Jury finds Charles Bishop III guilty in Canadian County obstruction trial

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EL RENO — A jury found a Yukon man guilty today of obstructing a deputy during an unusual 2023 interaction in the tiny lobby of the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office.

After three days of conflicting witness testimony and more than two hours of deliberation, jurors determined Charles Bishop III had obstructed Lt. Ed Purcer on Sept. 15, 2023. During the incident, Bishop verbally interjected as deputies arrested a separate person, Madison Hernandez, while Bishop was waiting on an open records request. During this week’s trial, defense attorneys argued Bishop’s arrest violated his First Amendment rights. Ironically, Bishop’s arrest occurred after Canadian County deputies detained Hernandez on a warrant that should have been cleared from a 2020 conviction but that remained active owing to a record-keeping mistake.

Bishop, who goes by “Trey,” will have to pay a $500 fine, the maximum financial penalty for the misdemeanor.

Under Oklahoma law, obstruction occurs when someone “willfully delays or obstructs any public officer in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his or her office.” In her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Catherine Lind argued Monday that Bishop’s remarks to deputies during Hernandez’s arrest constituted obstruction.

“The defendant’s actions are that he interjects himself into a police matter when he has been told to leave and to mind his business,” Lind said. “What does the defendant do? He starts saying expletives. He starts saying, ‘Fuck you.’ The defendant is then told to stop. This continues. Deputy Purcer then places him under arrest for obstructing an officer.”

Defense attorney Rachel Bussett questioned deputies’ reported timeline of events and argued that Bishop was wrongfully arrested for telling officers to “be nice.”

“It was a relatively short period of time by my count — somewhere between six and 15 seconds — between the second time that [Bishop] says, ‘Be nice,’ and the deputy has him bent over the chairs,” Bussett said. “The question will be whether a lawful order was given and whether he heard it and willfully failed to follow it. I submit to you there wasn’t one given, or if there was one given, my client didn’t hear it, and he certainly didn’t willfully fail to obey it, and that’s demonstrated by his course of conduct, of walking out of the way. But one of the questions for you will be to decide whether or not the First Amendment gave him the right to speak up.”

‘I didn’t know what was going on. It didn’t look right’



The September 2023 lobby incident at hand was captured by a ceiling camera that Canadian County Sheriff’s Office employees said did not record audio.

Without an audio recording of who said what and when, attorneys relied mainly on conflicting witness testimony to build their cases. For more than two days, the prosecution and defense called 15 witnesses, including Bishop, to tell the jury about the five-minute sequence of events that Friday afternoon.

In his testimony, Bishop said he went to the sheriff’s office with his then-14-year-old daughter to pick up files from an Open Records Act request. While waiting in the small lobby, the Bishops witnessed county deputies arrest Hernandez, who was also seeking records. As Hernandez was led away, Bishop said he was “all burned up” about how officers spoke to Hernandez and her husband, Robert Syms. Eventually, Bishop told Purcer to “be nice” to Syms.

“I felt like I had a right to (speak),” Bishop said in court. “The government works for us. Not me, us.”

What happened next is a matter of dispute, with witness testimony diverging on key issues.

Dispatch employee Charlotte McClendon, records clerk Christine Orr and deputy sheriff Austin Moore testified that Purcer remained calm and told Bishop to leave the lobby. Moore claimed he heard the order “multiple times,” while McClendon and Orr, separated by bulletproof glass and speaking with others in their office, later testified under cross-examination that they could not hear everything that was said.  Bishop’s defense team noted that none of the three witnesses mentioned any order to leave in their initial report.

Sgt. Jeffery Bouillon, who was also outside of the lobby for much of the incident in question, testified that he could not say whether Purcer ever ordered Bishop to leave.

“I do not remember any specific words one way or the other,” Bouillon said. “It was all mumbled to me.”

Bishop, Syms and Hernandez — the only witnesses to the encounter not employed by Canadian County — testified they heard no command from Purcer for Bishop to leave.

Purcer and Deputy Cody Palmer, who arrested Bishop and Hernandez, respectively, stressed that in a room as small as the sheriff’s office lobby, distractions such as Bishop’s interjections can endanger all parties. They also said arrests can quickly turn violent.

“[The lobby is] a small, enclosed environment,” Purcer said. “There’s no security, so I don’t know if anyone is armed. You just don’t know what will happen.”

Purcer testified that Bishop stepped toward him in a threatening manner. Palmer, who arrested Hernandez and left the lobby shortly before Bishop’s arrest, said he did not believe Bishop posed an imminent threat.

Surveillance footage shown in court captured Bishop and his daughter rising from their seats and stepping toward the door, with Bishop standing in front of his daughter, an action Bishop characterized as moving out of the way, not confronting officers. Bishop testified that rather than being ordered to leave, Purcer told him, “Shut your mouth or you’ll be arrested.” Bishop replied that he could not be arrested for “protected speech.”

Former deputy sheriff Chris Tate also testified. While he was not present in the lobby for the whole encounter, he said he saw part of it and that he did not believe the arrest was warranted. Tate said he complained verbally to superiors about Purcer’s conduct. Asked whether he assisted in the arrest, Tate said he “chose not to get involved because I didn’t know the exact reason why he got arrested. I didn’t get involved because I didn’t know what was going on. It didn’t look right.”

However, Tate’s then-supervisor, Capt. Aaron McCaslin, later testified that no report, verbal or otherwise, was made by Tate regarding Bishop’s arrest.

Tate, whose employment with the sheriff’s office ended about three months after the incident, also described Purcer as “quick to anger,” a characterization the prosecution challenged by noting Tate had been fired for lying about improper relations while on duty. Tate said he now works as a supervision engagement officer for TEEM, a re-entry and pre-trial diversion center that works with the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office.

Attorneys clash over evidence, witness testimony

Much of this week’s courtroom debate took place without the jury present during private discussions at the judge’s bench over what evidence would be allowed. Before the jury trial commenced, Special Judge David Halley ruled that material from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations involving Purcer and the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office could not be presented to the jury. He also chose not to allow discussion of the fact that Hernandez’s arrest warrant was found to be invalid.

During a particularly heated discussion about the defense’s line of questioning regarding Purcer’s experience making arrests, defense attorney Larry Steidley cited an OSBI interview in which Purcer said he had arrested only two or three people. Purcer denied that statement, and jurors were sent out of the courtroom while attorneys discussed whether Purcer’s OSBI interviews could be used as evidence.

“[Purcer is] loose with his words,” Steidley said.

Assistant District Attorney Emily Music retorted: “You’re loose with the context.”

When the jury returned, Purcer clarified that he had arrested “countless” people, but only a few without a warrant, including Bishop.

Music also attempted to have Bishop found in contempt of the court for remaining seated throughout the trial and for discussing material in his testimony that the judge had said must be excluded from the trial, such as OSBI investigations. Halley said he would take Music’s request under advisement.

Bishop’s defense team attempted to have the charge against their client dismissed. Steidley noted that Hernandez was already in handcuffs and being led out of the lobby before Bishop began speaking to Purcer, indicating the deputies had not been prevented from fulfilling their duty. Halley denied that motion.

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Civil lawsuit filed against Canadian County

On Tuesday, the second day of the trial, Bishop’s father filed a civil relief suit against Purcer, Canadian County Sheriff Chris West and the Canadian County Board of Commissioners. In the filing, Bishop again claimed the arrest violated his constitutional rights and caused him “extreme pain and suffering, financial loss, and mental anguish and emotional distress.”

The new lawsuit became a point of issue on the trial’s final day, when Music argued the financial damages Bishop sought gave him reason to be untruthful in his testimony the day before.

“[Bishop] has every reason in the world to say all the things that make him look real good,” Music said in her closing statement. “Not only is he looking down the barrel of, ‘Maybe I’m going to jail now.’ (Now), he’s got some money on the line.”

The prosecution’s arguments evidently resonated with the jury, which delivered its unanimous verdict around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. The six jurors were careful not to look at Bishop as they entered the courtroom. Bishop’s teenage daughter sat in the front row, behind the defense table, bouncing her leg anxiously while waiting to hear the verdict.

Several employees of the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office, including some who testified in the case, entered the courtroom shortly before the verdict was announced. The courtroom received the verdict in silence, though Bishop’s face flushed red as the judge read the decision. As the courtroom emptied, Bishop wiped his hands with a tissue before shaking those of his attorneys and thanking them for their help.

Neither Bishop nor his lawyers said whether they plan to appeal the ruling.

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