Tulsa Police Considers Adding New Downtown Division

Tulsa Police may add a fourth patrol division that would be assigned to cover downtown Tulsa.

Right now, officers at the Gilcrease division respond to downtown 911 calls.

Tulsa Police held a meeting Monday to ask people what they think about the idea.

One of the big issues is Tulsa’s homeless population and the challenges that come with that.

A lot of money has been invested into downtown Tulsa in recent years and the growth has been huge, so as you can imagine, people say safety has to be a top priority.

Tulsa Police currently has three divisions: Gilcrease, which covers North Tulsa; Riverside, which covers south and west Tulsa; and Mingo Valley, which covers east Tulsa.

TPD's downtown headquarters houses the command staff, detectives, and internal affairs but not officers who respond to 911 calls.

TPD says they would like to add a micro division downtown with officers who solely patrol downtown since the city says Tulsa gets nearly two million visitors a year.

The plans for the new division are in the early stages, but TPD says they would like to have officers walking around downtown, patrolling on bikes and officers specially trained in dealing with people with mental health issues.

Police say they want to make people feel safe.

"We know there is a large concentration of people in this very small area, then when you kind of tackle that and look at the amount of unhoused in the area, and visitors that come in this area, we know there are those unique challenges, so we have to be able to police that,” said Major Jillian Phippen with Tulsa Police.

TPD will still need to figure out a location, funding, and how many officers it would take, and those officers would have to be pulled from the other three divisions that are already facing an officer shortage.

TPD plans to hold more public meetings in the future.