Grand Jury Transcripts: Sheriff Promoted Black Deputy To 'Add A Little Color'

Pages of testimony given to the grand jury that handed down indictments for former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz are now public.

News On 6 and our partner, The Frontier, poured over the documents, and there are some comments about race that caught our attention.

There are many revelations in the 341 pages - one involves a change in job title for an African American deputy.

Deputy Justin Green became a public information officer for the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office following the shooting death of Eric Harris by former reserve deputy Bob Bates.

News On 6 and our partner, The Frontier, read transcripts from the grand jury that indicted former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz in September.

In those transcripts, former PIO Shannon Clark testifies that the sheriff's office was "adding another deputy to the PIO ranks," saying, "I don't know how to be politically correct about it, but it was a young deputy, African-American Deputy," who "didn't want to be involved in the PIO position," but, "the Sheriff's words to me was, ‘We need to add a little color to the PIO role because of the issues in north Tulsa.’"

Read The Transcript Here

Clark says Glanz said that to him before Clark left the sheriff's office. Green took his position.

On Tuesday, Green told us he was not forced into the position.

News On 6 and The Frontier also read testimony from former captain, Billy McKelvey, who talked about the sheriff’s office hiring a media consultant to "talk about positive things with the sheriff's office."

He says, "One of the things that I was worried about...was the whole Black Lives Matter thing. We was trying to put a better spin on it so there wouldn't be violence in the City of Tulsa."

The 341 pages of testimony are just some of the testimony given to the grand jury. It's public because the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office requested it for a criminal case.

You can read more about what in the documents led to the sheriff’s indictments, on The Frontier’s website.