Keith Kemmel
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA – Norman police found a man dead in a Norman apartment Wednesday, two days after he sent a formal complaint to the Tulsa Police Department alleging that officers beat him outside a Tulsa gay club early Saturday.
Keith Kimmel, 28, made headlines statewide in February after he filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma Tax Commission for not granting his application for a personalized license plate that said “IM GAY.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet determined Kimmel’s cause or manner of death, a spokeswoman reported. Police said his death remains under investigation.
Norman police officers responded to a Norman apartment Wednesday morning after a resident found Kimmel dead. He apparently had stayed the night at the residence, according to Norman police.
Tulsa Police Capt. Jonathan Brooks said the Tulsa Police Department had received a formal complaint from Kimmel related to an incident in Tulsa early Saturday and have begun an Internal Affairs investigation.
Brooks said both the formal complaint and a phone complaint made by Kimmel are part of the investigation and cannot be released at this time.
However, Kimmel had placed a link to the complaint on his blog. In it, he accused several unnamed Tulsa officers of misconduct, brutality, excessive force and lack of professionalism after he apparently was thrown out of the End Up Club at 5336 E. Admiral Place.
The club’s owner, Blake Alterman, said he was not at the bar Friday night but had learned from his staff that Kimmel was involved in an altercation inside the bar and refused to leave.
As part of the club’s policy, an employee called the police, Alterman said.
Alterman was not aware of anyone who might have witnessed Kimmel’s interaction with police officers after he was taken out of the club, he said.
Alterman said he understood that “the door was closed, and it was just him and the police.”
In his formal complaint, Kimmel alleges that officers tried to push him into a patrol car but that because of his large size, he wouldn’t fit. “They hit my head on the door frame several times” and bent his neck “at odd angles,” he wrote.
Officers then dragged him on his stomach to a van and then, as they tried to get him into that vehicle, they punched him several times in his groin area, Kimmel alleged.
Kimmel was later taken from the van and put into an ambulance, he wrote.
He further alleges that officers made crude remarks about his weight and sexual orientation.
He included photographs of his injuries with his formal complaint.
Brooks said no police incident report was filed regarding any crime at the End Up Club this weekend and that no arrests were made there. However, Brooks said officers did respond to the club at 12:08 a.m. Saturday after a 911 caller reported a disturbance there.
The customer causing the disturbance was reported to be a white male, Brooks said.
Between 12:08 a.m. and about 12:30 a.m., eight officers responded to the call, he said.
After arriving at the scene, police requested a transport van and then called EMSA to the scene, Brooks said.
EMSA spokesman Chris Stevens said an ambulance was called by Tulsa police to the End Up Club about 1 a.m. and transported a person to St. John Medical Center.
In his complaint, Kimmel wrote that he woke up at St. John on Saturday and spoke to a security officer, who told Kimmel that there was no hold on him and that he was free to leave.
The Tulsa Police Department’s internal investigation is waiting for the medical examiner’s report on Kimmel’s death, Brooks said. Since a death is involved, the investigation will be expedited, he said.
Toby Jenkins, president of Oklahomans for Equality in Tulsa, said he had known Kimmel.
“Keith Kimmel impacted so many of our lives and addressed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in his own unique style,” Jenkins said. “We pray for his family and friends, that they will find comfort.”
from Tulsa World
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