Cattle Cops
Col. Jerry Flowers, chief special agent for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Law Enforcement Agency, and a crew of eight agents track down cattle rustlers, stolen equipment and more.
On Mother’s Day a man driving his family to the Oklahoma City Zoo on Interstate 40 thought he saw a trailer belonging to a friend being pulled by a stranger’s truck.
A passenger took a photo of the license plate before the truck and trailer veered off the interstate onto a side road. The license number led investigators to Mitchell Moore, 48, who had $30,000 worth of stolen oil field equipment loaded onto the stolen trailer.
Moore told Col. Jerry Flowers, chief special agent for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Law Enforcement Agency, that he had been stealing trailers and tractors from Bristow to Texas and from Clinton to Shawnee to supply himself with enough meth for his addiction.
The 63-year-old Flowers looks like a character from the Old West, or where the Old West merges with the New West. His drooping white handlebar mustache, matching white hair and white cowboy hat contrast with the nearly black sunglasses he is sporting. His uniform consists of Wranglers, boots, and a supersized belt buckle.
Yet Flowers started out with the Oklahoma City Police Department, eventually working its police gang unit for 25 years before he retired in 2008.
“Today, we are looking for middle-age Caucasians who are convicted repeat offenders,” Flowers said. “I’d say more than 75 percent of them are users of meth.”
Flowers is one of nine agents with the responsibility of investigating agricultural crimes over nearly 70,000 square miles of the state, and protecting the interests of 5,500 farmers and ranchers.
“Each of us cover about 3,000 miles a month,” Flowers said. “We investigate everything from cattle rustling to the theft of farm equipment to timber theft as well as wild lands fire arson. And, I believe on the whole, we’ve very successful at what we do.”
‘The best unit in the country’
Oklahoma Agriculture Secretary Jim Reese is happy with the results of this elite law enforcement unit that likes to dub themselves Cattle Cops.
“We absolutely have the best unit in the country,” Reese said. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
Flowers points with pride to the fact that his “Cattle Cops” file from 400 to 450 felony charges each year against “these outlaws,” as he calls them.
“We are committed to the farmers and ranchers in this state. Everything on that plate a person eats from was put there by a farmer,” said Flowers, noting that Oklahoma agriculture is a $40 billion industry. His men recover anywhere from $3 to $4 million worth of stolen property each year.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, rustled cattle are sold in legal markets. Oklahoma has roughly 50 markets to sell cattle. Most of the thieves bill the cattle in as their own, which in itself is a criminal offense.
“We found them very successful,” said Canadian County Undersheriff Kevin Ward. “We’ve worked very closely with them when it comes to cattle rustling and equipment theft.”
Ward said his department has worked with the investigative unit from eight to ten times in the last two years.
“He (Flowers) develops a rapport with suspects and actually gets confessions from them during a normal conversation,” Ward said.
Flowers joined the Agriculture Department’s investigative unit in 2008 and became its chief in 2013. In 2013, the unit numbered 13, but budgetary restraints forced the unit to be reduced to nine agents.
The Agriculture Department’s investigative unit was revitalized under thenSecretary Terry Peach. Though created in 2003 to cover the entire state, by 2007 it was spending most of its time in southeast Oklahoma investigating wildfire arson. Peach hired Lt. Col. Mike Grimes of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, who had just retired, to transform the unit into the investigative arm it was meant to be initially.
Investigators for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association were then covering the state with only four rangers working with local law enforcement.