Ex-Clinton policeman No. 2 at OSBI

Bryan Rizzi, a former assistant chief of the Clinton Police Department, has assumed new duties as assistant director of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
His appointment was effective July 1.
Rizzi, now 55, had 18 years experience with the CPD before joining OSBI in 2004. In his new position he will be paired with another former western Oklahoma lawman, Ricky Adams, whose appointment as OSBI director was effective the same day Rizzi’s was. Adams began his law enforcement career in 1980 as an Elk City policeman.
“I really like the direction he’s taking us,” Rizzi said Tuesday. “I’m excited to be part of it.”
They’re following in the steps of another lawman from this area, DeWade Langley, who has the distinction of being OSBI’s longest-serving director, leading the agency from 1995 until 2010. Langley began his career as a Custer County sheriff’s deputy.
OSBI now has 292 employees.  
Rizzi started his career as a part-time jailer in Washita County. He joined the Clinton police force in 1986 while still working part-time at Cordell, where he had been born while his father was stationed at Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base.
At Clinton he served as a patrolman until becoming a detective in 1989. In 1992 he was promoted to chief of detectives, succeeding the late Tom Siler.
“I think about my time in Clinton, and I feel it gave me the tools to succeed,” Rizzi said Tuesday. “The people I worked with there were just outstanding. They all helped me grow. Chiefs Bill Weedon and Kenny Thiessen, and Mike Murley is a good man too. I broke him in as an investigator. David (Crabtree) has done a great job with the P.D. too since he’s been chief.
“I always thought Clinton was a great place to be a policeman. We had good community support and had diversity in our cases so we got good experience.”
Rizzi was asked about the Oklahoma City bombing and whether he got to work on that. It occurred in 1995 while he was still in Clinton.
“Weedon wouldn’t let us go,” he said with a chuckle. “‘We’ve got a city to take care of here,’ he told us.”
OSBI became an early goal for him, said Rizzi. “After I became a detective, we worked a couple of cases with OSBI,” he said. “They only worked major cases, and they seemed to have the resources to get it done.”
One obstacle in his path, though, was the lack of a college degree which OSBI required. He actually quit the Clinton force for a brief period in 1991, going back to his old job as a Washita County jailer because the hours were flexible enough that he could attend college.
He completed two semesters at Southwestern Oklahoma State University before finances forced him to drop out. He then returned to another of his former jobs, as a detective with the CPD, and eventually became assistant chief under Thiessen in 1999.
“My dad died in 2001, and it made me reassess things,” said Rizzi. “If I was going to do this (switch to OSBI) I needed to give it a shot.” And that meant getting that college degree.
“I took online courses, video courses, and even drove to El Reno to attend classes at Redlands University. I’d go to work at the P.D., work till 4 or 4:30, then drive to El Reno and take classes until 10. Then I took 10 hours one summer and 19 hours in the fall. I finished up at Southern Nazarene University. I felt like I was on vacation; it was only one night a week.”
But the tenacity paid off; he earned that degree from SNU summa cum laude (with highest honors). He also spent 18 months as assistant chief in 1999 and 2000 while continuing to serve as chief detective. Finally, in 2004 he accepted that long-sought job with OSBI, working initially as a specialist investigating oil-field thefts and some general assignment cases.
In 2007 Rizzi was named agent in charge of OSBI’s Intelligence Unit. Asked what that involved, he said, “Gathering intelligence, on organized crime, any threats to the state, terrorist stuff.”
He also helped create OSBI’s Fusion Center and served as its first director. Asked what that was, he said it was an “information hub” where tips the agency got could be analyzed and assigned to whatever department was appropriate, even if it was outside OSBI. “We had federal, state and local partners,” he said.
“I did that until 2009 when I got promoted to inspector,” which was followed by stints as director of the Information Services and Administrative Services divisions.
Rizzi comes from a long line of lawmen. His father, John, was a Washita County deputy sheriff and two uncles are retired from the Chicago Police Department and a third from the Harvey, Ill., P.D.
Married for 35 years, Bryan and wife Karen have two sons who are continuing the family tradition. Older son Nicholas, who got his start as a dispatcher at the Clinton P.D. the same year his dad left, is now an OSBI agent assigned to headquarters in Oklahoma City. Younger son Michael is a sergeant with the OKC Police Department.
But the Rizzis still have kin associated with the Clinton P.D. Bryan said his nephew, Bill Gerstenkorn, is a fairly new recruit for the department and is currently undergoing CLEET training at Ada.
“I think Clinton is as good a place to get started as anywhere,” said Rizzi. Apparently his nephew agrees.