Mission Details
Target: Travis Bradt
Theater: Watonga, OK
Operation: DECAPITATION
Description: Resigned alongside the mayor during the same period of scrutiny.
Disposition: M.I.A. — Resigned.
Imagine calling the police to report a crime, only to watch the officer you summoned disappear into a back room, quietly help the suspect pack up her files, and then spirit her out a side exit so she could avoid accountability altogether. That is not a scene from a political satire. That is what happened inside Watonga, Oklahoma City Hall, on the day a Guerrilla News correspondent arrived to ask a simple question: why did both the mayor and the vice mayor just resign?
A Town in Freefall
Watonga is a small city in Blaine County, Oklahoma, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and city government operates on the assumption that nobody is watching. For a long time, nobody was. Then a body camera captured something that could not be unseen. An officer with the Watonga Police Department, later identified in local news coverage as Monty Goodwin, stopped a man who was walking on a public sidewalk with his son at approximately 5:30 in the morning. The man had committed no crime. He had no warrant. He was simply walking. When he declined to produce identification, which he had no legal obligation to provide under the circumstances, the officer tripped him, threw him to the ground in front of his child, and placed him under arrest for failure to identify.
That footage alone would have been enough to ignite a community. But it was only the beginning. Investigators later uncovered a second body camera incident involving the same officer, this one even harder to watch. The family of a young man with autism had called police not to press charges, not to make an arrest, but simply to ask for help de-escalating a crisis moment. What they received instead, according to the footage reviewed for this report, was their son being slammed to the ground, placed in a headlock, and punched three times in the face by the same officer who had already knocked a father down in front of his child. YouTube's content policies prevented the outlet from showing the full footage, but multiple sources and local news reports corroborated the sequence of events. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation launched use-of-force inquiries into both incidents.
The Resignations Nobody Will Explain
It was against this backdrop that Watonga's mayor and Vice Mayor Travis Bradt both stepped down. The timing was not subtle. The resignations followed closely on the heels of the two body camera incidents becoming public knowledge, and they occurred during what sources described as a special meeting of the city council. At that meeting, at least one council member read a resignation statement into the record, citing departure from the city council entirely. No detailed public explanation accompanied either resignation. No press conference was held. No official statement addressed the connection, or lack thereof, to the police brutality investigations. Two of the top three leaders of Watonga's city government were simply gone.
Vice Mayor Travis Bradt, the subject of Mission #12 in Guerrilla News's Operation DECAPITATION series, resigned alongside the mayor and subsequently went silent. His disposition, in the language of the operation: Missing In Action. The community he left behind, however, was not silent. Residents told local reporters they felt unsafe. They said they believed a conspiracy existed within the police department and city hall. They said the DA's decision not to prosecute Officer Goodwin for the July 4th sidewalk arrest felt like confirmation that the system was protecting itself.
The Records Request That Became a Chase Scene
When Guerrilla News correspondent Ron arrived at Watonga City Hall to request the resignation letters of both the mayor and vice mayor under the Oklahoma Open Records Act, he expected bureaucratic friction. He did not expect what actually unfolded. The interaction began simply enough. Ron approached the counter, identified himself, and asked to review meeting minutes from recent sessions while also submitting a formal public records request for the two resignation letters. The clerk at the counter, described in the footage as a water or court clerk, indicated she was not sure she could help and would need to find someone else.
What followed was a masterclass in institutional evasion. Ron cited Oklahoma's Title 51 directly, which mandates that a public body designate at least one person available at all times during regular business hours to provide records for inspection or reproduction. The law further states that any public official who willfully violates any provision of the Oklahoma Open Records Act is, upon conviction, guilty of a misdemeanor. The clerk returned with a form, asking Ron to submit a written request. Ron pointed out that the records he wanted were not complex, were not exempt from disclosure, and that "reasonable time" under the statute refers to the time it takes to physically retrieve documents, not a multi-day processing window. The clerk held the documents in her hands. Ron watched her hold them. She still refused to hand them over.
Ron made a decision that few citizens ever think to make. He called the Watonga Police Department and requested that an officer respond to City Hall to take a misdemeanor report against the clerk for willful violation of the Open Records Act. An officer arrived. What Ron did not know at the time, and what the footage would later reveal, was that the officer did not go to retrieve a form to file the report. Instead, the officer walked into the back area of the building where the clerk was located. The two of them, along with at least one other staff member, could be heard on recording discussing the situation. The clerk was told, in substance, that she did not have to give Ron the documents that day. The officer, the person Ron had summoned to enforce the law, was now coordinating with the person Ron had reported for breaking it.
The Escape
What happened next is the part that strains credulity until you see the footage. The officer and city staff orchestrated what the Guerrilla News narrator described as a Mission Impossible-level escape. The clerk, still in possession of the records Ron had requested, was guided out of the building through a back route and into her personal vehicle. By the time Ron understood what was happening, she was gone. The officer who was supposed to be filing a report had instead helped the subject of that report disappear. The records went with her.
The audio captured during the back-room conversation is particularly damning. A voice, consistent with the officer's, can be heard telling staff that under a local ordinance, "reasonable time" meant the city did not have to hand over anything that day. The clerk responded with something to the effect of agreeing that it was above her pay grade on the whole. Then, collectively, they concluded: he is not getting it today. This, again, while the documents were physically in hand.
What the Law Actually Says
Oklahoma's Open Records Act is not ambiguous on this point. Title 51, Section 24A.5 states clearly that a public body must provide prompt, reasonable access to its records, and that any delay shall be limited solely to the time required for preparing the requested documents. When the documents are already prepared, already located, already in someone's hands, the preparation time is zero. The law does not create a 24-hour window, a 48-hour window, or any other processing delay for records that exist and are immediately accessible. The city's interpretation, coached in real time by a sworn law enforcement officer, was legally indefensible.
Ron's attempt to have a misdemeanor report filed went nowhere. The officer, rather than executing his professional obligation to document a reported crime, instead became an active participant in preventing accountability. That dynamic, a police officer shielding a city employee from a legal records request on the same week that the same department's officer remained on the payroll after punching an autistic teenager, is not a coincidence. It is a culture.
The Victims Nobody Is Talking About
In the churn of procedural drama, it is easy to lose sight of the people at the center of this story. There is the father who walked his son on a public sidewalk one morning and ended up on the ground in handcuffs, his child watching. There is the family of a young man with autism who called law enforcement for help and watched their son get punched in the face. These are not abstractions. These are Watonga residents who trusted their city to protect them and received the opposite. The OSBI investigated. The DA declined to prosecute the July 4th case. Officer Goodwin, per reports reviewed for this article, returned to duty with the Watonga Police Department. The community, according to local news coverage, was furious.
Vice Mayor Travis Bradt resigned and went silent. He has not, to the knowledge of this outlet, offered any public statement about the body camera incidents, the OSBI investigations, or the circumstances of his departure from office. His silence is its own kind of answer.
What Comes Next
Watonga's story is still unfolding. The resignation letters Ron requested that day have not been made public through official channels. The officer who helped a clerk escape a lawful records request remains, as far as this outlet can confirm, employed by the department whose use-of-force conduct triggered the entire chain of events. Operation DECAPITATION continues.
If you live in Watonga, if you have information about the resignations of the mayor or Vice Mayor Travis Bradt, or if you have additional footage or documentation related to the conduct of the Watonga Police Department, Guerrilla News wants to hear from you. Accountability does not happen in silence, and it does not happen when officers help the subjects of misdemeanor complaints escape out side doors. It happens when people refuse to look away.
Follow Guerrilla News for continuing coverage of Mission #12 and Operation DECAPITATION. Share this report. The people of Watonga deserve answers.
Everyone can join the discussion with a free account. Members get a badge, their comments stand out, and they are eligible for the pinned Top Comment. Join from $7 a month.