Recently, we were sitting around the dinner table with a group of friends and I heard an absolutely amazing story. Last winter, in the middle of the night, our friends heard loud yelling and screaming coming from their back yard. When they looked out, they saw a Mexican man, obviously on serious drugs, waist deep in their pool. The problem was it was the middle of winter and he had fallen through the pool cover. They called 911, and since they live in SOUTH TULSA, they got a fairly quick response. The man was apparently high on bath salts or one of the other street drugs that increase body heat to the point that the user thinks they are on fire and will do just about anything to put it out.
The next day, they noticed a car load of Mexicans in a car in front of their house, all pointing at our friends backyard and talking away in Spanish. The street is a cul de sac and my friends knew all of their neighbors so those folks really had no business there. They became concerned after a while and called the police. In the course of reporting their situation, they mentioned the call to their house the night before. Curiously the desk sergeant on the phone couldn't find any trace of the incident. It was obvious that the officers responding hadn't bothered to report the incident.
After hearing my friend's story, I was reminded of another conversation that I had a few months back with a former city official. He told me that Tulsa had become a defacto "sanctuary city" for illegals and that in most cases of minor crime, they were never arrested, simply detained and released. In cases of impaired driving or driving without insurance, the car was simply parked near the scene and the keys taken. Never mind the fact the owner could be back in a few minutes with spare keys and drive away as soon as the police did. He also told me that huge numbers of men, probably illegals, would gather in some city parks and drink, cook and party to the wee hours without TPD enforcing noise, public drunkeness or other misdemeanor charges.
On the one hand, I can see TPD's point. Arresting an illegal on minor charges is an exercise in futility. With no ID at all or a fake ID, as soon as Juan Gonzales friends make his bail he will be gone to another city, or if the charges are serious enough, back to Mexico, where he will just melt into the crowd. Further, serious attempts at doing something about the situation would prove politically embarrassing and might even bring the Justice Department down on TPD's head. The lesson of the now infamous feud between Eric Holder and Sheriff Joe Arpaio has not been lost on Police Chiefs around the nation. If you try to deal with the illegal alien problem in your city, the Feds will punish you. And, if you just honestly report the crime that is occurring, you risk the Feds suing your city for arresting too many minorities and not enough "majorities" regardless of the fact of who is actually committing the crimes.
So, the net effect is that we have a growing population in Tulsa who are virtually invisible to the city government and the police. They are not required to get food handling licenses, etc. for their pushcarts and food wagons. They are not required to have insurance for their vehicles. And, when the police do respond to anything less than a major felony regarding them, nothing much will probably happen. Other minority groups have noticed this and are now complaining that too many of THEIR people are being arrested and not enough people with lighter skin. They apparently want to be "invisible" too when they break the law. If the trend continues, we may soon see only "majority" (who are now becoming minorities in whole parts of the city and country) offenses prosecuted. So much for equal justice before the law.
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