Norman considers repealing 'peeping tom' ordinance, would charge under more serious state law

The Norman City Council discussed its municipal "peeping tom" ordinance during a Tuesday night conference session before its regular council meeting.

Norman Police Deputy Chief Ricky Jackson presented the city's current municipal policy, and a copy of Oklahoma's state statutes. Largely, he said, there's almost universal overlap between the two sets of policies.

But, he said there's a pattern of police officers filing charges in municipal court, versus district court, which he said is often perceived as "the path of less resistance."

He urged the council to take on an effort to repeal the municipal ordinance. If that happened, all charges for "peeping toms" would be filed as state charges in the future, which is a court of record. Norman's municipal court is not a court of record.

Jackson explained the significance of the change by exploring the case of Robert Howard Bruce, a former OU student who pled guilty to 19 felony counts in Oklahoma in 2012 for crimes he committed in Norman from 1985 to 2005.

His felony counts included five counts of rape.

According to Jackson, Bruce was stopped by police in Colorado after a police officer discovered him peeping on a victim. Bruce later attempted to blow up the police officer's home to keep his DNA from being collected and entered into a national database, which matched hits from multiple states.

He had been arrested before for peeping, but in jurisdictions where it was not entered into a court of record, and therefore, the information was not available to investigators.

While Jackson called Bruce's case "an extreme," he said it represents the plausibility for individuals responsible for peeping offenses to be connected to, or responsible for, far worse.

City attorney Rick Knighton said the city has filed three municipal charges for peeping within the last five years.

Jackson said he also would like to make changes at the state level.

City staff will draft an official action to be voted on by the City Council at a later date.