Tulsa security officers secure murder scene, detain suspects
POI News Staff Exclusive
Tulsa OK June 11 2019
Nightfall had come and people were milling about at a Tulsa apartment complex as several security officers patrolled the for loiters or suspicious activity.
It didn’t take long after the two officers had started their patrols for gunshots to ring out Wednesday morning at the Sierra Pointe Apartments near I-44 and Highway 169.
The officers, Jeff Ellis and Tyler Tate, quickly made their way to where the sounds of gunfire had come from and found chaos at the top of the stairs where two men, one holding a gun was standing.
The officers got behind cover and began giving commands for the men to come downstairs, drop their weapon and get on the ground. They complied, and a handgun was recovered from one of the men.
Ellis made his way to the top of the stairs where he found an apartment door kicked in and a man lying on a blood-spattered floor at the entrance. Dead from a gunshot wound to the head, police would later report.
Yelling commands at shadows inside the darkened apartment while police and EMS were called, three more people would quickly exit, hands raised, soon to be handcuffed.
Tate, at the bottom of the stairs stood guard over the group being held at gunpoint, some proned out, others sitting on the ground, with their hands raised in the air.
Once Tulsa police and EMS units rolled up, officers secured the scene while paramedics confirmed the death of the man found lying at the door.
More than twenty minutes of video recorded on the bodycam worn by Ellis plays out the murder that took place and the raw dangers, and chaotic scene these two security officers handled calmly, professionally and I shows how they had apprehended a murder suspect without any help from law enforcement.
For that, Tulsa police stated that they made the difference that night the Sierra Pointe Apartments and without their quick and decisive actions, a murderer might have escaped or at the very least, had a good head start on police.
