Talking 2022 with Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin

Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin is about to wrap up year two of his tenure.

And as one can imagine, both 2020 and 2021 have been extremely challenging, with the pandemic, the city’s ransomware attack, and the recent high-profile arrest of two TPD officers, to name just a few issues.

He talked to the KRMG Morning News about his goals for 2022.

He says there’s been a lot of recent turnover at the supervisor level at TPD.

So, he says he’s focused on getting the new supervisors comfortable in their role, because they influence so many of the other officers down the line.

“And when we do that and when we get them involved in the game, my hope is that... we’ll be a better department after that,” Franklin said.

He says worker shortages continue to be a problem on both the officer side and the 911 side.

He says they’d ideally like to have 923 sworn officers, but he says right now they have around 800, and when things like injuries and military deployments are taken into account, the number drops to around 780 active officers.

Some good news: he says they’re close to putting the city’s ransomware attack behind them and getting some new computer systems up-and-running in 2022.

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