One of St. Louis’ chief law enforcement officials – and the only black leader in public safety in the city – attended Governor Eric Greitens’ press conference about crime in St. Louis on Monday, July 10, but as a bystander.
“I wasn’t invited,” Sheriff Vernon Betts told The St. Louis American.
Betts tried to hear Greitens talk over protestors attacking the governor for not vetoing a state bill that will negate St. Louis’ ordinance setting up gradual increases in the minimum wage in the city. City minimum wages already have been increased to $10 an hour, but will be cut back to $7.70, the state minimum, when the law goes into effect in August.
Greitens was trying to announce that Missouri Highway Patrol troopers have started patrolling interstates in the city, to free up more city police to patrol city streets, and that he had directed state agencies to work with city departments and schools to provide services, such as trauma counseling, that might prevent crime. St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson also attended and welcomed the state’s support.
But Greitens could scarcely be heard over an improvised sound system at Riverview Plaza in North St. Louis, as protestors were much more numerous and vocal.
“Increase wages, decrease crime!” one protestor shouted.
“Poverty makes crime!” shouted another.
“Pay the workers, don’t incarcerate them!” shouted yet another.
One pastor’s protest of the governor was more personal and based on experience.
“You’re a liar!” Rev. Clinton Stancil, senior pastor of Wayman AME Church in North St. Louis, thundered at the governor.
Stancil said that Greitens visited his church three times on the campaign trail. He said Greitens indicated in personal meetings that he did not oppose the minimum wage increase and did not support a bill that makes it difficult to sue for employment discrimination. But bills killing the city’s minimum wage increase and limiting anti-discrimination suits in the state will become law without his veto.
“He made promises,” Stancil said of Greitens. “They were all lies.”
Sheriff Betts was asked if it makes sense for the governor to cut wages and pledge to decrease crime in the same city.
“You can’t,” Betts said. “You can’t take bread out of folks’ mouth and expect them to be happy. You can’t do that.”
But Greitens had not consulted him or even invited him to the press announcement. Betts said he is used to being left out of public safety conversations, though his department is responsible for transporting prisoners and guarding the courtrooms where they are tried.
“We hear about more money for police, but that’s more arrests and more court cases, so more work for my staff,” Betts said. “I need deputies. We need witnesses to testify. But who is going to testify if there is no adequate protection for them when they show up in court? I need deputies.”
Betts also noted that he has a degree in criminology, as well as family and friends who are incarcerated, so has a uniquely nuanced perspective on crime. He also is a rarity in St. Louis – a black man in a leadership position in law enforcement. “But the governor didn’t invite me,” Betts said.
Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green of the 15th Ward attended the press event, also on her own initiative, and lined up with the protestors, not the elected officials. “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime,” her sign read, an insight from Aristotle.
“Poverty is the root cause of crime” Green said. “You can’t take away people’s paychecks and reduce crime. We’re talking about paying police more while the governor just cut the minimum wage for every worker in the city, and the mayor’s not fighting that in court. We keep throwing money at police, but we can’t tackle crime until we reallocate resources in the city budget. And now the mayor wants a regressive sales tax, which just makes things worse, to pay police more.”
Greitens retreated behind a wall of police officers to take questions from the media. He took no questions from the public, so protestors did not hear his answer to why he thinks he can cut wages in St. Louis while reducing crime here.
“I was elected to bring more jobs to Missouri,” Greitens said. “The minimum wage increase hurts the people it is supposed to help.” Greitens has previously argued that higher wages “kill jobs.”
However, in 2016 the National Employment Law project reported that employment has increased 68 percent of the times the minimum wage has increased since 1938. Further, industries most affected by the minimum wage did even better, with retail seeing increases in employment 73 percent of the time and leisure and hospitality seeing increases 82 percent of the time the minimum wage has been increased. The researchers found “no correlation” between rises in minimum wages and dips in employment.
