A condolence letter sent by the sheriff in Tulsa County was returned to him, after he got the fallen officer’s name wrong, mixing it up with the suspect in a murder case.
Then to add insult to injury, the Sheriff failed to provide assistance while most of the Sapulpa police force was attending the slain officer’s funeral.
Police say officer Trey Pritchard and his cousin, Jeffrey Grafton, were fatally shot at the Traveler’s Inn Motel in Midwest City on Aug. 15. Investigators say the two were trying to get Grafton’s stolen pickup back from Grafton’s son, Jonathan Grafton. Jonathan and his girlfriend were subsequently arrested for the homicides.
When the Sheriff sent a condolence letter – which his secretary typed—he identified Jonathan Grafton as the fallen officer, and misspelled the last name.
Stanley Glanz’s letter prompted Sapulpa Police Chief Rick Rumsey to write in return: “It is with a sad heart from a disappointed Police Department that I must return your letter of sympathy….In my thirty-two years as a law enforcement officer, I have never read such a disrespectful and misstated document.”
The mistakes were made by a secretary who typed the letter, Glanz said, adding he had the secretary apologize to Rumsey’s secretary and explain what happened, Tulsa World reported.
Glanz said he signed the letter “without going through it totally like I should.”
According to the local paper, the chief was also upset with a phone conversation he had with a Tulsa County sheriff’s major who reportedly refused to have the Sheriff’s Office handle the investigation at a homicide scene, while all Sapulpa police officers were at officer Pritchard’s burial.
The police chief wrote in his letter that hundreds of officers were at the funeral, along with honor guards from across the state, but representatives of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office were “noticeably absent.”
Glanz confirmed that he didn’t have an honor guard there, because of staffing issues and added, “Things are really in disarray.”
Jonathan Grafton and Daphne Mason were arrested on murder complaints days after the bodies of Pritchard and Jeffrey Grafton were found. Trey Pritchard was posthumously promoted to police captain at his funeral.
The chief wrote to Glanz: “In closing, words cannot express the disappointment I feel toward you and your department… I have never witnessed such a break in our law enforcement family.”
