Law Enforcement Departments Attend OSBI Major Crimes Conference In Tulsa

Law enforcement from across the country are in Tulsa this week to learn about the newest crime-solving techniques.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is expecting about 200 officers to come to Tulsa for its Major Crimes Conference.

They’re from several states, learning about everything from polygraph tests to social media search warrants.

Denise Henry is a police commissioner for The Muscogee Nation Lighthorse Police. She wanted to come to this week’s conference to get up to date on the latest crime-fighting tactics.

"We need to stay up to date, the laws are always changing, being amended and updated, so we need to be aware of the changes that are coming down and how the new laws are affecting our officers out on the street," said Henry.

Other officers wanted to meet people they might work with on cases in the future.

"It's a huge venue for networking, with multiple agencies in attendance out here, but there's also a couple of really good presentations going on,” said Captain Jack Choate with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Miles Keene helped organize the conference and wanted to put together different speakers to help with different specialties in law enforcement.

The speakers will discuss everything from crime scene reconstruction to cold cases, social media search warrants and more.

Keene hopes officers will take the relationships they form here and use them to their advantage in the field.

"All kinds of different specific niche areas that may not be the specialty of every single investigator so not just learning the people, but learning who they can reference as they work their investigations is going to be huge,” said Keene.

Officers said criminals are always evolving and finding new ways to target innocent victims, so it’s important to stay up to date on new tools that can crack cases, so they don’t go unsolved.

"If you ever think that you're through learning, then you need to retire,” said Choate. “Because this is a never-ending process, the learning never stops. so you just have to continue to keep growing and learning. The legal system never stops teaching us new things every day."

The conference will wrap up on Thursday, Sept. 22.

Tuesday, the officers will hear from FBI agents about techniques used in the investigation of Chris Watts.