WATONGA — Watonga is located on the sparsely populated prairie of northwest Oklahoma, just over an hour’s drive from Oklahoma City, and is surrounded by farms and wells producing oil and gas.
The town’s biggest annual event is the Watonga Cheese Festival, although the cheese factory that hosted the festival closed in 2007. About 2,600 people live there.
But recent events have revealed a simmering tension between citizens who fear corruption in the city’s leadership and others who believe the unrest is excessive and unproductive.
At the heart of the matter are allegations that an officer mistreated residents while on duty. That officer, Monty Goodwin, is no longer employed by the Watonga Police Department following an internal investigation.
After a video of Goodwin circulated online, the city faced weeks of intense pressure from residents and anonymous trolls on social media. A group of residents began organizing meetings to voice their grievances and demand the city manager’s replacement. After a contentious city council meeting last week, the mayor and his vice mayor abruptly resigned.
Both sides claim they have received threats.
Official accused of misconduct
Just before dawn on July 4, Goodwin and another officer approached John Sexton as he walked through an alley with his 6-year-old son and asked him for his identification. Sexton, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, explained to officers that a police officer in this state must have reasonable suspicion of a crime to ask a pedestrian for identification. Despite this, Sexton said he did not have his identification on him that morning.
The altercation quickly escalated when Goodwin threatened to arrest Sexton for not showing identification. When Goodwin grabbed Sexton’s arm, he pulled away and said police should let him take his son home first.
Sexton continued to back away from the officer and pulled out his phone to record the video. At that moment, Goodwin ripped Sexton’s legs away and handcuffed him to the ground.
After reviewing the warrant, Sexton was released. He eventually set up a TikTok account to share the bodycam video of the interaction, and it went viral.
More: Prosecutor rejects charges against Watonga police officer accused of misconduct
As Sexton sat on a park bench Tuesday morning telling his story to a reporter, he appeared nervous and looked over his shoulder at each passing car. He said family members and local police officers had threatened him online.
“I haven’t been here long, but it’s terrible. That may sound bad, but as soon as this case is resolved and my civil suit is settled, I’m out of here,” Sexton said. “I don’t feel safe in this city, and there are just too many corrupt people at the top.”
Following Sexton’s viral interaction, another resident came forward with a complaint about Goodwin’s treatment of her autistic 15-year-old son. In early June, Goodwin was dispatched to help Andrea Lambert control her son, who had reportedly threatened family members and himself with a knife and thrown a printer at someone in the home.
Lambert was recovering from spinal surgery and called police to assist in de-escalation.
When police arrived, the teen was unarmed but resisted arrest, according to bodycam video of the incident. Goodwin spoke with the boy for several minutes, explaining why he needed to be taken to the hospital and trying to get him to cooperate. Both officers who responded wrote in their reports that the boy tried to bite Goodwin as they tried to handcuff him.
Goodwin wrote in his report that he responded by striking him three times, although the contact is difficult to see on officers’ videos. According to the National Institute of Justice, punches and kicks to restrain a person may be part of department policy when using force.
Nevertheless, Lambert said the beatings were excessive.
“It’s hard being a mother of an autistic child,” she said. “But I trusted that those officers were there that day to de-escalate the situation, not to beat up my son.”
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigated Sexton’s complaint and eventually turned the investigation over to the district attorney without making its recommendation public. But prosecutors declined to file charges. Lambert said she sent the OSBI information about her interaction with Goodwin.
Before working for Watonga, Goodwin was a deputy in the same county. Blaine County Sheriff Travis Daugherty has told the media that Goodwin was demoted and eventually left the office after other deputies under his command complained.
Watonga Police also conducted its own disciplinary investigation. Goodwin was no longer employed by the city as of Tuesday. A police official who answered the phone declined to say whether he had resigned or been fired.
A fragmented city
At a meeting last week, the Watonga City Council demoted the current city manager to an “interim” position following the police controversy and other more common local government complaints about utility bills and city spending. At the same meeting, the mayor and his vice mayor resigned, leaving only three seats to be filled.
At an unorganized follow-up meeting on Tuesday attended by more than 50 people, the council elected Kayla Ragsdale as mayor. Ragsdale had only joined the council in March. Another member reluctantly volunteered to serve as deputy mayor.
This rapid sequence of events practically took the City Council by surprise. Tuesday’s agenda included votes on developing a new police policy and finding a new city manager. Both items were adjourned without a vote.
Jacky Morris, a local business owner and former city councilman, came to the city manager’s defense.
“Emotions are running through the roof for everyone here,” Morris said. “We have a fantastic city manager, and I feel like she was treated very rudely at your last meeting. You went into the board meeting with strong emotions and then made a hasty decision.”
After the council meeting outside City Hall, local resident Carla Flynn dismissed the uproar as being sparked by people seeking attention and hoping for a settlement in the legal dispute. Flynn, the executive director of the regional Community Action Agency, described how city employees have faced death threats and racist slurs online since Sexton’s interaction with Goodwin.
“The girl over there in the green,” Flynn said, pointing to another woman in front of City Hall, “works for the police. She gets death threats. They call her and threaten her. She has nothing to do with any of this. She’s a dispatcher. They call her the N-word.”
