Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.
So goes the classic nursery rhyme. Will the St. Louis Police Department share the fate of Humpty Dumpty? Or, will the good citizens of St. Louis be able to salvage a viable police department from the mangled shards?
The St. Louis Police Department is in free-fall, tumbling out of control as a federal investigation racks its ranks. Make no mistake, the department was not without its past scandals. The reign of retired chief Eugene Camp was highlighted by a bevy of convoluted breaches of both professional and personal integrity by top cops. The reporting of these incidents often provided fodder for newspaper headlines.
However, during this period, the public trust was somehow maintained. Citizens still held respect for the cops patrolling their streets. Today, citizen respect is fast waning, if not gone.
In a mere seven years, former chief Joe Mokwa managed to cobble a department that has many of the earmarks of a full-fledged criminal enterprise. Those familiar with the historic operation of the department are able to read between the lines of the many news stories. They detect a department wrought with corrupt management. So it’s a good bet that, if federal investigators do their job diligently, a gaggle of high-ranking cops will be trading in their comfy office chairs for a cold steel bunk in a federal penitentiary.
Humpty Dumpty didn’t fall. He was pushed by the culture of corruption acquired and fostered by police management. Nevertheless, he is broken. But with adversity often comes opportunity. The time has come for St. Louis to take back its police department, convene the necessary craftsmen, and reassemble Humpty Dumpty as a professional law enforcement agency of which its citizens can once again be proud.
Michael K. Broughton
Via email
Broughton is a retired City cop and former colunist for The Gendarme, the publication of the St. Louis Police Officers Association.