<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4K3W62_1GuCzanj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4K3W62_1GuCzanj00" width="600" height="338" ><figcaption>Carl Shortt , Oklahoma City</figcaption></figure>Beggs Had Five Police Chiefs in 16 Months. And It Had No Police At All for 48 Days.When John Palacio took over as assistant chief of the Beggs Police Department, he got access to the reporting system and started reading. What he found — dozens of uninvestigated burglaries, missing M16 rifles from the department safe, a radio that couldn’t reach the county sheriff — convinced him he’d walked into something extraordinary. “I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life,” he said.Raynee Howell reports that Beggs employed five police chiefs in 16 months. Palacio was No. 3. He lasted until December 2025, when he resigned after a dispute with the city over how he tracked his hours. Three more officers — interim chief Daniel Gilbert, assistant chief Bobby Tollette and part-time officer Bobby Sappington — resigned together at the end of July after the city brought in a third-party investigator. Their letters cited internal conflict, an officer they said received preferential treatment from the mayor and a chain of command that had essentially dissolved. The interim chief appointed after them resigned a week later without leaving a note.That set off a cascade. The attorney general’s office stepped in Aug. 14, providing 30 days of municipal police authority. It then left — no transition plan, no records filed with the county or Secretary of State as required by law, and no extension of the interlocal agreement despite language in the contract permitting one. For 48 days, Beggs had no officers.Oklahoma Watch’s open records requests surfaced additional concerns: a blood sample allegedly left in a department refrigerator for 30 days in a vehicular death case, potentially violating state evidence law. The city said it had no access to an evidence log. The mayor declined to comment.Beggs has since appointed a new chief, Tristan Hall, from the Cherokee Police Department. At the meeting where Hall was confirmed, a city council member was arrested for grand larceny after taking a blogger’s phone during an altercation over a camera. Oklahoma is Oklahoma.More worth knowing: Schools Continue To StruggleEvaluations of Oklahoma’s public education system found low rates of academic achievement in reading, math and science but promise in other areas. The Oklahoma State Report Cards released on oklaschools.com with a trove of data from the 2025-26 school year. [Oklahoma Voice] [Tulsa World ▲]PSO Get Rate Increase ApprovalThe Oklahoma Corporation Commission approved a 3.55% increase to Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s residential customer rates, which critics argued was driven by efforts to attract large-load industrial projects, such as data centers. [NonDoc]Blotter Notes, Guthrie PD, Oct. 16–18A man called to report that his mother had brought someone into the house and showed him the gun safe while he was out. The visitor offered to buy a gun. The next day the man checked the safe and the gun was gone. He called back the following afternoon to say he’d found the original receipts with the serial numbers on them … A caller on North Cedar reported a tan Lab on her front porch that would not leave … A woman who had just moved into an apartment on East Pleasant Hills called at 2:30 a.m. because her key wouldn’t work and the lock was broken … A man was reported on a church porch on Woodlawn charging his phone. The caller wanted him trespassed … At 12:28 a.m. on Oct. 18, two to four people were reported breaking in through a window off the alley at the Annex building … A storage unit on East College was possibly broken into. The renter didn’t think anything was missing, but the back wall was damaged and screws were gone … And a caller on East Harrison reported a tan Honda Odyssey parked in front of her house for an unknown length of time, from which had dumped trash in her yard. She then asked that no officer contact her and no report be made. [Guthrie NewsLeader]▲=Possible paywallOn November 9, 1917, Tulsa police handed over IWW union members to the Knights of Liberty, who whipped, tarred and feathered them.Ciao for now,Ted StreuliExecutive Director, Oklahoma Watch<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3IgxKp_1GuCzanj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3IgxKp_1GuCzanj00" width="800" height="1000" ></figure>Help Us Make a DifferenceOklahoma needs high-quality investigative journalism. That is our mission at Oklahoma Watch. We produce stories that hold government and public officials accountable and make transparent what some prefer to keep secret. We depend on financial support from readers like you to sustain our coverage. Will you help us make a difference?<h2>Support our publication </h2>Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.</div></body>

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Beggs Had Five Police Chiefs in 16 Months. And It Had No Police At All for 48 Days. When John Palacio took over as assistant chief of the Beggs Police Department, he got access to the reporting system and started reading. What he found — dozens of uninvestigated burglaries, missing M16 rifles from the department safe, a radio that couldn’t reach the county sheriff — convinced him he’d walked into something extraordinary. “I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life,” he said.

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Beggs Had Five Police Chiefs in 16 Months. And It Had No Police At All for 48 Days. When John Palacio took over as assistant chief of the Beggs Police Depa

First Watch: Stuff You Should Know

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