Mission Details
Target: Houston Murray
Theater: Sallisaw, OK
Operation: FRIENDLY FIRE
Description: Exposure of gross incompetence after negligently discharging weapon, shooting himself and a fellow officer.
Disposition: M.I.A. — Resigned/Retired following the incident.
Imagine pulling into a school parking lot to drop off your child, completely unaware that the man now standing at the front of a classroom once shot a fellow police officer with his own service weapon, was court-martialed by the United States Navy not once but twice for desertion, and served on a police force that a growing coalition of Sallisaw residents believes has been shielding misconduct for years. That is not a hypothetical. That is the career arc of Houston Murray, a former Sallisaw Police Department officer whose story Guerrilla News is now bringing into full public view.
A Pretextual Stop and a Name That Changed Everything
The thread that began unraveling the Murray story started with a routine-looking traffic stop. Sallisaw resident Shawn Buckner was pulled over by Officer Houston Murray for a high-beam light violation, in broad daylight. Not at night, when a malfunctioning beam might pose a hazard to oncoming drivers. In the middle of the day. What followed that stop set off a chain of public records requests, community organizing, and on-the-ground civil rights inquiry that eventually led Guerrilla News correspondents to the steps of the Sequoyah County courthouse for a full press conference demanding accountability from city leadership.
Buckner's experience was not an isolated grievance. It was the entry point into a much darker institutional record, one that community members say Sallisaw's elected police chief and city manager have worked actively to obscure.
Deserter, Felon, Police Officer
When correspondents began digging into Murray's background after an arrest connected to the Buckner stop, what they found stopped them cold. Houston Murray, known to those in his circle as "Huey," entered the United States Navy and then deserted. Not once. Twice. The first incident resulted in a Special Court-Martial, the military equivalent of a misdemeanor proceeding. Rather than taking that as a turning point, Murray deserted again, this time drawing a General Court-Martial, the military's most serious judicial proceeding short of a capital case.
And yet, despite that record, despite criminal convictions that would disqualify most applicants from consideration at any law enforcement agency in the country, Houston Murray was hired, badged, and armed by the Sallisaw Police Department under Chief Franklin. According to speakers at the courthouse press conference, Chief Franklin and other supervisory personnel were aware of Murray's background when he was brought on. The question the community is now asking is not just how this happened, but who decided it was acceptable.
The Shot Heard Inside a Horse Stable
Murray's tenure on the force did not proceed quietly. The incident at the center of Mission #35 took place at a horse stable, where Murray's firearm was discharged, striking a fellow Sallisaw officer identified as Officer Desa Nef. The precise mechanics of how the gun left its holster and fired remain the subject of the department's characteristically opaque record-keeping, but what is not disputed is the outcome: a colleague was shot, Murray was responsible, and the incident represents a catastrophic failure of basic firearms discipline.
Guerrilla News obtained footage of the incident and announced at the press conference that the video would be released publicly. In a department already under scrutiny for a pattern of lethal and reckless conduct, the stable shooting was, for many residents, the moment that moved the situation from troubling to unconscionable.
What happened next is perhaps the most disturbing part of the story. Murray resigned from the Sallisaw Police Department. No public criminal charge. No press release from city leadership. No accounting to the community whose safety he had been hired to protect. He simply left. And then, according to information presented at the press conference, he went to work as a schoolteacher.
Bobby Joe Tagle and an Allegation of Brutality
The shooting of his partner was not the only allegation against Murray that surfaced during the civil rights inquiry. Correspondents and community members described an incident involving a woman named Bobby Joe Tagle, who was detained with both hands handcuffed to a bench. According to the account given at the press conference, Tagle incidentally kicked Murray during her confinement, and Murray responded by striking her with enough force to fracture her orbital socket. Photographs documenting the bruising to her face were presented as evidence. Guerrilla News also filed requests for jail surveillance footage of the incident, requests that community organizer Shawn Buckner described as an exhausting game of bureaucratic obstruction, with city officials exploiting technicalities in public records laws to delay or deny access.
The petition announced at the courthouse press conference calls for a state grand jury investigation into Murray's conduct, with the Tagle incident specifically cited among the crimes that warrant prosecutorial scrutiny.
A Department in Systemic Crisis
Murray's story does not exist in isolation. The press conference laid out a pattern of conduct within the Sallisaw Police Department that advocates and residents describe as systemic and longstanding. Jason Price, a man with a documented history of mental health crises, was arrested by Sallisaw officers on a fourth occasion despite three previous arrests all ending in hospital transports. On that fourth arrest, Price was placed in the back of a patrol vehicle driven by Officer Lolita Armor. He strangled and hanged himself with his seatbelt during the approximately thirty-minute drive to the station. Armor reportedly did not discover Price's condition until arriving at the department. No meaningful supervision. No safety protocol. A man who had repeatedly demonstrated that police contact triggered self-harm was left alone in the back of a car, and he did not survive it.
In a separate incident, a man identified as Mr. Whitty was shot and killed by two Sallisaw officers after a report that he might, or might not, be an escaped prisoner. He was walking home. He never arrived. And in yet another layer of the department's record, a Sallisaw officer serving as a school resource officer was removed from that position following allegations of a sexual relationship with a student. That officer was identified at the press conference as Blake Griffy.
A City Government That Enabled It All
The structural argument made by Guerrilla News correspondents and community members at the Sequoyah County courthouse is as important as any individual incident. Sallisaw elects its police chief, a governance model that, according to speakers, strips the chief of meaningful authority over department personnel. An elected chief cannot freely discipline or terminate officers without political consequence. That dynamic, combined with a city manager whose office has reportedly inserted itself into police department operations without the expertise or mandate to do so effectively, has created a leadership vacuum that bad actors have filled.
Chief Franklin was named specifically as someone who must go. The city manager was equally targeted. The community's demand is not simply for the removal of individuals but for structural reform, moving to a commissioner-approved appointment model for the chief's position, one that creates professional accountability rather than political insulation.
The Classroom and the Unanswered Question
Houston Murray resigned after shooting his partner. He was not prosecuted. He was not publicly identified by the department as a liability. He moved, if the accounts at the press conference are accurate, into a position working with children. A man with two court-martials, a brutality allegation involving a handcuffed woman, and a negligent discharge that put a fellow officer in a hospital now occupies a role in which he has daily unsupervised access to minors. That is not a question for the Sallisaw Police Department alone. That is a question for every institution that touched Houston Murray's file and decided he was someone else's problem.
Guerrilla News will continue pursuing the surveillance footage, the grand jury petition, and the full accounting of every incident documented in this report. The residents of Sallisaw showed up at the Sequoyah County courthouse because they have run out of faith in the people they elected and hired to protect them. They deserve answers. Houston Murray, Chief Franklin, and city leadership have not yet provided them.
If you have information about any of the incidents described in this report, contact Guerrilla News through our secure tip line. If you live in Sallisaw or Sequoyah County and want to add your name to the state grand jury petition, share this article and find the organizing contacts in our community links below. Subscribe to Guerrilla News on YouTube and follow us for exclusive footage releases as this investigation continues.
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