hearing.
After TPD posted about the cleanup at this location, many people commented with cross streets of encampments in their neighborhoods, saying that people experiencing homelessness just move to a new hot spot in town.
“They don’t have anywhere else to go, obviously. I mean, kick them out of their home, that’s probably not the best idea. It can go both ways. Needles and everything that’s not good. Drugs in the community, that’s not good either,” said Broken Arrow resident Sheldon Girdner.
The City of Tulsa has posted that they are working on cleaning up areas all over town.
In 2022, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum created the City of Tulsa’s “Housing, Homelessness & Mental Health Task Force” to get to the root of why people in Tulsa experience homelessness.
The City continues to strategize, so that the housed and the unhoused are safe.
TPD's Facebook Post about the encampment cleanup can be seen below.
Available resources can be found below.
For a link to A Better Way Tulsa, click here.
For a link to Tulsa County 211 Community Resources, click here.
For a link to 988, Oklahoma Mental Health Lifeline, click here.
