Oklahoma Highway Patrol to Eliminate Interstate Patrols in Metro Areas

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said effective Nov. 1 it is handing over its jurisdiction on metropolitan-area interstate highways to local law enforcement in an attempt to reallocate its resources to other areas of the state.

The announcement was made in an eight-sentence press release issued after government offices closed for the July 4th weekend. A spokesperson for the agency declined to elaborate when asked Monday about the news release.

The change will mean the city of Tulsa police will provide public safety services on interstate highways within the city limits, according to the release.

Oklahoma City police and five smaller cities will provide public safety services on interstates in the metropolitan area there.

“OHP is confident the professional law enforcement agencies within the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metropolitan areas are equipped to provide public safety services on the portions of instates traveling through those cities,” the agency said in the release.

“OHP will shift its valuable resources out of these two metropolitan areas to Oklahoma’s interstates and highways that have a significant volume of traffic covered by a smaller law enforcement footprint,” the agency said

A Tulsa Police Department spokesman said they are requesting more information from OHP about the change, but are otherwise able to handle the increased report load.

“What this means for the Tulsa Police Department is we will start responding to collisions and other incidents that were otherwise handled by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol,” Capt. Richard Meulenberg said.

The OHP currently handles calls on Interstates 44, 244 and the Inner Dispersal Loop within the city of Tulsa, as well as the turnpikes.

The change will not affect OHP’s handling of calls on the turnpike highways, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority said in an email.

“We’ve met with OHP leadership and OTA does not anticipate any changes in OHP patrol coverage of turnpikes,” said Lisa Shearer-Salim, OTA communications and marketing manager.

In the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, Oklahoma City police will handle interstate highway calls within its city limits, while Edmond, Moore, Norman, Midwest City and Del City will do the same within their jurisdictions.

“For the citizens, the only difference they are going to see is who is going to come out, whether it is a Tulsa police officer or a highway patrolman,” Meulenberg said. “But the end result is the same.”

TPD already has traffic experts who can handle unique challenges such as semi-tractor trailer rollovers and overweight issues, Meulenberg said.

“On the downside it’s an unanticipated burden to the department so we will have to reallocate resources from other things that we didn’t have to before,” Meulenberg said.

TPD is waiting to hear back from OHP officials regarding the number of calls this could add to local officers.

“We don’t know how big of a burden we will see,” Meulenberg said.

If it turns out to be a large number of additional calls, Meulenberg said a bad interstate highway accident could divert officers from other calls in town given a lower priority.

City of Tulsa police will continue to provide traffic enforcement on all roads and interstate highways in the city, Meulenberg said.

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