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 idea to return control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to the State of Missouri.
This throwback idea was floated by state Rep. Chris Carter (D-St. Louis) in a bill filed in advance of the upcoming legislative session.
“This legislation would be a move in the wrong direction,” Chasnoff told The American. “Returning to state control disempowers the community. With local control, citizens have the ability to change the city administration and demand accountability. With local control, the Board of Aldermen can have input and legislate changes if necessary. A structural change that takes away those powers would only return us to the old status quo that has proven itself to be unresponsive and dysfunctional.”
Roorda mostly offered bromides about the bravery of police and how much the general public supports them and granted that “city control has been a disaster,” but added, “I doubt that this is a serious proposal” without arguing for any merits it might have.
Police accountability activists like Chasnoff advocated for a return to local control and the Police Officers Association opposed it in November 2012, when the matter went before city voters as Proposition A. It passed by more than 15,000 votes, 76,715 votes (56.36 percent) to 59,407 votes (43.6 percent).
The Ethical Society of Police, which advocates for racial equity in police work, opposed Proposition A in 2012. Sergeant Heather Taylor, its current president, doesn’t like local control any more than Roorda, but doesn’t see any value to returning to state control either.
“There’s no one benefit to local control versus state control that makes one more appealing than the other,” Taylor told The American. “However, the starting point has to occur with hiring, holding current officers accountable for misconduct, and giving officers incentives for working in the St. Louis Metropolitan City Police Department.”
Unlike most cops, Taylor sounds more like Chasnoff than Roorda when talking about police abuse of power. She used a highly charged example to stress why state control was no better than local control.
“State control and local control have their pros and cons,” Taylor said. “Neither will stop police corruption. Jason Stockley murdered Anthony Lamar Smith when we had a board of police commissioners. They didn’t see fit to immediately fire him then for his actions.” (For the record, Stockley was acquitted of murder by Judge Timothy Wilson in a bench trial, sparking months of protests and dozens of lawsuits alleging police brutality and First Amendment violations.)
Taylor sounds more like Roorda in complaining about the deterioration of the police department under local control – that is, under the control of Mayor Lyda Krewson, Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards and Police Chief John Hayden.
“Local control hasn’t lived up to the hype, and there is way too much bureaucracy in city government,” Taylor said. “Getting simple repairs done on police vehicles can take months, if they get done at all. Some of our cars are damaged and run down, but let’s not fail to attribute that to how some officers have chosen to drive these vehicles.”
On the Ethical Society of Police’s core issue – racial equity – Taylor sees no greater or lesser accountability under Krewson, Edwards and Hayden than under the state-appointed police boards of the past.
“State control will not address racism and officer misconduct,” Taylor said. “We were founded under state control because of rampant racism; despite a Board of Police Commissioners, very little changed. The same can be said now.”
Carter justified his legislation – illogically – by claiming that under local control, the police department is not accountable to anyone. “We feel the police department is now less responsive because they no longer answer to anyone, a committee, the state legislature, or the governor,” Carter said.
In fact, the police department answers to Hayden, who answers to Edwards, who answers to Krewson. None of these officials was mentioned by Carter.
Unlike Taylor, who wants more accountability for the police, and Roorda, who wants more official respect for the police, Carter just wants more police: “more police officers, more squad cars and more uniforms in North St. Louis.”
Perhaps state Rep. Wiley “Chip” Price (D-St. Louis), who just finished his rookie session in the state House, offered the most logical perspective on the issue of the St. Louis police relative to the Missouri Legislature.
“Local control was passed by city voters by a wide margin,” Price told The American. “As elected officials, it’s not about our opinions. It’s about the will of the people. The control of the St. Louis police is a decision to be made by St. Louis voters, not Missouri legislators.”
Bosley files bill to regulate ammunition sales
State Rep. LaKeySha Bosley (D-St. Louis) is not coming for anyone’s guns, but she does want ammunition sales to be better regulated in Missouri.
On Thursday, December 19 she filed House Bill 1856, which would require anyone selling ammunition to attain official designation by the secretary of state as a licensed ammunition seller. It would also require ammunition dealers to keep records of people who buy ammo, require face-to-face transactions between sellers, deliverers and purchasers, and prohibit people from transporting ammunition purchased outside of Missouri into the state. The bill would also require anyone selling ammunition to be in an officially designated, licensed location.
California voters enacted similar policies via Proposition 63 in 2016.
Currently, Missouri has no regulations regarding the sale of ammunition. The state requires no licenses for vendors, does not ensure that people purchasing ammo have a license, nor does it prohibit people ineligible of possessing firearms under state law from buying ammo.
“As a state legislative body that wants to address and curb the issue of gun violence, not regulating ammunition is negligence,” Bosley said in a statement. “If we want to keep law-abiding citizens safe, we have to assure them we’re doing our part, and we can do that by passing this bill.”
Bosley said that her bill is a response to a summer that saw 13 children killed in St. Louis, some of them by stray bullets.
“When we start to lose our most vulnerable,” she stated, “we have to look at what we’re doing and make changes right now that protect our children.”
Knowing the opposition she can expect from the Republican-dominated legislature, particularly out-state legislators, Bosley stated that she would open to the possibility of having the law only apply to cities not located within counties. St. Louis is the only such city in the state.
