OKLAHOMA CITY – The state Attorney General’s office will prosecute the person accused of damaging the weather radar of KWTV Channel 9 in Oklahoma City on July 6.
A camera recorded a man identified as Anthony Tyler Mitchell, 39, climbing over a chain-link fence and vandalizing the power supply of the television station’s NextGen live radar. Service was soon restored, station officials reported.
Mitchell, of Oklahoma City, was charged July 17 in Oklahoma County District Court with malicious injury or destruction of property and damage to equipment in a critical infrastructure facility; both are felonies. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of entering with intent to commit a felony.
“This crime is about much more than vandalism of property,” Attorney General Gentner Drummond said. “Weather radar is not a ‘weather weapon.’ Radar technology is vitally important and saves the lives of countless Oklahomans every year” by severe weather such as tornadoes, hurricanes and rainstorms. “This individual’s alleged action is not simply wrong; it imperiled public safety,” Drummond said.
Mitchell was arraigned July 22. Special Judge Tom Riesen scheduled a preliminary hearing conference for Aug. 14 and set bail for Mitchell at $75,000.
The three Oklahoma County criminal charges were filed 39 days after Mitchell’s previous felony conviction was dismissed and the record of it was expunged.
Mitchell reportedly is a member of QAnon and of Veterans on Patrol, which is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-government militia. Veterans on Patrol believe radars such Channel 9’s control weather, that the United States government can manipulate the weather, and that Hurricane Helene last year was created by the U.S. military.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) chimed in with a similar claim after Hurricane Helene killed more than two dozen people in her state.
A TV-9 reporter got a telephone interview with Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, founder of Veterans on Patrol. When asked whether his organization was responsible for the vandalism of KWTV’s weather radar, he replied, “We’re responsible for a lot more than that.”
Veterans on Patrol attracted national attention this year after threatening to attack radar stations operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, claiming they were secretly being used for weather modification. For example, Veterans on Patrol blamed the recent deadly floods in Texas on government cloud seeding.
In yet another incident this year, Mitchell is named in a trio of counts filed in Oklahoma County in a misdemeanor case of violating a protective order filed by a female neighbor.
The charge accuses Mitchell of being seen turning off the woman’s security camera at 2:20 a.m. on July 7. He also is accused of cutting her internet cable on July 8, an event that the victim claims was witnessed by herself and her boyfriend.
The woman also told Oklahoma City police she has endured “a multitude” of other incidents. Mitchell, she reported, “messed with the lights at her house, unscrewed her porch light, messed with her cameras, keyed her car” and did “other damage” to the vehicle.
Oklahoma County Special Judge Sara Murphy Bondurant granted the emergency protective order on July 10 and ruled that it will remain in effect until the case is revisited in six months, on Jan. 29, 2026. She set bail at $3,000.
The PO prohibits Mitchell from “attempting or having any contact whatsoever” with the victim; injuring, abusing, sexually assaulting, molesting, harassing, stalking, threatening or otherwise interfering with” the woman; or engaging in other conduct that would place” her “in reasonable fear of bodily injury…” In addition, Mitchell has a prior felony conviction in Tulsa County.
He pleaded guilty in June 2022 to assault with a dangerous weapon and with public intoxication. Mitchell admitted that while living in Tulsa, he drunkenly brandished a hatchet “and began walking toward” a man with the intent to commit “bodily harm.” The intended victim had tried to get the Tulsa County District Court to grant him a protective order against Mitchell two days earlier.
The court gave Mitchell a suspended threeyear prison sentence but ordered him to complete a drug and alcohol assessment and undergo a psychiatric evaluation. That case was dismissed and his record expunged on June 9, 2025.