Oklahoma County grand jury relocated after fight; emails shed light on DA's apology to AG

The Oklahoma County grand jury will no longer hear testimony at the state attorney general's office because of an altercation in the parking lot April 16.

District Attorney Vicki Behenna apologized in an email April 17 "for the chaos that we created."

"I sincerely appreciate your office's generosity in allowing the DA's office to conduct its grand jury proceedings in your office," she told Attorney General Gentner Drummond in the email. "However, I do not want to further impose upon you and your staff."

The altercation came as the Oklahoma County grand jury looked into a fatal shooting in August during a football game at Choctaw High School.

A teenager was shot in the third quarter of the Aug. 25 game between Choctaw and Del City and was dead upon arrival at the hospital. A murder case against another teenager was dismissed in January after the key witness recanted what he told Choctaw police.

The slain teenager has been identified both as Cordea Carter and Cordae Carter. He was 16. Behenna promised the victim's family in January, "We are not giving up on identifying and prosecuting the person responsible."

Witnesses in grand jury testimony may have been from rival gangs, AG Drummond wrote in email

Her office said in a news release last week that the altercation took place after a group of individuals became aware of the confidential proceedings. "Quick action by law enforcement prevented the situation from escalating," the release stated.

The AG's office in Oklahoma City was put on lockdown because of the altercation, preventing some employees from returning from breaks. In an email April 16, Drummond told the DA "we lost over 1,000 manhours" because of the hostilities in the parking lot.

"I want to address some of the failures of today," Drummond wrote. "Bringing in adverse witnesses (ostensibly from rival gangs) at the same time was a predictable recipe for a disaster. We do not have metal detectors, and we did not dedicate (because we did not know) any agents to control witness deconfliction or lobby/parking lot security."

More: Oklahoma County grand jury clears Del City police officer in shooting last year

In her response, Behenna wrote that she "implemented new procedures to ensure that the chaos that was created by having too many young people/witnesses in the same location at the same time does not happen again."

She wrote she had debriefed her prosecutors and was told they had no evidence "that this case involved gang members."

"Had my prosecutors known the witnesses were gang members they would not have subpoenaed them to appear together at the same grand jury session," she wrote.

She told the attorney general that the individuals who "took it upon themselves to come to your offices" had not been subpoenaed or previously identified during the investigation.

The attorney general on Tuesday released to The Oklahoman his email exchange with the district attorney. A small part of Behenna's reply was blacked out because of grand jury privacy reasons.

Both Oklahoma City police and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol responded to the fight. A police officer wrote in an incident report that there were comments at first that several subjects had guns.

No guns were found, officials told The Oklahoman

Several juveniles were detained but not arrested, the DA's director of communications said Tuesday.

The Oklahoma County grand jury was convened in October, primarily to investigate officer-involved shootings.

Grand jurors declined to indict officer in Del City-Choctaw football game shooting

In a report last week, grand jurors reported they had decided not to indict a Del City police officer.

The off-duty officer, Shawn Hogue, was working security at the Del City-Choctaw football game Aug. 25. He shot Demetrize Carter, 43, of Oklahoma City, in the chest in the mayhem after the game abruptly ended.

The officer's attorney, Gary James, said last week that grand jurors saw an enhanced bodycam video that reflects it is more probable than not that Demetrize Carter had a gun. The injured man's attorney, Billy Clark, said he was not armed.

Demetrize Carter and the slain teenager were not related.

In its report, the grand jury called for cross-departmental law enforcement training on how to respond and investigate a scene similar to that at Choctaw High School.

The grand jury recommended that all school districts implement additional security measures for all extracurricular events.

Grand jurors specifically recommended that schools require students to have identification to get in, that metal detectors be at entrances and that surveillance cameras be installed at the venue and parking lots.

The state's multicounty grand jury has met in the AG's office for years without incident. Those grand jurors are advised by the AG's assistants. They return May 7.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma County grand jury relocated after fight in AG's parking lot