MUSKOGEE — The widow of a Tulsa man who died after an encounter with law enforcement officials in McCurtain County earlier this year has sued the county commissioners, the sheriff and three deputies, and a state game warden.
Barbara Barrick of Tulsa, special administrator of the estate of the late Bobby Dale Barrick, filed the action in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court on April 20.
Bobby Barrick, 45, died March 18, 2022, five days after an incident that occurred at a store in Eagletown, which is approximately 15 minutes east of Broken Bow.
McCurtain County Deputy Richard Williamson reported that deputies Matthew Kasbaum and Quentin Lee were dispatched to a convenience store in Eagletown about 7:30 p.m. March 13, 2022, on a report that a man had “run through the back door of the store while contractors were working on the closed business…”
The intruder broke the glass out of the front door and ran into the highway, “attempting to stop a semi-tractor trailer in the road, and jumped onto a woman’s car,” Williamson continued. The driver of the car “drug the man into the store parking lot.”
A short time later Kasbaum was notified by the sheriff’s office dispatcher that “the contractors had been fighting” with the intruder later identified as Bobby Barrick and they had him “tied up in the parking lot.”
Kasbaum wrote that when he arrived on the scene he found Barrick face down on the pavement, “hogtied.” Kasbaum handcuffed Barrick “to detain for investigation” and saw that Barrick’s wrist and feet and hands “were turning purple from the tightness of the straps.”
When Lee arrived “seconds” later, “he assisted me in removing the strapping” and helped place Barrick in the back seat of Lee’s truck, secured only by handcuffs. While the deputies were untying and identifying Barrick, “comments were being made toward him” by the vigilantes “regarding taking his money and kicking him in the head,” Kasbaum wrote
About this time state Game Warden Mark Hannah, an employee of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation who had been “alerted by his neighbor that there was a huge fight” at the convenience store, arrived at the scene and asked Lee and Kasbaum if they needed any help.”
Kasbaum said he told Hannah that the emergency medical service was en route because Barrick “appeared to be under the influence of some illicit substance.”
Statements obtained later from law enforcement officers and emergency medical technicians who were at the scene “provide differing accounts” of what happened next.
Lee and Kasbaum wrote that Barrick reacted violently and attempted to “kick out of the door” of the truck, but they tried to keep him in it. Williamson, though, wrote that Hannah and one of the deputies “asked Barrick several times to exit the vehicle.”
EMT Kaytlynn Powers “said the officers told Barrick to ‘put his feet back in the vehicle’ and were trying to push him back” into the vehicle. But part-time firefighter/EMT Tate Casanova said the law enforcement officers asked Barrick several times to “peacefully exit the vehicle.”
Video that could clarify what happened next is unavailable because, “Moments after the deputies began to get physical with Barrick, all cameras were turned off.”
Kasbaum’s and Lee’s lapel cameras were activated initially and were recording “their conversations and interactions with various bystanders.”
Barbara Barrick’s attorney, D. Mitchell Garrett Jr. of Tulsa, wrote that, “Upon information and belief, Kasbaum (or one of the law enforcement personnel present) instructed the other officers to deactivate all cameras.”
Afterward, Kasbaum and Lee “tased Barrick (who was still in handcuffs) no fewer than four times and,” with assistance from Hannah and Deputy Kevin Storey, “yanked Barrick out of the vehicle by his feet, causing him to fall face-down on the parking lot,” the lawsuit alleges.
Then Kasbaum, Lee, Storey and Hannah “dragged Barrick away from the truck” and Lee and Storey “mounted Barrick’s back, and Kasbaum and Hannah applied force to Barrick’s lower extremities.”
The TASER weapon that was used on Barrick is not registered with the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Department, and the department does not train its deputies on proper use of the weapon, the lawsuit claims.
The force employed on Barrick “was neither a good-faith effort” to restrain him “nor necessary to maintain control” of him, the lawsuit asserts.
EMT Candice Wyatt reported that while three of the defendants were “lying on top of Barrick and another officer was applying additional restraints,” Barrick stopped breathing. Wyatt said she “felt for a pulse and did not find one.” Barrick “then experienced seizure-like activity” and was transported to McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel, approximately 22 miles away.
Barrick subsequently was airlifted to Paris, Texas, Regional Medical Center “for a higher level of care on mechanical ventilation post-respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest,” but he died several days later.
On April 24, 2022, The McCurtain Gazette newspaper reported that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the circumstances of Barrick’s death.
Sheriff’s Department has ‘history, custom’ of ‘excessive force’
The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Department “has a history of permitting its personnel to engage in unnecessary, unreasonable and excessive force on arrestees who pose no threat,” the Barrick lawsuit alleges.
The McCurtain County Sheriff “has a long, deep-seated history and unabated custom of excessive force,” the lawsuit contends.
MCS also has “a longstanding culture, practice, and history of training and/or permitting its law enforcement officers to … falsify reports regarding … abuses.”
In addition, MCS employees “have stated their resentment for members of the Native American community in a racial manner,” the lawsuit petition states. Bobby Dale Barrick was a member of the Choctaw Nation, Garrett told Southwest Ledger.
Barbara Barrick accuses the defendants of unlawful use of excessive force, noting the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, has “clearly established that putting substantial or significant pressure on a suspect’s back while that suspect is in a face-down prone position after being subdued and/or incapacitated [e.g., handcuffed] constitutes excessive force.”
Her lawsuit also notes that the Tenth Circuit has written that “when a suspect is ‘already handcuffed on the ground and subdued by multiple deputies’, the … continued use of a TASER on the suspect may constitute a disproportionate use of force.”
She also maintains that Kasbaum, Lee, Storey and Hannah “knew, or should have known,” of Bobby Barrick’s “serious respiratory distress due to the manner in which they initially encountered him (i.e., beaten and hogtied by the vigilante crowd).”
She also asserts that the four defendants “used excessive physical force” on Barrick when he was “already restrained to such a degree that he was physically incapable of meaningfully resisting” them.
Mrs. Barrick is seeking more than $2 million from the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Clardy, Deputy Kasbaum, Deputy Lee, Deputy Storey, and Game Warden Hannah.
If she prevails, the judgment will be paid from a special ad valorem tax collected on all property in the county for three years.
Bobby Barrick was born in Talihina and was graduated from high school in Oklahoma City. He was a heavy equipment operator for Sherwood Construction of Tulsa.
Survivors include his wife and two children of Tulsa; his mother, his sister and brother and their families, all of Broken Bow; and several other relatives.