BY ROBERT J. SMITH

Posted on Friday, November 2, 2007

Two men wearing FBI windbreakers arrived last week at Gentry City Hall looking for Bev Saunders.

They never said they were federal agents, but they didn’t say they weren’t, either.

Tulsa police Maj. Rod Hummel and the other man wanted to give a subpoena to Saunders, who works at the Gentry Chamber of Commerce and is manager of Poultry Partners, an organization of poultry farmers in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

The jackets were a “bullying tactic” meant to convince her that the men were federal agents, Saunders said. A former FBI agent said Thursday she’s probably right about their intentions.

“As a citizen, if they are wearing a jacket with FBI, I would be assuming they represent that agency,” said U. S. Marshal Dick O’Connell, who spent 30 years as an FBI agent. “In my opinion, those officers, although they didn’t say they represented a federal agency, probably gave the impression that they did represent a federal agency.”

Hummel didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment.

Saunders wasn’t in the chamber of commerce’s office at Gentry City Hall when Hummel and the other man arrived Oct. 22 wearing jackets with FBI logos on the left shoulders. She was off work when they returned Oct. 24, but she came to meet them.

When Saunders asked for identification, Hummel showed his Oklahoma driver’s license. He never said he was with the FBI, she said. She never spoke to the second man, who stayed outside.

“They didn’t lie,” she said. “They were just leaving the impression.”

The subpoena is related to the federal lawsuit filed by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson in 2005 against eight poultry companies with operations in Arkansas. The companies are accused of polluting the Illinois River watershed.

Steve Frazier, an FBI spokesman in Little Rock, said Saunders must make a complaint before the agency will investigate. As of Thursday, she hadn’t contacted the FBI.

“Without commenting on any specific allegation, including these, it’s unlikely that the mere fact of wearing a jacket with an FBI emblem on it would satisfy the federal statute which prohibits individuals from impersonating FBI agents,” Frazier said. “The reason is that the statute requires intent on the part of the perpetrator to illegally represent himself as an FBI agent.”

Michael Graves, a Tulsa attorney who represents Poultry Partners, said he notified the attorney general’s office that he disliked the use of the FBI jackets.

“I want that practice stopped immediately,” Graves said. “It upset my clients.”

Charlie Price, an Edmondson spokesman, said an attorney general’s office representative talked to Hummel.

“We’ve asked him not to wear the jacket,” Price said.