Man arrested after shots were fired outside Tulsa County Courthouse on Wednesday

UPDATE (6/28/24) — Tulsa Police arrested a 20-year-old man after shots were fired outside the Tulsa County Courthouse on Wednesday.

According to police records, officers responded to a shots fired call at the Tulsa County Courthouse around 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Police said an ATF agent was inside the Federal Courthouse when he heard gunshots. He ran outside and saw a black Ford F-150 driving east on East 3rd Street. He heard several gunshots coming from the truck as it drove off.

A Tulsa Police Detective got pictures from a witness showing a man, later identified as 20-year-old Travis Ruff, sitting in the driver's seat of the black Ford F-150 in the Courthouse parking lot before the shooting.

A second witness saw a black Ford F-150 truck with a person in the back seat wearing some type of mask and a hood pulled up around their face, police said.

Police said an occupant of the black Ford F-150 was firing at a group of people standing in the area.

Shortly after the shooting, Tulsa Police located the truck which was parked in the area of 500 West Newton Street. Police said the vehicle was reported as stolen and there was a cartridge casing in the backseat area.

On Thursday, Tulsa Police located Ruff leaving an apartment near East 51st Street South and South 145th East Avenue and he was taken into custody around 12:44 p.m.

Ruff currently has four felony warrants which include (1) failure to appear on a possession of a firearm under DOC supervision, possession of CDS with intent to distribute, acquire drug proceeds, (2) failure to appear application to accelerate, (3) failure to appear possession of a stolen vehicle, (4) auto burglary, and unauthorized use of a credit card.

Ruff currently has four misdemeanor warrants including three application to accelerate charges and a possession of a controlled drug and trespassing, police records said.

Ruff was arrested and booked into the Tulsa County Jail on Thursday. He faces charges of shooting a firearm from a vehicle, assault and battery, trespassing after being forbidden, unlawful possession of a controlled drug, unauthorized use of a credit/debit card, and burglary of an automobile.

TULSA, Okla. — Shots were fired outside of the Tulsa County Courthouse on Wednesday afternoon, according to Tulsa Police.

Police said they do not have a suspect in custody and it happened after a preliminary hearing in a murder trial concluded this afternoon.

The Tulsa County DA's Office said the only preliminary hearing taking place at the courthouse that would've concluded at that time was a murder case involving the death of a 12-year-old.

"Folks that were in the court in the preliminary trial today. Emotions were high, words were exchanged and that culminated into an altercation where someone decided to pull out a gun and fire multiple rounds in the parking garage," Tulsa Police Captain Richard Meulenberg said.

Tulsa County Sheriff's Office confirmed that nobody was injured.

Meulenberg said they're going through surveillance video, interviewing witnesses and gathering information on what led up to the incident.

"If anybody knows anything, we're asking them to come forward. If they think they saw something because people were letting out of work at the same time this happened so the area was flooded with people. It's frankly a miracle that we don't have innocent people that were struck in this ordeal," Meulenberg said.

A court clerk said the courthouse was on lockdown for about five minutes, but the lockdown has since been lifted.

Several areas around the courthouse were also shut down at the time as detectives continued to look for bullet casings and any other evidence.

FOX23 spoke with one man who said he was leaving the nearby bus stop and walked into a mess, which he later learned was a crime scene.

"I came in from the bus station, there's still a lot of cops down on 3rd street. I was kind of curious of what happened. Come up here a guy in front of the library said there was a shooting," Mason said.

FOX23 will provide additional updates as more information becomes available.