Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Rally, rain or shine
Oklahoma high court says reopening plan allows discretion
Supporters of President Donald Trump line up and camp out under heavy rain Friday in downtown Tulsa ahead of Trump’s campaign rally. An appeal to block the rally to curb the spread of the coronavirus was rejected Friday by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum has declared a civil emergency but rescinded a curfew at the request of the Secret Service.
TULSA — The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal of a lawsuit attempting to block President Donald Trump from holding an indoor campaign rally todaythat many feared could worsen the spread of coronavirus, paving the way for the event to go off as planned.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of Tulsa residents, business owners and a community center in the historically black neighborhood of Greenwood earlier this week had demanded that the arena adhere to social-distancing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or that the event be canceled. The Trump campaign has said it will take temperatures of supporters entering the 19,000-seat BOK Center and hand out masks, but face coverings are not required.
Paul DeMuro, an attorney for the plaintiffs, had argued that it was “madness” to let the event proceed as new coronavirus cases in Tulsa are spiking.
The court said that the state’s June 1 reopening plan al- lowed business owners to use discretion over social-distancing measures, and they were not mandatory as the plaintiffs had asserted.
In a concurring opinion, two justices noted that the state’s plan to reopen its economy is “permissive, suggestive and discretionary.”
“Therefore, for lack of any mandatory language in the [plan], we are compelled to deny the relief requested.”
The ruling came as thousands of Trump fans and protesters poured into this city in advance of Trump’s first campaign rally in months. Metal barricades went up around downtown and police cars began blocking off streets after Tulsa announced a last-minute curfew for the downtown area Thursday night that was expected to continue through Friday and part of today.
However, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, a Republican, rescinded the day-old curfew at the request of the U.S. Secret Service.
In his executive order establishing the curfew, Bynum said he was doing so at the request of law enforcement who had intelligence that that “individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other States are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.”
Bynum’s order said crowds of 100,000 or more were expected in the area around the rally.
Officials cleared the area around the BOK Center, where Trump fans had been camping for days in the hopes of being among the first inside the Saturday night rally that is expected to draw far more than the 19,000-seat arena can hold.
The move came after Bynum declared a “civil emergency.”
Trump tweeted Friday that “any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma, please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany clarified later that Trump’s tweet did not refer to all protesters, rather only to those who are “violent.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, told Fox News on Friday that those unable to get into the arena are expected to attend what he described as a “festival” outside where the president might also appear. He said he would “probably be wearing a mask” during the event, which Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has said will be safe. The city’s health director, Dr. Bruce Dart, has said he would like to see the rally postponed, noting that large indoor gatherings are partially to blame for the recent spread of the virus in Tulsa and Tulsa County.
The rally was originally scheduled for Friday, but it was moved back a day following an uproar that it otherwise would have happened on Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the U.S., and in a city where a 1921 white-on-black attack killed as many as 300 people.
In the neighborhood, known as “Black Wall Street” before the massacre, Tulsans gathered Friday to celebrate Juneteenth. The words “Black Lives Matter” had been painted across Greenwood Avenue in block letters and bright yellow paint.
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Klemko, Colby Itkowitz, Annie Gowen, DeNeen L. Brown and Ziva Branstetter of The Washington Post; by Ellen Knickmeyer, Sean Murphy and Ken Miller of The Associated Press; and by Annie Karni of The New York Times.