The Oklahoma State Capital

EDMOND — Randel Shadid, Guthrie’s former longtime city attorney and a former Edmond mayor, was escorted out of a meeting by Oklahoma Christian University’s campus police Monday, Sept. 28, after a heated confrontation with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin over immigration enforcement, according to The Oklahoman.

The exchange occurred during an audience question-and-answer session at an Edmond Chamber of Commerce event at the university’s Meinders Conference Center. Shadid questioned how a Christian who follows Jesus’ teachings could support what he described as abuse of people by Mullin’s agency. Mullin interrupted, responding: “You’re not going to throw out Christian scripture to me and sit there and say that Jesus didn’t say we should obey the nation’s laws.”

Shadid, who turned 79 that day, told The Oklahoman that officers did not issue him a citation and that he held no ill feelings toward them. His criticism was directed at Mullin. “Markwayne is nothing but a bully,” he told the newspaper. “I practiced law for 50-plus years. I know how to pull someone’s chain and with him, it’s so easy you don’t even have to think about it.”

Mullin defended his department’s enforcement practices during the event, arguing that immigration officers were carrying out federal law.

Shadid’s career in municipal government and private legal practice spans decades. He won election to the Edmond City Council in 1979 and served as mayor from 1991 to 1995. He became Guthrie’s city attorney in 2000 and announced his retirement effective at the end of 2018.

He is well known for leading the establishment of Edmond’s public art program.

In Guthrie, his legal work included the city’s opposition to an initiative petition that sought to require voter approval before increases in city-controlled water and sewer rates. Shadid represented city officials in the litigation, which produced a 2015 Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals decision reversing a lower-court ruling against the petition. The appeals court found that predictions that voters would refuse necessary rate increases did not establish that the proposed charter amendment was unconstitutional.

His tenure also encompassed Guthrie’s prolonged litigation with Logan County Rural Water District No. 1 and the lawsuit against Excel-Jet, the aircraft company that had received a $375,000 loan connected to a proposed relocation to Guthrie’s airport.

In Edmond, Shadid is well known for representing developers seeking approval for projects, including SACC Investments LLC’s contentious proposal to build 191 homes on the former Coffee Creek Golf Course. Neighbors opposed the redevelopment, citing concerns about property values, traffic and the loss of trees and open space; Shadid argued that the property already had residential zoning and that the proposed plat met city requirements.

His development clients also included Sooner Investments, which sought rezoning in 1998 for a proposed retail and movie-theater development along Bryant Avenue. Reflecting on his transition from elected official to developers’ attorney, Shadid told The Journal Record in 2016: “Now I have to pay the price for the ordinances I enacted.”

The luncheon was hosted by the Edmond Area Chamber of Commerce, whose board chairman, Jamey Mullin, is the secretary’s brother. At the conclusion of Monday’s gathering, he told attendees that his brother’s staff had designated the event “off record."

Mullin also attended Monday’s ribbon-cutting for the relocated U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Edmond. The agency’s Oklahoma City field office is now at 3101 Technology Drive, where it handles immigration-benefit interviews, including green-card and citizenship applications, and naturalization ceremonies. The office previously was located in Oklahoma City on Southwest 44th Street.