Man Who Just Moved To Tulsa Accused Of Assaulting People In Downtown

Tulsa Police say a man who just arrived in Tulsa from Oregon a couple months ago, has already been accused of assaulting at least four people downtown.

Police say at first, they thought they were all separates cases, then they tied them all to one suspect.

Police say they learned Richard Stuart took a bus to Tulsa from Oregon about a month before he was arrested. Police say during that month, there was a big spike in assaults, in downtown Tulsa.

“When you see a spike, or an increase that is unusual year to year, then you have to look at what’s going on. What’s causing that? Was there a large bar fight this month?” said Sergeant Brandon Davis with the Tulsa Police Downtown IMPACT Unit.

It wasn’t a bar fight. Police said every attack was random, the victim didn’t know the attacker, and witnesses also didn’t know the person. Police said they watched surveillance video, but they didn’t recognize him either.

“One of the cases, the guy is lucky to be alive. He had pretty severe injuries. Thankfully he is going to make it and be okay eventually,” said Davis.

Police said they eventually realized they were dealing with the same suspect in all the cases. Once they had enough evidence to arrest Stuart, they found out he was already in jail for another assault.

“The truth of the matter is, we may not ever know how many people were assaulted by this guy because we have a lot that weren’t reported. We are usually able to identify a lot of people on video, but this just wasn’t one of those cases. This was an unknown guy, so it took a lot longer than normal,” said Davis.

Police said they learned from police in Oregon that Stuart has a history of this behavior and he has warrants out for his arrest there.