An Oklahoma city’s first openly gay mayor resigned. Then came the fallout.

So, on that late Could night, Graham, 29, stated he slowed to a halt in his black SUV, lowered the window and requested: “What are you doing, officers? Are you conscious that you simply’re in The Village?”

What occurred subsequent fiercely divided this group of practically 9,000, drawing worldwide scrutiny that felt humiliating to some and cathartic to others as simmering frustrations burst into the open. Oklahoma misplaced one in every of its six LGBTQ elected officers when Graham introduced this month he was stepping down, citing harassment and concern for his security.

At a time of deepening polarization in the USA, the fallout in The Village factors to troubling penalties on the cul-de-sac degree: Not even previous mates are proof against the forces pitting us towards one another.

Polls reveal perceptions of main occasions — the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, the protests ignited by the demise of George Floyd — range extensively alongside partisan strains. Much less explored is the impression in our personal backyards, the strains on bonds which are speculated to trump politics.

“Sadly, sure parts of the inhabitants have lately develop into emboldened to pursue threats and assaults bordering on violence,” Graham wrote in his July 18 resignation letter. “I now not really feel protected to serve in my capability as mayor.”

Earlier than he stated somebody had adopted him on the road, earlier than he suspected somebody had slashed one in every of his tires, earlier than he stated a person threw espresso at him and referred to as him a homosexual slur, the police lights caught Graham’s eye.

“My intestine, my coronary heart — each a part of me advised me to do it,” he stated in an interview at his ranch-style home. “My intestine advised me: ‘Simply go over there and ask a query, Adam.’ ”

In a clip of physique digicam footage offered by the Nichols Hills police to The Washington Publish, Graham may be seen pulling up in his Volkswagen Tiguan SUV throughout the road from what officers later described as a site visitors cease.

“Excuse me?” requested one officer, a White man, apparently to Graham.

“You could go on. Go on,” stated the opposite officer, a Black girl.

A passenger within the stopped automotive seems to be saying: “I simply wish to go dwelling.”

No different dialogue may be heard within the 32-second footage. “Nothing may be heard from Mr. Graham as he was too distant for the physique cameras to select up his voice,” Nichols Hills Police Chief Steven Cox stated in an electronic mail. Some audio was muted, he added, to guard the privateness of the passengers.

In a second clip, the White officer walks to Graham’s automotive. Graham’s canine, a goldendoodle named Ralph, is seen first on the display screen, his fluffy head protruding from the again seat window. Then Graham comes into focus behind the steering wheel. His expression is impartial.

“Okay,” the officer says. “Okay. Effectively, I admire your understanding of the place we’re as a result of I do know precisely the place I’m as nicely.”

“Once I flip to cease any person they usually proceed on from Nichols Hills into The Village,” the officer stated, “I’ve a proper to proceed stopping them.”

“All proper,” Graham stated.

“Thanks, sir,” the officer replies. The footage ends.

Following that alternate, Graham stated he left the scene. Cox, the police chief, stated there is no such thing as a extra footage of Graham. When requested for a transcript of the previous mayor’s phrases within the muted segments, Cox stated the physique cameras didn’t seize another dialogue.

That night time, Corporal Brandon Edwards despatched an electronic mail to the police chief, flagging what he referred to as “Mr. Graham’s very unprofessional interference in my site visitors cease.”

The officers had pursued a automotive touring 43 miles per hour in a 25 miles per hour zone, Edwards wrote. A person who had recognized himself because the mayor of The Village was “extraordinarily impolite and confrontational” to the purpose the place Edwards doubted he was really the mayor, “contemplating how unbecoming his actions had been.”

The officer with Edwards on the scene stated she’d heard Graham yelling: “Get out of right here. Get out of this metropolis.”

“His presence immediately agitated an already uncooperative driver,” Edwards wrote, based on a duplicate of the e-mail shared by Nichols Hills police, “and put our security in danger when it didn’t must be.”

The Nichols Hills metropolis supervisor quickly advised his counterpart in The Village about it, passing alongside Edwards’s electronic mail.

Most of The Village’s metropolis council members thought Graham ought to apologize — or a minimum of situation an announcement explaining himself. They discovered the actions outlined within the electronic mail inappropriate, even harmful, and feared shedding backup from Nichols Hills. The 2 cities had lengthy helped one another out, and The Village had possibly three officers on patrol at any given time.

“He distracted them when he did that,” one council member, 75-year-old C. Scott “Bubba” Symes, stated. “In my thoughts, something might have occurred.”

Symes had a “heart-to-heart dialog” with Graham, he stated, telling him that he knew a number of officers personally. It was unfair to color all cops as dangerous guys, he stated. Bear in mind the Oklahoma Metropolis bombing? He’d been shut sufficient to really feel the impression. Bear in mind who was operating into hurt’s method?

The police are educated to make use of “lethal pressure towards lethal pressure,” Symes remembers telling Graham. “Once you intervene, any person might have pulled out a gun and shot you — or the police officer.”

Although the council member was an previous buddy, Graham stated he felt threatened by that dialog. He remembers Symes saying: “If that may have occurred in The Village, I might hope they’d have shot you.” (Symes denied saying that.)

Graham additionally disputed the Nichols Hills officers’ model of occasions. In his reminiscence, he was calm but direct — not “extraordinarily impolite.” He stated he didn’t yell on the officers and doesn’t bear in mind figuring out himself as mayor. However his customized license plate options his initials, AG. Many individuals in that neighborhood, he added, know his automotive and Ralph.

After George Floyd’s demise launched protests worldwide, Graham stated he’d thought so much about how police have traditionally handled Black individuals. Black males make up 4 % of Oklahoma’s inhabitants, however they characterize 21 % of these killed in police shootings since 2015, based on Washington Publish information.

In response to information shared by the Nichols Hills police, 30 % of people that acquired citations and warnings in Nichols Hills from June 30 of final 12 months to July 1 had been Black, regardless of the town being lower than one % Black. Cox stated officers don’t cease autos primarily based on race or “another purpose than a violation of legislation,” including {that a} various inhabitants drives by Nichols Hills, which borders Oklahoma’s largest metropolis.

“I see younger Black males pulled over by the Nichols Hills police on a regular basis,” Graham stated. “I fear about them.”

As somebody who started a sluggish technique of popping out in his mid-20s, Graham stated he understood the toll of discrimination. Entering into politics, he stated, was his method of attempting to guard the susceptible. He received a metropolis council seat in 2018 earlier than his fellow members appointed him mayor, a title they voted on every year.

Graham’s day job was operating campaigns for pro-LGBTQ candidates within the South. As mayor, he had declared June as Delight Month in The Village and vowed to outlaw conversion remedy, a observe nonetheless underway in elements of Oklahoma.

His colleagues described him as cordial with legislation enforcement, recalling a time he’d hand-delivered BBQ to The Village’s police division.

Graham stated he’d thought of apologizing to the Nichols Hills officers. Maybe he ought to have caught to recording video.

Then the native newspaper printed a front-page story: Village Mayor Interrupts NHills Visitors Cease With Verbal Altercation.

Individuals yelled at him through the subsequent metropolis council assembly, saying he was anti-law enforcement and behaving in a method that embarrassed them. Graham’s sexual orientation by no means got here up, however the depth of the criticism was disturbing, stated Tammy Conover, 59, an artist in The Village.

“If he was a straight man, nothing ever would have been stated,” Conover stated. “On a regular basis individuals are saying, ‘We’re Christians,’ however we’re so hateful. So imply.”

Graham advised the town council that he didn’t wish to remark. Privately, he felt the assembly had gotten too heated and nervous saying extra might gasoline the hearth.

The subsequent week, he stated, he found a four-inch gash in one in every of his tires. He suspected somebody had slashed it. However Symes’s feedback stored him from looking for a police report, he stated.

After that, he seen a person in a plum-colored Toyota truck trailing him one night whereas he was strolling Ralph. Graham stated he motioned for him to cross, he stated, however the man simply silently stared at him.

“I felt shock,” Graham recalled, tears welling. “To be adopted whereas strolling, I felt very susceptible. I ought to have referred to as any person. … I simply didn’t really feel protected. I simply wished it to go away.”

Then got here the breaking level. Graham stated he was heading to his automotive within the car parking zone behind the Starbucks in Nichols Hills on July 16 when a person stated, “You’re the f—-t mayor” and tossed an iced drink at his pants. Graham stated he remembers solely the humiliation, no witnesses, and hurried dwelling.

Two days later, he handed his resignation letter to the town supervisor and posted a duplicate on Twitter.

“Within the final month, I’ve been adopted dwelling from conferences, threatened whereas strolling my canine, harassed at Starbucks and have had my tires slashed,” he wrote in his letter. “Sadly, these malicious, bad-faith assaults are escalating.”

Reporters referred to as from all over the world. “Good Morning America” reached out. The Village’s web site crashed.

“I had a alternative,” he stated. “I might situation a blanket apology that doesn’t imply jack crap, or I might situation an announcement that I believed to be true and factual and from my coronary heart.”

Council members stated they felt blind-sided. Individuals questioned the veracity of Graham’s claims on Fb, accusing him of exploiting his sexual orientation for consideration.

“A small metropolis in Oklahoma chased out a homosexual mayor?” requested Symes. “It’s such a farce. We could also be Oklahomans, there could also be some cowboys out right here, however we don’t suppose like that anymore.”

The council appointed a brand new mayor, 36-year-old Sonny Wilkinson.

He didn’t doubt that Graham handled bigotry. As a straight man, he stated, he didn’t know what that’s like. Any situation involving the police, in the meantime, was a recipe for discord.

“It’s the divisiveness,” he stated. “You’re both for the police or towards the police.”

Wilkinson performed a voicemail that The Village police chief had acquired after Graham stop: “What did you do to guard the mayor?” the nameless caller stated. “Nothing! You sat in your bald, fats, homophobic ass and did nothing!”

“We’re simply not having conversations anymore,” Wilkinson stated. “We’re simply yelling.”

Monday night, July 25. The Village Library. For individuals who nonetheless must be heard.

Twenty-eight individuals filed into the air-conditioned confines of Room B, which somebody had adorned with a purple construction-paper octopus. The town council member who referred to as this assembly, 58-year-old Sean Cummings, joked that he was not answerable for the ocean theme, however please, sit down.

“Let’s simply do a circle,” he advised the group. “Get these emotions on the market. Attempt to preserve it civil.”

They’d go counter-clockwise with the microphone. A retired trainer who launched herself as Connie went first.

“I’ve been actually pleased with Adam,” she stated. “He cared — greater than any of the opposite board members…”

Subsequent was Tricia, who runs a summer season program at a Catholic faculty. Graham had advised her concerning the Starbucks incident, she stated. He had sounded so upset. So shaken.

“I don’t perceive,” she stated, “how individuals can’t imagine the issues which have occurred to this man.”

The girl to Tricia’s left scrunched up her face. She took the mic and countered: “He introduced nationwide consideration to us for his personal agenda that began together with his personal wrongdoing.”

Subsequent went a person who stated his household labored in legislation enforcement. He questioned: Was the connection with Nichols Hills police nonetheless intact?

Subsequent went a school pupil named Jakob, who has labored on political campaigns with Graham. He wore winged eyeliner and black excessive heels.

“I simply wished to indicate my face, so that you simply all see that I’m human and so is Adam,” he stated. “It isn’t simple to be homosexual, particularly overtly homosexual in Oklahoma — and particularly as an elected official.”

Subsequent went a lady who stated The Village didn’t deserve this reputational hit. Individuals right here mow one another’s lawns without spending a dime.

“It’s the perfect place to stay,” she stated.

Subsequent got here Melodie, an Air Drive veteran, who stated she’d lived right here for 29 years.

“A few of you don’t know your historical past if you happen to suppose The Village has at all times been great,” she stated.

Bear in mind segregation? Bear in mind the general public swimming pools crammed with concrete so Black youngsters couldn’t use them?

“As a Black girl, I can inform you,” she stated. “I labored on the mall as a child, and my mother used to inform me: Don’t drive by Nichols Hills. And don’t drive by The Village.”

Then got here time for the town council member to take the mic. Closing remarks.

“He resigned on freakin’ Twitter,” Cummings stated, elevating his voice. “I came upon my mayor resigned on Twitter. Come on, man! Are we not speculated to be upset about that?”

The uproar has nothing to do together with his sexual orientation, he stated.

“I don’t give two hoots whether or not he’s homosexual!”

Graham might have been arrested, Cummings stated. He might have gotten any person killed. And relating to the harassment, the place had been the police reviews? What might anybody do about slashed tires with no police report?

“Let’s faux that every one the harassment occurred,” Cummings stated. “We don’t know if it has something to do with … no matter … and we don’t know if it occurred.”

“Are you saying that it didn’t occur?” interjected a younger man.

The room erupted in shouting.

“Will you open your ears?”

“I’m attempting to get to the fact. I don’t know what it’s.”

Steven Wealthy contributed to this report.