TULSA, Okla. — William Henry Jamerson spent 24 years in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. Now that he has been working to clear his name, he is convinced Tulsa Police are deliberately harassing him.
Last month, Jamerson was parked in a no-parking zone. It ended up in an arrest and a bizarre unfolding of events that led his high-profile attorney to halls he’s not typically fighting battles: municipal court.
This week, Jamerson contested the parking ticket. He pleaded not guilty, and the hearing was moved to February.
“Every time he has a major breakthrough in his post-conviction relief case or wrongful conviction case, they are trying to do something to interfere with that,” said his attorney, Dan Smolen. “For that reason, it’s critical we get that body camera footage so we can see what happened.”
2 News filed an Open Records Request and retrieved that video.
“Why was Henry arrested that day? Why were they approaching him that day? What really brought about the interaction? That’s information we want to get,” said Smolen.
The video provides some insight. While there is a lot of redaction, the responding officers do not appear to know who Jamerson is when they approach his vehicle.
However, it is clear they want to do a deep-dive into a parking violation. They ask for his license and registration, and, throughout the video, the officers are very interested in his paper tag.
“Do you have anything like proof of sale with you?” the officer asked. Jamerson handed it to her.
Once they run his driver’s license, officers discover his sex offender registration is not up to date. Whether that is an arrestable situation is debatable, depending on who you ask, but according to Jamerson’s attorney, he should not have been arrested. Also, he has since been cleared of needing to register with the sex offender registry due to his conviction being overturned. However, from the view of the body camera footage, neither officer on scene appears to know for sure what to do upon finding out his registration is expired.
You can hear one officer suggesting to the other to call supervisors.
The person on the other end of the line is heard telling the officers that if Jamerson is Native American, “F.I.” If he is not, “15.”
2 News learned that “F.I.” means the officer should question the suspect on the scene. 15 means the officers should arrest the suspect.
The officers go back to Jamerson sitting in the vehicle and ask if he is Native American.
When he responds that he is not, they put him in handcuffs.
One officer then goes through his car and eventually it is impounded and Jamerson is taken to jail.
Hours later, Jamerson is released. The jail staff tells Jamerson that they arrested the wrong person.
Tulsa Police told 2News that once they learned it was Jamerson who was arrested, they let him go. However, the responding officers followed him to the wrecker service to still issue him a parking citation.
2 News asked the City of Tulsa for a statement and wanted to ask questions into why they are fighting a parking ticket with a man who has already been through so much.
We received a statement.
“This morning, Mr. Jamerson pled not guilty to a parking citation and is set to return to Tulsa Municipal Court on Feb. 5.”
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