3 minute read
Chicken Fried News
Illustrations by Jerry Bennett No jokes this time.
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The fact that Susan Hanchett died on her twelfth day in the Cleveland County jail is no laughing matter.
It’s impossible to find humor in the fact that she languished behind bars over an astonishingly minor infraction until they found her dead inside a cell after nearly two weeks.
And all because she called 911 a couple of extra times because she wanted a welfare check on her children. Mental episode or no, how does a simple request for a domestic contact between a willing father and a distraught mother result in an arrest and not a ride home or to a crisis center? Why was sitting in the Cleveland County jail a better choice? Who did this protect? How did it serve justice or the community? How?
All we have is bodyworn camera footage that shows a calm if not entirely collected woman no longer begging but demanding that law enforcement check on her children ending up in handcuffs. And now she’s dead, in part because no one came to post a couple hundred bucks in cash bail.
Make it make sense. Because even after the launch of 988Oklahoma, a mental health advocate, bakery owner and a community ally and pillar in the “liberal” college town of Norman, still died alone because a police officer chose punishment and threw her into a criminal justice system that cared not about caring for her.
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Like a sprawling Lovecraftian terror, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority may be creeping its tendrils towards you.
How the system works is complex, but the long and short is that the authority was birthed just after World War II to connect Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The tolls were expected to pay for the construction and then the turnpike would be free to drivers. Except, less than a decade later, the rules were rewritten so that if another turnpike was constructed, then the tolls would pay for those new roads before the costs of the previous turnpikes. And then, once all the construction costs were paid, the roads would be free.
It’s absolutely true that Oklahoma is going to need more highways constructed as time goes on and linking them to existing roads will be necessary. But should that responsibility be left to six people plus the governor? A district judge recently ruled that the authority violated the Oklahoma Open Meetings Act when it did not release relevant details about the ACCESS Oklahoma expansion, which will cut through and east of Norman on yet another turnpike, so not only is this small group making big decisions, but it’s brazenly doing so under its own shroud of secrecy.
“The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority has spent $132.8 million, spread among 12 engineering firms, and funded such work from money allocated for other capital improvement projects, including a new midway toll plaza on the Turner Turnpike. The turnpike authority also purchased several homes in the path of the proposed Norman area turnpikes,” according to The Oklahoman.
So maybe more ouroboros than Cthulhu.
THURSDAY JAN 19 Pat Green TUESDAY JAN 31 St. Paul & the Broken Bones SATURDAY FEB 4 The Jones Assembly presents Jason Boland & the Stragglers at The Auditorium at The Douglass THURSDAY FEB 9
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