NAACP Rips Tulsa World's Use Of Student Name

Members of the Tulsa chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People criticized the Tulsa World for publishing the name of a teenager who was recently arrested on complaints of bringing a gun to a high school.

"The Tulsa World didn't violate any juvenile protection laws, but they violated moral laws," said Twan Jones, the chairman of the chapter's legal redress committee, during a news conference Sunday.

The chapter took exception with an Oct. 2 Tulsa World story in which Booker T. Washington High School was temporarily placed on lockdown after three handguns were found on the school's grounds.

Four male students — two age 14, one age 15, and one age 16 — were arrested on complaints of possession of a gun on school property.

Officials did not identify the students, but sources told the Tulsa World that one of them was Rico Yarbrough.

Jones said the Tulsa World was the only news media outlet in the city to name Yarbrough in the incident.

Yarbrough is the son of a former Tulsa police officer, also named Rico Yarbrough, who is awaiting sentencing on federal convictions of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and giving unlawful notice of a search warrant in a drug case in which he admitted to shielding a suspected cocaine trafficker from authorities.

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