Missing Guns, Uninvestigated Burglaries, a Blood Sample in a Refrigerator: What Oklahoma Watch Found in Beggs

Former Beggs Police Chief John Palacio couldn’t believe the condition of the police department he inherited.

Unsolved burglaries, a subpar radio system, alleged mishandling of a blood sample, missing guns and more awaited him when he started as the assistant chief and later replaced the interim chief.

Palacio said his goal was to help the department. Instead, he became the next person through the Beggs Police Department’s revolving door of chiefs.

“I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life,” Palacio said. “They warned me about small-town politics. I just didn’t believe it.”

Following Palacio’s tenure, Daniel Gilbert became interim chief and Bobby Tollette became assistant chief. Gilbert, Tollette and part-time officer Bobby Sappington later resigned, prompting the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office to offer law enforcement services to Beggs.

The interlocal agreement between the city and the attorney general’s office outlined the option to extend past a 30-day assistance period, but the attorney general’s agents left the city in the same predicament a month later.

Unsolved problems at the department started long before the attorney general’s agents walked through the door on Aug. 14.

Longstanding Concerns

The Beggs Police Department employed five police chiefs in 16 months.

Palacio was chief No. 3. He said he didn’t know how bad the situation was until he received access to the department’s reporting system.

“They never investigated burglaries,” Palacio said. “Found out in the last three years there were 60-something burglaries, and only 25 of them were reported.”

Palacio is referring to three years of incidents before he joined the force in 2025. Although there’s no way to determine how many burglaries went unreported, the Beggs Police Department filed 35 burglary incident reports from 2020-2024. Only 12 resulted in arrests. Of the 12 arrests, three of the suspects had charges filed against them. Only two were charged.

Palacio immediately began working to solve some of the burglary cases and apprehended an offender who had no charges filed against him before 2025, despite a 2024 incident report listing him as a suspect in the theft of a $3,500 riding lawn mower. Charges that Palacio brought against him for concealing $25,000 in cash, jewelry, perfume and other items were later dismissed in court. The matter was never investigated before Palacio took on the case, he said.

Mayor Roger Merrill said he was never aware of any uninvestigated cases.

“I do know that after I came into office, we immediately initiated 24/7 coverage, and those burglaries went down,” Merrill said.

Palacio claimed he made several requests to upgrade safety equipment, ammunition and more, and received no assistance. Steve Barteau, the former city administrator, said officers had to buy their own uniforms and Palacio even had to purchase his own gun at one point.

Merrill said he did his best to accommodate their requests. But like most rural police departments, resources were lacking and the department struggled to carry out their duties using outdated technology.

The radio system was a particular concern, Sappington said. It could reach only the Beggs dispatchers, not the county sheriff’s office. To call for backup from the county, as the only officer on duty, officers would hope a dispatcher was in the office to take their call. If no one answered, they were in limbo.

“They were more like communication cell phones,” Sappington said. “It just read the dispatch and that was it.”

Palacio also said he found the safe missing guns when he arrived as assistant chief. The guns were federally issued M16 rifles from the 1960s. The city had no records showing the guns were filed as missing, and Merrill declined to comment.

Palacio resigned in December 2025 after disagreements with the city over how he tracked his hours.

While Barteau was city administrator, he also became aware of an officer leaving a blood sample in a refrigerator inside the police department for 30 days in a case resulting in a death, he said. Oklahoma law requires that samples and evidence in a suspicious or unnatural death be sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner immediately. In response to a records request for an evidence log showing the blood sample’s location and how long it remained there, the city said it did not have access to one. Merrill declined to comment on any claims of a mishandled blood sample.

Based on Barteau’s timeline, the blood sample was allegedly related to the case of Donna Beaty, a woman killed off Highway 16 when struck by a vehicle. Gilbert, then a regular officer, wrote a report for negligent manslaughter on June 21, 2025. The report did not include a section documenting the evidence collected, but no other nonnatural deaths were reported around the time Barteau alleged a blood sample was held in the department.

Merrill said he knew nothing of any wrongdoing in any of the cases. Any discipline, oversight or purchasing of new equipment for the police department would be the council’s responsibility, as the city government is a council-manager form of government, he said.

“The council is in control of what’s going on in the city of Beggs,” Merrill said. “Not me. I’m just the figurehead, and I’m not the least bit interested in changing that.”

The Breaking Point

Three Beggs police officers resigned at the end of July shortly after the city council approved bringing in a third-party investigator to look into potential policy violations and internal conflicts within the department.

Resignation letters from Gilbert, Tollette and Sappington relate to claims of a loose chain of command, an inability to discipline and unfair treatment from Officer Cody Burton.

Gilbert wrote that Burton was promoted to sergeant when Gilbert assumed command in an attempt to clarify the department’s supervisory structure. In the following months, some employees expressed discomfort with interactions they had with Burton, Gilbert wrote, including statements about certain officers’ ability to perform their duties because of their age or physical condition. Sappington, who claimed he was discriminated against for his age, wrote that Burton engaged in a continuing pattern of conduct that damaged his professional reputation and created a hostile work environment. Tollette wrote that he resigned because an officer bypassed the chain of command and reported directly to the mayor and city council.

“No matter what we did, what kind of work we did, he would go complain (and) tell everybody we didn’t do it right,” Sappington said. “Even when the DA accepted charges and filed them (and) our charges went through where his didn’t. It was just a lot of this nitpicking stuff from him.”

Gilbert also detailed a meeting he and Tollette had with Merrill, in which they sought guidance about a potential disciplinary review and were told the mayor and members of the city council said it was not authorized at that time. Merrill said he told them it was out of his hands and that he had no control over the chain of command.

Sappington’s letter also outlined a close relationship between the mayor and Burton, and he claimed Burton received preferential treatment that allowed him to bypass departmental procedures. Merrill denied providing preferential treatment to any officer. Burton declined to comment on any of the claims.

“That’s one of the reasons that we went with an independent investigator, so that there’s no way that anyone can say that we were playing favorites with either side because we weren’t,” Merrill said.

A few days before the resignations, Beggs City Council held a special meeting. Concerns arose during the meeting about city equipment used during security services provided by Beggs police officers while filming “The Lowdown,” a TV series set in Oklahoma.

According to Gilbert’s letter, the officers were compensated as independent contractors at $60 per hour for traffic control and temporary street closures. Before filming, the city of Beggs had no ordinance allowing or prohibiting the use of city property for such services.

On Sept. 14, the city council approved an ordinance titled “Film Production Permits,” which established a permit requirement, among the procedures for film production activity that would involve city property, rights-of-way or services. Merrill said the ordinance was needed to regulate the future use of city equipment.

Although Gilbert mentioned the situation in his resignation letter, Sappington said his resignation was unrelated and due to the work environment at the police department. Gilbert didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“It had nothing to do with the TV show,” Sappington said. “Like I said, the whole event had been taking place since the time I got hired to the time I quit. The ‘Lowdown’ show had nothing to do with it.”

The city of Beggs appointed J.W. Mobley as interim chief following the resignations. About a week later, he resigned without leaving a resignation letter, according to City Clerk Naomi Tate. Mobley didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Attorney General’s Office Intervenes

Rep. Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee, requested the attorney general’s assistance following the resignations of Gilbert, Tollette and Sappington. Fetgatter said his concern was not only the department’s short staffing, but also the potential for an increase in crime in the city.

A week before the attorney general’s agents arrived in Beggs, an 18-year-old Morris High School senior, Hunter Killion, was found dead in a driveway from an apparent bullet wound to the chest, according to multiple news outlets. Police presence was scarce following the murder.

“Beggs has been neglected and abused for decades. This didn’t start with Roger or me. This started long ago. The can has been kicked down the road to such an extent that we were left with a lot of issues.”

Steven Diamond, Beggs city administrator

An interlocal agreement between the attorney general and the city of Beggs gave the attorney general’s office municipal police authority, including all duties and functions regularly carried out by the Beggs Police Department. When the attorney general’s officers arrived, Burton resigned. His departure left the building free of Beggs police officers.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a press release that agents would stay until the city could adequately staff the police department. Merrill said that although the contract included an option to extend the agreement by 30 days, it was never discussed with him.

“The attorney general said specifically that they would be here as long as Beggs needed them here,” Merrill said. “For some reason, the chief of the AG’s police force decided that it was time to go home, and they went home just after 30 days.”

Deputy Press Secretary Carrie Burkhart of the attorney general’s office said their agents fulfilled their commitment through the final day as signed off on by the city and the attorney general. The contract did state it would end on Sept. 14 at 5 p.m., but it also said nothing should prohibit the parties from extending or renewing it.

The agreement also stated the attorney general’s agents and the city of Beggs would create a transition plan to identify and address personnel issues, ongoing case assignments and the transfer of records. Neither the attorney general’s office nor the city has a record of one. Tate said no transition plan was created, and Merrill said he never received any kind of transition document. Under state law, to create a transition plan or make any agreement legally binding, it would have to be filed with the county and the Secretary of State. Neither the Secretary of State’s office nor the Okmulgee County Clerk could find a record of the interlocal agreement among its filings.

The Office of the Attorney General declined to comment further, but Fetgatter said the office chose to stop the agreement because they believed Beggs was capable of taking the next steps.

“They felt like the city had ample opportunity, according to their office,” Fetgatter said. “They believed that they had some good candidates for a new chief and some officers and some different options … The AG’s office has issues that are ongoing all across the state and limited resources, so they felt like the city of Beggs was in a position where they could make something happen.”

For 48 days after the attorney general’s agents left town, no officers were stationed in Beggs. And city officials scrambled to decide what to do next.

Beggs at a Crossroads

City council members entered executive session the same day the attorney general’s agents left town to discuss potential hiring of a police chief, including interviews and recommendations for candidates. Council members met again for the same purpose in the following days. No action was taken.

Merrill said the executive sessions were related to the recommendations from the attorney general’s office. He said one candidate was open to becoming chief but later backed out.

A month later, the city council approved a resolution allowing the city attorney to negotiate a possible interlocal cooperation agreement with the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office, which would transfer dispatch and law enforcement services within Beggs city limits to the county.

City council member Justin Jones continued interviewing candidates for a potential new chief while the city attorney, Rhiannon Thoreson, weighed options with the county. During that period, Thoreson declined to comment on whether the city was leaning toward contracting with the county.

Conditions in the proposed agreement allowed the contract to be renewed yearly, subject to appropriation of funds from city council, an Open Records request revealed. Merrill said that would allow both parties to decide whether to continue the agreement, especially if Beggs decided to hire a police chief later.

The proposed agreement was still in the editing stage and the cost of law enforcement services was left blank, although handing the dispatch services over to the county was expected to cost the city $225,000 a year. The agreement would also require the county sheriff’s office to provide coverage in the city 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The city of Beggs also offered its police building for use as a substation at no cost to the county.

Merrill said he wasn’t for or against either plan, but at the time of the interview, filling the police chief seat felt next to impossible.

“What I want is what’s best for the city of Beggs,” Merrill said.

A New Chief and a Scuffle

A new chief, Tristan Hall, was appointed during a special meeting on Monday, filling a seat that has remained largely empty since mid-August. Hall was the assistant chief for the Cherokee Police Department.

Although the only other officer employed by the Beggs Police Department is finishing off-site training, Merrill said in an interview before Hall’s appointment that any new police chief could start building up the department immediately, subject to council approval.

While at City Hall for the special meeting, city council member Rick Roberts grabbed a camera belonging to Guerilla Publishing owner Ron Durbin, resulting in an altercation that also involved City Administrator Steven Diamond. During the fracas, Jones removed a phone from a table that Durbin identified as his. The Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jones and charged him with grand larceny. A video of the conflict was posted on Facebook.

The altercation followed several Facebook posts in which Durbin accused city leadership of wrongdoing. One post included an audio recording of Merrill, in which he allegedly spoke to a contractor about creating multiple businesses to bid more than once; the city then posted a statement suggesting any investigation should consider the full recording, not just the posted excerpt.

Merrill said he has not purposely done anything illegal or unethical and is doing his best for the city of Beggs. Diamond is working alongside him on that mission, though both acknowledge problems that began before their time.

“Beggs has been neglected and abused for decades,” Diamond said. “This didn’t start with Roger or me. This started long ago …. The can has been kicked down the road to such an extent that we were left with a lot of issues.”

Raynee Howell is a general assignment reporter for Oklahoma Watch. Reach her at [email protected]

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