Citizen Report No. 1757715199 - 1016102040

On January 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division released a report finding that the State of Oklahoma was violating federal law by unnecessarily committing people with mental illness and substance use disorders to psychiatric hospitals rather than providing appropriate community-based services. The DOJ further found that Oklahoma City police routinely respond to mental health crises where there is no public safety threat, and in doing so often escalate situations or resort to unnecessary force. The investigation concluded that both the State of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City were in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), discriminating against people with behavioral health disabilities. Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, emphasized that people with such disabilities in Oklahoma County were not receiving the support they needed and were instead being subjected to systemic rights violations.

Rather than acknowledging these findings as legally binding evidence of ADA violations, Attorney General Gentner Drummond responded by dismissing the DOJ’s conclusions as political maneuvering. 

In a public statement, Drummond characterized the DOJ report as an attempt to “bully Oklahoma into compliance with ever-changing and undefined targets.” He suggested the timing of the report, just weeks before a presidential transition, undermined its credibility, framing the investigation as partisan rather than addressing its substance. While Drummond acknowledged support for mental health reform in theory, his dismissal of the DOJ’s findings effectively deflected from the state’s documented violations of federal law by recasting the matter as political theater.

For Brady purposes, this response is material in two significant ways. 

First, Drummond’s statements demonstrate bias and unwillingness to enforce federal civil-rights protections when they implicate systemic misconduct in Oklahoma’s justice and policing systems. His reliance on polarizing political rhetoric to discredit the DOJ report reveals a strategy of deflection and minimization, prioritizing partisan positioning over compliance with binding federal law.

 Second, Drummond’s policymaking posture has a direct bearing on credibility in any proceeding where the independence and integrity of the Attorney General’s office is at issue. By undermining the DOJ’s findings instead of addressing Oklahoma’s ADA violations, Drummond effectively sanctioned ongoing patterns of discrimination and excessive force against people with behavioral health disabilities.

This conduct is impeachment material under Brady and Giglio. It demonstrates a pattern of cooperative misconduct with state and local agencies accused of civil-rights violations, an inclination to disregard established federal law, and a tendency to obscure unlawful practices through political framing. Drummond’s response is therefore relevant in any case involving police use of force, mental health crises, ADA compliance, or systemic civil-rights oversight in Oklahoma.