Pott Co Deputy and Commissioner Candidate Pulls Political Stunt in Ongoing Campaign Against Grassroots Leader
Sheriff Allows Release of Protected Info of Moms for Liberty Leader's Minor Son
On June 4th, a townhall meeting was hosted by GOP Precinct 27 in Macomb, Oklahoma, to allow Republican candidates for local office to interact with local voters. Precinct Chair Roberta Lewis organized the event and provided a baked potato dinner for candidates and participants. Lewis introduced each candidate in attendance and tables were provided to allow all candidates to distribute campaign materials and speak one-on-one with the approximately 80 voters in attendance over the two-hour event.
There was media chatter following the townhall as Fox25 reported on displeasure expressed by District 17 State Senate candidate Ron Sharp (R) because only two candidates were allowed to speak publicly to the broader group in attendance. It turns out state GOP rules limit eligibility for party endorsement and support to those who complete and turn in the GOP survey indicating their stances on party platform issues. And at this particular forum, only endorsed candidates were allowed to speak publicly.
Of more than a dozen current, Republican candidates for public office in the area, only District 17 State Senate candidate Shane Jett (incumbent) and District 2 County Commissioner candidate John Stanley had completed the survey. Lack of commitment to paperwork among the group was hardly the evening’s most surprising occurrence.
Deputy and Candidate Distributes Police Report Involving Moms for Liberty Leader’s Son at Political Event
Following the meeting, a constituent and attendee provided this publication with a police report concerning a minor stating the document had been distributed in printed form by current Pottawatomie County (Pott Co) Sheriff’s Deputy and Republican candidate for District 2 County Commissioner Scott Hawkins at the townhall. The document and its distribution by Hawkins have since been confirmed by a second source.
The minor in the police report is the son of Lewis, the precinct’s chair and the founder and chair of the Pott Co chapter of Moms for Liberty. Lewis founded the Moms for Liberty chapter after a concerning experience involving her son and what appears to be serious overreach by several public agencies, including the sheriff’s office. The police report reflects the agency’s version of those events with Hawkins listed as its author (reporting officer).
The printed version of the report distributed at the event redacts the minor’s name but leaves Lewis’ name and information visible. When compared to the same report at the time of the closing of the case in July of 2023, additional personal information about Lewis has been added, her residential status in the county is changed from ‘no’ to ‘yes’, Hawkins badge number is changed from #9 to #4, and Hawkins middle name (Wayne) has been removed.
The distributed report also contains an additional 5-page, undated compilation of “Mental Health Threats” associated with the minor and signed by Hawkins that was not part of the original police report. This addition includes direct chat messages between the boy and his middle schools friends on Snapchat obtained through a warrant that appear to be included to disparage the youth’s character.
Pott Co Sheriff Approved Access to and Distribution of Minor’s Information
This publication spoke by phone with Hawkins, who agreed with Sharp’s assessment of the speaking restrictions at the event, though he admits he did not complete and submit the required state GOP’s survey until after the event and the deadline indicated.
When asked about the minor’s police report he allegedly distributed at the event, Hawkins would not confirm or deny the allegation and referred all questions concerning the matter to his superior, Pott Co Sheriff Mike Booth.
“I’m not going to get into that because that’s a whole other can of worms,“ stated Hawkins. “Anything pertaining to that case, you would need to speak to the sheriff.”
This publication then sent an email to Sheriff Booth and two other representatives within his office asking if Hawkins had obtained the report through legal means or misuse of his access as an employed member of the agency. We also requested that Sheriff Booth verify information from an additional source that stated Hawkins was recently placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
Sheriff Booth replied and informed Hawkins was never put on administrative leave, giving praise for his service at the agency. Booth did not confirm or deny any current investigation into the distribution of the minor’s police report, but stated:
“My investigations and that of my staff are subject to criminal consequences. We don’t make judgements on hearsay, we conduct Professional criminal Investigations, that can be corroborated by State Agencies and District Attorneys Offices.” - Michael D Booth, Sheriff, Pottawatomie County
In another email, Booth gave the following statement confirming he had personally given permission for Hawkins to access and make the document available to attendees of the townhall event (quoted exactly as received):
“Lt Hawkins had a legally obtained redacted report the he was the investigator and had written the report. I gave him permission to carry a copy to have available for anyone that had questions about the report, since there were many false representations of what was contained in the report. This is his report and legally get a full copy of thereport if he wished to do so. He chose the redacted report. He can legally keep a copy of any report that he is the author of.” - Michael D Booth, Sheriff, Pottawatomie County
Under Oklahoma law, neither Sheriff Booth nor Deputy Hawkins, as the author of a minor’s police report, are allowed to release, make available or distribute such information outside of the scope of their law enforcement duties. Oklahoma statute specifically outlines the rules concerning the confidentiality of juvenile records (§10A-2-6-102):
Except as provided by this section or as otherwise specifically provided by state or federal laws, the following juvenile records are confidential and shall not be open to the general public, inspected, or their contents disclosed:
1. Juvenile court records;
2. Agency records;
3. District attorney's records;
4. Law enforcement records;
5. Nondirectory education records; and
6. Social records.
Booth is stepping down as Pott Co Sheriff at the end of this term and has endorsed current Undersheriff Travis Dinwiddle for the position in Tuesday’s election.
Sheriff Booth did not respond to a subsequent request for details concerning the “many false representations of what was contained in the report” that motivated his agency to disclose and distribute the statutorily protected information of a minor. For clarity, this publication turned to the family involved in the report.
Dangerous Overreach: School, Sheriff, Court, OKDHS, OJA, DA and Mental Health Provider Overlap To Unlawfully Take Custody of Middle Schooler
This publication recently interviewed Roberta Lewis concerning a statewide, grassroots effort to stop a legislative attempt to silence State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. We again contacted Lewis to inquire about the events described within Hawkins’ police report.
Lewis was aware of the distribution of the report concerning her minor son and had already submitted an Open Records Request (ORR) with the Pott Co Sheriff’s Office for all information about the accessing, modification and distribution of the report which she believes to be outside of the law and politically motivated. According to Lewis, that ORR has yet to be fulfilled. Lewis provided a large binder of meticulously preserved communications, documentation and recorded conversations concerning the matter described within the police report which she describes as the “legal kidnapping of my son”.
In summary, multiple governmental and medical entities overlapped to remove Lewis’ son from the family’s home for two weeks during the 2021 Christmas holidays. Parents should heed Lewis’ story as a warning. In a matter of hours after dropping your child off at school, you could be fighting the government for custody. And it all started with a school district’s letter of warning.
On December 16, 2021, Tecumseh Public Schools distributed a letter to all parents concerning a non-specific threat to all schools involving a “national Tiktok trend”.
The following morning (Friday), a Tecumseh Middle School teacher reported “following up on a rumor” concerning a video on Tiktok of Lewis’ son “holding a gun”. The teacher began questioning students until she was led to a girl who claimed to have seen the video.
According to the police report, the girl did not report that Lewis’ son made any threat against anyone or the school. The girl also claimed several concerning direct messages were sent between herself and Lewis’ son after she viewed the video yet she failed to save those messages and could not produce them. No school employee ever viewed the video.
The boy confirms the video existed and depicted him disassembling and reassembling an unloaded, collectable handgun owned by the family and discussing what it might feel like to be shot with the weapon. Both of the boy’s parents served in the Army, and as is the case within many Oklahoma families who hunt and target shoot, the child was trained by his parents to handle several types of firearms. The boy also admits to using the video to show off his skills, which was later described as “attention seeking” throughout the case. The boy has consistently reported that the weapon was not loaded, but that didn’t stop rumors and even the subsequent police report from saying the gun was loaded.
From there, things snowballed. Multiple students were interviewed. A previous post of the boy preparing for a family hunting trip was falsely reported as recent and showing him “with guns”. The boy was somehow connected to a concerning story about a school shooting written by another student which Lewis’ son denies ever reading.
According to Lewis, she was informed during a call from principal Sarah Flowers that all students interviewed stated her son never made any threats to anyone or the school within the purported video. Lewis was asked to pick up her son to allow the middle school rumors to die down over the holiday break.
Later that morning, Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Hawkins phoned Lewis. He and Lt. Travis Dinwiddie, current candidate for county sheriff, were at her house and needed to talk to her and her son. Lewis and her son arrived at the sheriff’s office shortly before noon, and in a move Lewis now regrets, both she and her son signed documents consenting to be interviewed by Hawkins.
Within the resulting police report, Hawkins reports the boy “denied making any threats toward the school or statements about shooting something or someone at the school” and voluntarily handed his phone over to Hawkins for examination. Neither Hawkins nor any sheriff’s office staff member ever viewed the video which was automatically deleted on Snapchat and was never on Tiktok.
Despite the lack of evidence, the Sheriff’s office brought in the Oklahoma Department of Juvenile Affairs (OJA). The OJA brought in then Pott Co District Attorney Allan Grubb‘s office, and around 1:00 p.m. on the same day, Lewis and her son were taken downstairs to the courtroom of District 23 Special Judge Emily Mueller.
There is no obtainable record of the subsequent detention hearing or any related order, yet Hawkins’ police report states, “Judge Mueller ordered the juvenile be released to his mother, all firearms are removed from their residence, and (the juvenile) gets promptly in mental health treatment as early as Monday (3 days later).”
Lewis and her son then left the court house just before 2:00 p.m., and the boy’s father removed all firearms from the home as ordered. At 2:26 p.m., Penny Schulz from OJA called Lewis and provided a list of mental health providers which Lewis immediately began contacting.
At 5:50 p.m., on a referral from the sheriff’s office, OKDHS worker Kimberly Haworth showed up at the Lewis home, followed within minutes by two other sheriff’s officers. The officers informed they were dispatched to ensure all firearms were removed from the home, yet according to Lewis, they did not check any part of the home.
Despite the judge’s verbal order from just hours earlier which provided Lewis with a minimum of three days to find appropriate mental health support, Lewis was told she needed to immediately take her son to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Failure to do so would require the worker to take both of Lewis’ children into custody.
Before 9:00 p.m., Lewis was transporting her son to a local hospital (SSM Health Shawnee) with the DHS worker following behind. Records from the visit state the boy’s constitution as “not in acute distress” and lab tests detected no alcohol or drugs of any kind within his system.
At 3:31 a.m., someone from SSM Behavioral Health began conducting an online evaluation with her son by Zoom. Soon after, he was transported to SSM’s facility in Oklahoma City and admitted into acute care.
Initially, Lewis was informed and medical documents confirm her son was neither suicidal nor homicidal, but despite Lewis’ request and confirmation that she had arranged mental health treatment through her son’s tribe, the facility would not release him.
OJA informed her son would face charges if Lewis removed him from SSM against medical advice (AMA). DHS and the hospital informed that if Lewis revoked her consent for her son to remain at SSM, the facility would request an emergency order through the DA’s office for DHS to take custody.
Lewis retained an attorney and, under the advisement of counsel, revoked her consent for her son to remain under the care of SSM Behavioral Health in writing on December 20th. The facility still did not release her son, but instead pressured her to reinstitute her consent or they would be requesting an In-Need-of-Treatment (INT) order through the Oklahoma County DA’s office.
Within a recorded phone conversation with Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Janet Brown, on December 22, 2021, Lewis was informed the ADA would be filing the INT petition. The following day, records show her son was discharged from acute care and admitted into a lower level of residential care, also at SSM Behavioral Health, without her consent and was held until the maximum 14 days of eligibility for paid services under his insurance coverage was reached. Suddenly, when the money ran out, SSM deemed him ready for discharge.
In the end, there is no evidence or documentation that the DA’s office ever requested or the county court ever granted an INT order in this case. Lewis’ son appears to have indeed been kidnapped by the system. His parents’ rights to make his medical decisions were suspended without a court order.
In the end, both the OJA and county declined to press any charges against Lewis’ son and the related DHS investigation did not substantiate any abuse, neglect or lack of supervision and was closed. Lewis has shared the story publicly on several occasions. And now, two and a half years later, it appears, a local sheriff’s deputy and political candidate distributed the family’s protected information at a GOP townhall event.
Lewis’ case appears to be connected to a much bigger, background story at that time in Pott Co. The V1SUT Vantage will make efforts to bring those details to light soon.
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Side topic of the story that worries me is the interaction of the power of the hospital if the DA didn’t file anything and it does coincide with insurance. SSM is a considerable political donor. I would be interested to see if the flow of money had any impact on decision making. I can hardly get any of my medical records myself from them.
Always be sure to do research on people running for public office. Not everyone running for public office is as clean and pure as the wind driven snow as he or shoe would like you to believe. Stories like this are vital to the ability of people to make informed decisions at the voting booth.