The St. Louis County Police Department is going to get a Public Safety Review funded by Civic Progress companies and the Regional Business Council, with no tax dollars spent on the review.
It turns out that sparks can fly at a candidate forum conducted over Zoom, even when conducted by clergy who declare to the candidates that they “will not tolerate character attacks” or “any messiness in this forum.” That was the warning given by the Rev. Darryl Gray, political advisor to th…
As I sat in my bed on June 10 recuperating from a surgery that many women, especially black women, experience daily, I received an email from Tod Robberson, editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As I read the email I was once again reminded of the utter disdain and toxic masc…
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell’s new Conviction and Incident Review Unit has sprung its first wrongly convicted person from prison.
Yesterday, I yelled at my sons.
Nicole Galloway – the Missouri state auditor running for governor as a Democrat – said the Minneapolis Police officers responsible for the killing of George Floyd “should be held accountable.”
The St. Louis County Police Association endorsed Mark Mantovani for St. Louis County executive in the upcoming Democratic Primary, which will be held on Tuesday, August 4. The police association represents 1,300 St. Louis County Police employees.
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“I have never seen anything like it.”
During the height of New York City’s climbing COVID-19 cases and deaths in March, the city formed a rapid response coalition. The goal was to lower the death rate among low-income communities and seniors with chronic conditions.
This week’s Political EYE is a guest column by three engaged academics: Bandy X. Lee, Harper West, and Kevin Washington. Bandy X. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine and president of the World Mental Health Coalition. Harper West is a licensed psychotherapist in Clarkst…
Many people are saying that nothing will ever be the same after COVID-19, but the EYE is watching a few things not change. We still have death, taxes and Tim Fitch – who doesn’t want to pay taxes for racial equity, he keeps saying in various ways from his bully pulpit on the St. Louis County…
Absentee voting by mail is coming to Missouri in 2020 – if a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Missouri, and Missouri Voter Protection Coalition prevails.
The August 4 primary election for Missouri secretary of state won’t be very eventful, with only one candidate each filing in the Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green and Constitution parties. The Republican candidate is the incumbent, John R. (Jay) Ashcroft. Running as a first-time candi…
Guardians of the status quo – like Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt, the reactionaries at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards – are doing what they always do when their systems of power are called into question: they are resorti…
On March 19, according to the Ethical Society of Police (ESOP), St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden issued a directive authorizing division commanders to order officers to continue routine, invasive policing during the COVID-19 pandemic at their discretion: “A commander has full discretion to…
On Thursday, March 19 – six weeks before the previously announced retirement of St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar – the Board of Police Commissioners announced his replacement. It will not be the county’s first black police chief, as many in the community pushed for (and more than one…
The official response to the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing illustration of the maxim to be careful what you wish — or whom you vote — for.
A federal judge ruled on Thursday, March 5 that the City of St. Louis’ ordinance on “impeding” traffic was unconstitutional — throwing out a law that city police have used to justify arresting, macing and tasing citizens at Ferguson and Stockley verdict protests.
(Story was updated on Feb. 27 with Ferguson Mayor James Knowles’ response, which was sent after the newspaper went to press on Feb. 26.)
Former Mayor Vince Schoemehl is going full throttle in support of 20th Ward Alderperson Cara Spencer, who recently announced that she is going to run for St. Louis mayor in 2021. Vince was a strong supporter of current Mayor Lyda Krewson, St. Louis’ first woman mayor, but since Lyda teamed w…
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St. Louis County Police Chief Jon M. Belmar announced his retirement on Monday, February 10 after nearly 34 years of service, six of those as police chief. He will leaves the department at the end of April.
Ferguson resident Felicia Pulliam approached the microphone at the January 14 Ferguson City Council meeting, and she began her public comment with just two words: Jeffrey Blume.
This guest Political EYE column by Chief Justice George W. Draper III of the Supreme Court of Missouri was edited from his State of the Judiciary address delivered Wednesday, January 22 during a joint session of the Missouri General Assembly.
It’s St. Louis, so of course there is a white police officers’ association and a black police officers’ association. Both released an official statement addressing the federal lawsuit filed by Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner alleging racial bias in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Departm…
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Updated at 1/14/19 at 10:58 a.m. to add response from City spokesman.
This story is part of a collaborative-reporting initiative with St. Louis Public Radio supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. It was reported by William H. Freivogel and Mimi Wright.
This guest Political EYE is part of a collaborative-reporting initiative of St. Louis Public Radio supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. It was reported by William H. Freivogel and Mimi Wright.
It’s not often that longtime police accountability advocate John Chasnoff, co-founder of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Oppression, agrees with Jeff Roorda, the business agent and mouthpiece for the St. Louis Police Officers Association. But they agree that it would not be a good id…
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Another St. Louis police officer has been indicted in the arrest and assault of black undercover cop Luther Hall during a protest downtown in September 2017. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer Steve Korte, 42, is accused of violently beating Hall and lying to the FBI about his involvement…
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St. Louis officials allegedly violated the law when they closed public records and public meetings regarding the airport privatization deal, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday, December 6 by transparency advocates.
November 14 was Mayor Lyda Krewson’s birthday.
It’s Thanksgiving time, when Political EYE gives thanks to those politicians whose tireless service and disservice makes this column possible all year long.
It is bone-chilling to read how undercover cop Luther Hall was beaten and arrested on September 17, 2017.
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Source: Cameras: 2019 video camera audits submitted by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the Street Department to the city’s operations director Homicide data: St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Income and race data: US Census Map by Kuang Keng Kuek Ser and Taylor Eldrid…
As expected, Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green (D-15th award) is running for the state Senate seat being vacated by term-limited state Senator Jamilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis). And, as expected, her announcement on Monday, October 14 sparked a heated conversation about a white candidate trying to w…
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Thirteen community groups (undersigned below) issued the following open letter to St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards.
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What do St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and U.S. President Donald Trump have in common? The same thing their first directors of Communication, Koran Addo and Sean Spicer, have in common. They all inherited from their predecessor a media list that included The St. Louis American – and then elimi…
Missouri Chief Justice George W. Draper III gave a stinging rebuke to Missouri lawyers in his address at the joint annual meeting of The Missouri Bar and the Judicial Conference of Missouri on September 19. This is edited from his remarks.
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More than 340 St. Louis Metropolitan police officers are named in a class-action lawsuit filed todayagainst the individual officers and the City of St. Louis, alleging the unlawfully pepper spraying, beating and “kettle” arrests of more than 120 people on Sept. 17, 2017.
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August 9 was such a towering milestone in the St. Louis region – five years after the Ferguson Police killing of Michael Brown – that not much public attention was paid to another anniversary two days before. August 7 marked one year since Wesley Bell crushed incumbent St. Louis County Prose…
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What if Better Together’s proposal had gone before the voters and been passed, as the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch urged voters to do? What if Steve Stenger had become the new unelected mayor of the expanded metro St. Louis, as Better Together proposed (and St. Louis Mayor …
Dear Gov. Parson,
The community is once again in shock and mourning for the senseless murder of another innocent child, a young girl, which brought the number of victims to 12 this year alone. She had recently attended our back-to-school fair. We hardly have the time to mourn one young life lost when another …
Lamar Johnson’s 1994 murder conviction was allegedly steeped in corruption from both police and prosecutors, and new evidence proves that the African-American man is innocent, said St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner in a July 19 court motion to get Johnson a new trial.
Missouri Republicans elected to statewide positions have been moving on up, and now Missouri’s only statewide elected Democrat – state Auditor Nicole Galloway (D-Columbia) – is trying to make her own move up to governor. She surprised no one conversant with Missouri politics when she announc…
State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. submitted his letter of resignation from his 78th District seat on July 31, and has publicly explained that he needed to address some issues of anxiety and depression. Two young, talented black men have put their names into the hat to be Franks’ successor – Rashee…
When Redditt Hudson was working as an undercover St. Louis cop trying to bust drug dealers in North City, he had a conversation with a father that he’ll never forget.
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On the outside, it seems like a win for the black community and anyone else who would like to see the old boys’ club in St. Louis disrupted and held accountable.
Before Jimmie Edwards became St. Louis’ public safety director, he was a circuit judge and a lawyer. Now he commands the police and fire departments, the jails and various others divisions.
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After hearing the heartbreaking stories of children in inhumane and unsanitary detention centers — that experts are now deeming concentration camps – many St. Louisans have been asking what they can do.
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