March 23, 2011
Tulsa, Oklahoma police captain Paul Fields refused to order his officers to attend an Islamic propaganda event staged by a local mosque with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, Captain Fields, a 16-year police veteran, has been stripped of his command and is now the subject of an internal investigation.
TMLC announced today it has joined Tulsa, Oklahoma attorney Scott Wood to defend Captain Fields’ constitutional right not to become a propaganda prop for the local mosque. As you know, TMLC is heavily involved in litigation defending the religious freedom of Christians as well as countering the infiltration of radical Muslims in America.
The Mosque event, dubbed, “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day,” had nothing to do with any official police function. It clearly fell outside of the police department’s policy on community policing, and based on comments made by police department officials in a closed door meeting, it was not “community outreach” as it has been previously portrayed in the media. Rather, it included a mosque tour, meetings with local Muslims and Muslim leadership, observing a “weekly prayer service,” and lectures on Islamic “beliefs.” The event was scheduled for Friday, March 4, 2011—Friday being the “holy day” or “Sabbath” for Islam. In fact, the event was originally voluntary, but when not enough officers were willing to attend, it became mandatory.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel for TMLC, commented: “This case is an astonishing example of a double standard. If this were a Catholic or Protestant prayer event, no one would have been ordered to attend, and no one would have been punished for refusing to attend. It is a prime example of government officials over-stepping their authority when it comes to government intrusion on an employee’s constitutionally protected freedoms.”
The photo at the right shows Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan at the event shaking hands with CAIR Oklahoma Director Muneer Awad, the very person who filed the federal lawsuit challenging Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia constitutional amendment, which was approved by 70 percent of the state’s voters (It is unknown if Chief Jordan knew of Awad’s identity at the time of this handshake). CAIR was listed an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial.
Moreover, the Law Enforcement Appreciation event was held just five days after the Tulsa mosque hosted a dinner featuring Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In a written response to the order from his superior, Captain Fields stated that he considered the order to be “an unlawful order, as it is in direct conflict with [his] personal religious convictions, as well as to be conscience shocking.” He also told his superiors that he would not require any of his subordinates to follow the order “if they share similar religious convictions.”
Captain Fields is fighting back. TMLC and local attorney Wood have filed a civil rights action against the City of Tulsa, its chief of police, and its deputy chief of police, alleging that the City and its officials violated Captain Fields’ fundamental constitutional rights by ordering him to the mosque under penalty of adverse employment consequences.
Click Here to See Amended Complaint and Exhibits
Robert Muise, Senior Trial Counsel for TMLC handling the case, stated, “The City of Tulsa Police Department and its highest ranking officials are not only willfully blind to the threat that sharia (Islamic law) poses in their own community, they are willfully blind to the fundamental rights that our very own Constitution provides to its American citizens, including Captain Fields. In effect, as the Amended Complaint sets out in greater detail, the City’s police department and its officials are unwittingly complicit in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘civilization jihadist process,’ to the detriment of one of its most loyal and competent police officers.”