> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://guerrilla.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Chief Said He Was "Very Comfortable" With the Officer the Day Before His Review Board's Chair Asked Officers for Their Narratives - URL: https://guerrilla.news/the-chief-said-he-was-very-comfortable-with-the-officer-the-day-before-his-review-boards-chair-asked-officers-for-their-narratives/ - Published: 2026-10-27T03:50:49.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-27T03:50:49.000Z - Description: On Aug. 31, Coweta's chief emailed his PR firm that he was "very comfortable" with the officer who broke a 69-year-old's arm. The review board's chair asked officers for narratives the next morning. The risk pool had already opened a claim. - Author: Ronald E. Durbin II, J.D. - Tags: Open Records, Coweta, Police Accountability, Use of Force, Oklahoma, Wagoner County, #ora-desk, #coweta-rice-investigation *Records release: GN-ORA-2026-003, City of Coweta, NextRequest #26-116\. Section 5 released October 26, 2026\. Earlier sections:* [*Records Released: Coweta Cleared the Officer*](https://guerrilla.news/p/f66185bb-14fb-4862-9c0c-5d3eb62fe754/) At 3:36 on the afternoon of Monday, August 31, 2026, Coweta Police Chief Michael Bell typed a short email to a Tulsa public relations firm. "This is great, and I can confirm that I am very comfortable with Officer Rice's actions in the video and on the scene," he wrote. "I am upset that a citizen had to be hurt over a traffic stop, but he was making these choices, not the officer." The citizen was a 69-year-old driver named James Rogers. Five days earlier, Officer Matthew Rice had put him on the ground in a chiropractor's parking lot on State Highway 51\. Rogers left Wagoner Community Hospital with a broken left arm. The department's Use of Force Review Board had not yet written a word. The earliest request in the records we hold, asking officers to write their narratives for the case, went out at 5:32 the next morning. That order of events is the story. It comes from the City's own files, released under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. ## Fifty-Two Seconds The dispatch log is plain. At 9:17:07 a.m. on August 26, Rice entered a traffic stop and noted "Old man trying to fight me." At 9:17:59 he radioed, "I've got him down on the ground." That is 52 seconds, by the department's own clock. By 9:19:03 Officer Nathan Jones had logged "bleeding from face and hand." At 9:36 Deputy Chief Ron Peterson asked a detective to make sure EMS checked the man's left arm, because Rice "advised he may have obtained an injury during the fight." Two minutes later the log records that Rice was "certain he heard something pop." The Chief was there too. The log shows Bell, unit 201, on scene at 9:18:00, one minute after the takedown. ## The Public Relations Edit Most of the Chief's inbox in these weeks is routine: radio towers, phone bills, a homecoming parade. Threaded through it is a statement taking shape. On August 31 at 3:01 p.m., Crossroads Communications president Mandy Vavrinak sent the Chief a set of notes on the draft release. She did not tell him it was wrong. She told him to test it against the video, word by word: > *"Before this goes out, I would literally play the footage beside the release and stop at every adjective. 'Advanced.' Does the video unmistakably show advancing? 'Pulled away.' Clearly visible? 'Actively resisting.' Would a neutral viewer call the movement active resistance? ... 'Confusion.' Is there observable behavior supporting it, or is that our conclusion but cannot be seen or implied from the video/audio?"* Then she added the line that matters most: > *"I don't want to presuppose the outcome of the administrative review. If we know it's a good UoF, why are we conducting an administrative review? If we don't know that it is until we complete the review, we need not to presuppose that outcome."* The firm sent version 3 of the release at 3:11 p.m. The Chief's reply to the notes came at 3:36 p.m.: the "very comfortable" email. He closed it by writing that he wanted to say "thank you again for this process and the outcome." On September 1 the Chief sent the firm an "updated press release" and a correction: "I have been informed that Jones is not the last name but rather Rogers." The release had named the wrong man. ## The Wrong Date, the Wrong Name The review made the same mistake. At 5:32 a.m. on September 1, Sgt. Bobby Pickett emailed the officers on scene. He asked for narratives from "all officers who were present at the scene of Officer Rice's traffic stop on August 19, 2026, with Mr. James Jones." The stop happened on August 26\. The man was Rogers. Sgt. Scott Fraley corrected the name at 12:35 p.m. that day. Pickett would chair the board that cleared Rice. The board later found no violation and recommended no discipline. ## The Risk Pool Opened a Claim on Day Five The Chief had other readers for the video. On August 31 at 10:00 a.m., an Associate General Counsel at the Oklahoma Municipal Assurance Group, the city's risk pool, wrote to him under the subject line "Video of UOF involving Officer Rice." She asked for "the citizen's name" and all reports, and wrote: "We will open a potential claim on this one so that we can track deadlines applicable to a claim/lawsuit." The Chief replied: "I will, but it will take some time. I am trying to navigate through this process first." On September 4 the lawyer asked for Rice's CLEET profile, his training records, the use-of-force policy in effect that day, and any prior complaints about his force. She added that if litigation was reasonable to expect, "the City is required to take steps to preserve evidence." She copied the City Manager and a lawyer whose address begins "patrickbouldenlaw." We know that to be Patrick Boulden, City Attorney. On September 8 the Chief answered: "We have already begun assembling this package, as we expected it to go to litigation." He attached our Open Records request. That sentence sits beside a public position. When the Chief published his statement on September 15, he wrote that the incident "could have been avoided had the individual ceased resisting." The statement in our files does not mention a claim or an expected lawsuit. ## What the Texts Add The release also includes twelve screenshots of text messages from the Chief's phone. Most concern equipment, scheduling and a golf tournament. A few concern Rice. On September 1 at 7:07 p.m., the director of a Tulsa-area accreditation group texted the Chief that Coweta PD and Rice were "getting beat up right now" and that he "did a great job in video explaining the body cam footage." On September 4 a contact wrote: "Rice is righteous in this. The training is obvious in his ability to disengage when Jones arrived." The Chief's replies in the screenshots are thanks. The screenshots are not the native export our request asked for, with sender, recipient, date and time on every message. We have asked for the exports. We will follow up. ## What the File Does Not Say We are going to be straight with you about the limits. The emails do not show the Chief ordering anyone to reach a conclusion. They show him telling his consultants, before the board reported, that he was comfortable. A chief may hold a view. The question is what the board was free to find after he held it, and whether it knew. The emails do not show what the board members read, or when. We hold no email to or from Pickett, Officer N. Winters, Cpl. Brabson or Communications Manager Christopher McHenry about the Chief's view. And the review board did cite evidence. Its members wrote that Rogers held a car key that could pass for a weapon. The Use of Force Report checked "Unarmed." Rice told Pickett by phone on September 8 that he saw something in the man's hand but could not tell what it was. We report that mismatch in our earlier release. ## What Is Still Missing Items 6 through 11 of request 26-116 have not been produced to us as of this release. Item 8, use-of-force records involving Rice since 2021, and item 10, every use of force in the department for two years, would show whether this was an outlier. Item 6 is Rice's personnel and training file. Coweta residents can ask the City Clerk for the Crossroads contract and invoices under the Open Records Act, 51 O.S. ยง 24A.1 et seq. The Chief wrote that the man was making the choices. The file shows the Chief had made his own by August 31. ## Editor's Note The quotations in this article come from the City of Coweta's September 30, October 9 and October 26, 2026 releases under NextRequest #26-116: Chief Bell's emails (August 26 to September 9), text-message screenshots, the dispatch incident history for incident 26-22945, Report 2026-0493 and the administrative review packet. Radio details come from the dispatch log; our machine transcripts of the radio audio are unverified and are not quoted. Rogers faces misdemeanor charges, which are accusations, not findings of guilt. This article makes no allegation that Chief Bell, Officer Rice or any person named broke the law. Where it describes what a record shows, it says so. Phone numbers, device identifiers and private-citizen details in the released files were removed from our public copies. This is not legal advice. *Corrections: ron@guerrilla.news* --- ## Sources 1. Inbox emails, Chief Michael Bell, August 26 to September 9, 2026\. City of Coweta, NextRequest #26-116, Section 5\. [Public records folder](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ENsnoslo-GzA8zuQBn3ebDKKsxOC6hiR?ref=guerrilla.news) 2. Dispatch CAD incident history, incident 26-22945\. City of Coweta, Section 2. 3. Incident Report 2026-0493, Use of Force Report 2026-0493, Administrative Review Reports. City of Coweta, Section 3. 4. Records Clerk status letter, September 17, 2026\. Coweta Police Department. 5. Chief Bell statement, September 15, 2026, in the Administrative Review Reports, pp. 1-2.