Tulsa Police Getting Dangerous Robbers Off The Streets

Tuesday, May 15th 2007, 4:09 pm

By: News On 6

It seems every night there is a new robbery to report. They are holding up people at gunpoint in parking lots. They are kicking in doors and robbing people at home. The good news is three separate teams of robbers are behind bars. These are big time arrests that make all of us safer. They bashed in women's faces for no reason. They weren't afraid to shoot innocent people, and News On 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright reports they even held a gun to the head of a four-month-old baby.

Jill is one citizen very grateful for the hard work of Tulsa police. They arrested a man accused of robbing her in a parking lot as she got home from work.

"He came up with his gun, pointing it at me, running and was like give me all your money," she said.

When she said she didn't have any, he grabbed her purse off her shoulder then bashed his gun into her face. Her eye was swollen nearly shut and her teeth were chipped when she hit the pavement unconscious.

"He did it after he got my purse and that aggravates me,â€ she said. â€œI guess he wanted time to go use my cards before I could cancel them. He ended up spending $2,300 on my accounts."

Police gave us surveillance video of the people using Jill's credit cards. That led to the arrest of Keith Tackett and Deandre Solis as they were about to hop a bus to Arkansas. Tackett is an ex-con.

â€œReally, the only place for them is jail," said Tulsa Police Sgt Dave Walker.

Walker is talking about robbers who refuse to stop. He says that includes Daryl Hess and Mitchell Sullivan. Police arrested them for home invasion robberies where they forced the men to strip and sexually assaulted the women.

"We got two shotguns and revolvers off them,â€ Walker said. â€œThey were set up for quite a series of crimes."

The third team off the streets is Colby Roland and Bennie Denson. They're accused of more home invasion robberies, including one where they threatened to kill a baby.

"They would wait until the husbands left, knew it would be just a female victim there and go in and terrorize that family," said Walker.

The arrests often don't get as much publicity as the crimes, but they're arresting about 20 robbers a month. The problem is, they just keeping coming. They put some in jail, and new ones take their place. Tulsa is having between 60 and 80 robberies a month right now and it usually gets worse in summer.