OK County Jail Trust meeting canceled without public notice after victims’ families travel from Atlanta and Dallas

A group of family members of victims who died inside the OK County Jail were denied their right to speak when Monday’s scheduled Jail Trust meeting was canceled without 24-hour public notice of cancellation. Several family members of victims traveled from out of state to march from the jail to the courthouse to tell their stories, only to be told the meeting had been canceled.

In an article from the Oklahoman Tuesday, Chairman Joe Allbaugh claimed that the meeting had been canceled on Monday due to the lack of a quorum: “Chairman Joe Allbaugh told The Oklahoman and others he canceled Monday's meeting because too many trust members, most of whom are volunteers, were away to make a quorum. The notice was sent out at 11:53 a.m. The meeting was scheduled for 1:30 p.m.”

However, those in the march were given a copy of an internal email by Commissioner Myles Davidson’s assistant Natalie Robinson, showing that the meeting had actually been canceled three days earlier, without public notice, on Friday at 1:27 PM.

Deputy County Clerk Sharon Compise told us that the meeting had not been canceled, but had been called off for lack of a quorum, but the email which Compise had sent out on Friday contradicted both Allbaugh and Compise’s claim that the meeting wasn’t canceled until Monday. The email which listed the meeting as canceled was sent in time to provide 24 hour notice to the general public, but no notice was posted until Monday late morning.

Mother of deceased jail victim mocked by County Deputy

To make matters worse, Volare Kirven, who had driven 21 hours from Atlanta to march with a group of about 25 family members and advocates from the jail to the county courthouse to speak at the scheduled jail trust meeting, was ridiculed by a Oklahoma County deputy who refused to allow videographer Melissa Gray’s cell phone gimbal in the building. The deputy, identified as P. Shaw, told a member of the group “You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl”, apparently referring to Volare, who spoke up when the deputy was arguing with Gray.

When confronted about it as we were leaving, Shaw admitted to making the comment, and when Kirven said “I’m about to go back to my ghetto now, okay?” as she was leaving, he replied, in reference to the photo on her shirt of her with her deceased son, “Leave him where he is, he’s fine. He’s locked up.”

Volare Kirven’s son Dina Kirven died of a reported overdose just six hours after he was booked into the county jail in April of 2023. She has recently filed a wrongful death and malpractice claim against the OK County Detention Center, Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority, the Oklahoma Board of County Commissioners and a number of unnamed defendants.

Oklahoma County deserves better, and the apparent violation of state law regarding open meetings and lying to cover it up, as well as the lack of respect shown by both county officials and a county deputy to mothers whose sons died unnecessarily in the deadliest jail in America is appalling, cruel, and absolutely unacceptable.