In the line of fire: Oklahoma law officers face unexpected dangers every day

In the Sooner State and around the country, the shooting deaths of sheriff’s deputies in recent years have revealed a particularly dangerous aspect of law enforcement work, one in which authorities are delivering bad news to people at a low point in their lives.

From a political activist in Colorado to a South Carolina man battling a landowner in court, angry tenants have gunned down deputies serving eviction notices or enforcing lockouts.

The disturbing trend continued in Oklahoma last week when Benjamin Plank, 35, was alleged to have shot and killed Sgt. Bobby Swartz, 58, of the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, and wounded Mark Johns as the deputies attempted to serve an eviction notice on him in southwest Oklahoma City.

The deadly shooting prompted one Oklahoma county sheriff this week to carry his rifle and give his deputies cover as they served a lockout order.

“It doesn’t feel right, but at the end of the day, we have to do whatever we can in order to make sure our officers and deputies are safe,” Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux said. “I hope the public understands.”

More:Colleagues remember commitment, spirit of Oklahoma County sheriff's Sgt. Bobby Swartz

Devereaux is painfully aware of the danger deputies face when enforcing evictions.

In April 2017, David Wade, a 40-year-old deputy with the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, was shot and killed while serving an eviction notice at a home near Mulhall.

More than five years after the shooting, Devereaux, like many sheriffs across the nation, doesn’t have the staffing to send multiple deputies on several eviction calls a day.

“I’m not going to send a SWAT team out every time we serve an eviction notice and a lockout notice,” he said.

'You never know what to expect'

Swartz worked in the judicial services division of the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies who work within the division handle requirements to legally serve arrest warrants and deliver other legal documents that notify people they are being divorced, are being required to appear in court for various reasons or are being evicted from where they live because they couldn't pay their mortgages or rent.

The job is nonstop, as a staff of 21 deputies and three civilians working there routinely handle thousands of warrants or other legal documents annually.

The division within the sheriff's office attempted to deliver 14,101 legal papers — subpoenas, victim protection orders, court summons, evictions and lockout notices — to residents during fiscal 2020-21, actually delivering 12,843 of those.

During the same year, the deputies cleared 47,371 warrants that had been issued to take persons into custody.

In fiscal 2021-22, which ended June 30, the division attempted to deliver 12,867 legal papers, successfully handling 11,754, and cleared 31,659 warrants issued to take persons into custody.

"You try to put your more mature, older deputies in judicial services," former Sheriff P.D. Taylor, who worked with Swartz for a couple of decades, told The Oklahoman.

A position in the division is coveted by deputies because of perks like being able to use a take-home vehicle as they focus their efforts on serving legally required papers to people across the county.

Taylor said the deputies within that division typically work well together, helping each other whenever one encounters a heavy workload or is trying to find a subject who didn't want to be found.

"Sometimes you come to work really early and stay late ... it just seems like people run and hide from a lot of the papers they are served," Taylor said. "When I was the sheriff, I always bragged on the agency's judicial services division because of the work they were able to do day in and out without any difficulties.”

Taylor said it appeared to him Swartz and Johns simply ran into someone who was looking for a way to take out his anger on others.

"Through professionalism, training and the use of common sense, these people normally survive,” Taylor said. “It is a sad day. When you put that uniform on and walk out that door these days, it is dangerous. There is no such thing anymore as a routine traffic stop or routine call. You never know what to expect."

‘End my misery’

In retrospect, there were warning signs about Plank, the man accused of killing Swartz, but how much authorities knew remains unclear.

On Aug. 11, Plank’s mother filed a petition for a protective order against him, saying her son recently lost his job, was angry and had at least eight guns in the home where he lived with her.

“(He) stated that I could shoot him between the eyes and end my misery,” his mother wrote in the petition.

The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office said an investigation will reveal how much the department knew about Plank prior to the shooting, and whether anyone was aware of the protective order filed against him by his mother.

Spokesman Aaron Brilbeck previously told The Oklahoman there was nothing to indicate danger, but “we will examine it closer.”

The Oklahoma City Police Department is conducting a similar investigation.

"We were not able to verify a VPO at that time," Police Chief Wade Gourley told reporters. "The information the officers got at the time was that there wasn't something right with it and that it wasn't showing up as valid. We will look into that and see why that determination was made."

On Aug. 22, at the residence near SW 78 and Youngs Boulevard, authorities said, Swartz, a 25-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, went to the back door and was immediately struck by gunfire multiple times.

Johns got between Swartz and Plank to try to save his colleague and friend, and also was struck by gunfire multiple times. Authorities said Johns completed surgery and has started to recover.

Plank fled in a truck towing a boat and was spotted by Oklahoma City police and other agencies. He loaded the vehicle with several firearms before fleeing, police said. Plank exchanged gunfire with police while leading them through the city on several highways, including Interstate 240, I-35 and I-40, authorities said.

Authorities said Plank exited I-40 at Air Depot and drove to the Tinker Air Force Base gate. Authorities said they used a stun gun to take Plank into custody. He is being held without bond at the Oklahoma County jail on complaints of first-degree murder, shooting with intent to kill, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and use of a vehicle in discharging a weapon.

Plank was heavily armed, according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Oklahoma County District Court. Police recovered 38 spent rifle casings, six spent 9mm handgun casings and three .45-caliber pistol casings. Investigators also found a Glock 17 pistol, a shotgun and three rifles, including an AR-15-style rifle.

Dr. David J. Thomas, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and expert in the field of policing, said when serving eviction notices, an officer's only information is often an address and a name. For many agencies across the country, it is uncommon for backgrounds on those being evicted to be accessed because the task is the “ultimate of routine.”

“You know, you roll up, you beat on the door and say, ‘Hey, you know, we're here to evict you,’ and that is kind of what, I think, happens in many instances,” Thomas said.

Outside of evictions, the system is different and more consideration is placed on the criminal history of a person, Thomas said.

“There's a list or a checkoff where there's a point system, and many agencies use that point system as to whether they need to activate SWAT and let SWAT execute something like, you know, a warrant or something,” he said.

Additionally, Thomas said search warrants include an element of surveillance, which allows law enforcement an opportunity to gather additional information on people and activity occurring at a location. That kind of information gathering may need to be considered for action police have long considered routine, like evictions, he said.

"There's probably going to have to be more activity that way where they have a better understanding of who's in that house and who's sitting behind that door,” Thomas said.

‘Not out here to hurt you’

Deputies are not the only ones who serve eviction notices and other legal documents.

Third parties known as process servers also deliver legal paperwork like divorce documents and a court summons.

Most try to serve the person at home. If the person is avoiding home, the process server might make an attempt at his work or in a public place.

The job can be just as dangerous for process servers as it is for deputies.

“I was threatened with getting shot yesterday,” Ann Pollard, president of the Oklahoma Private Process Server Association, said Wednesday. “It was not the first time. It is all over Oklahoma. I was assaulted in January. People love to turn dogs on us. It’s not funny. You can die. It’s a serious psychological thing to be threatened.”

Pollard said she conducts background checks as much as possible on people before serving them legal documents.

“I have served someone recently,” she said. “Something told me you better do a background check on this dude. I put on my gun. The people who hired me didn’t tell me a thing about him. I ask most of the time ‘do you have any information about where he works and where he lives?’ People aren’t asking, they don’t understand the business, how dangerous it is.”

Pollard said there is a public misconception about where the legal paperwork originates from.

“These documents do not come from us,” she said. “They’re signed by judges. You can’t believe the number of people that don’t get it. We’re not out here to hurt you. We're out here to do our jobs. I don’t think we need to get shot over it.”

‘A certain breed’

Funeral services for Swartz were held Friday in Oklahoma City.

His death marked the first deadly line-of-duty shooting of an officer with the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office since 1935, when the office was known as the Oklahoma County Constable's Office.

Swartz said in a 2018 Facebook video that he joined because he liked helping people.

In the video, which was recorded while he served eviction notices, Swartz said, “it takes a certain breed” to do the job.

He always tried to show up at an apartment or home where someone was being evicted about 30 minutes before they had to be off the property, he explained.

“It changes you,” he said. “You look at the world a whole new different way because you’ve seen the worst in people. But the rewarding part is you can see how good and how blessed people are.”

Staff Writer JaNae Williams contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma law officers face unexpected dangers like these every day