Many think the City of St. Louis has ushered in a new period for public safety. Maybe. Maybe not. We now have a black police chief, John Hayden, and a black Public Safety director, Jimmie Edwards. Both men have lengthy backgrounds in public safety, at least from the view of crime and punishment.
The way you start off is the way you continue. If this is the case, the community has good reason for concern and even skepticism.
For nine months, interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole was at the helm. During that time, he could have birthed a new kind of department that aligned itself with community visioning expressed during the selection process for police chief. Instead, we got a good dose of gestapo tactics.
In a meeting with O’Toole and Mayor Lyda Krewson to discuss the anticipated reactions to the Jason Stockley verdict, the chief lied to me and other community citizens about how the police would respond to non-violent civil disobedience. At one point, cops in the heat of the Stockley protests shouted, “Whose streets, our streets!” and O’Toole was quoted as saying that police “owned the night.”
O’Toole was acutely aware of the over-aggressive tactics being used against non-violent protestors in the Stockley verdict aftermath, including being maced while handcuffed. O’Toole did nothing to corral this unlawful behavior which only emboldened the hostile cops on the street. The police tactics, which included “kettling,”were challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union as “unlawful and unconstitutional” and a federal judge agreed.
O’Toole lied to Krewson when he told her Milton Green, a black off-duty officer, was shot in a crossfire and not by a fellow white officer. Krewson told the press she would fire O’Toole if that turned out to be untrue. Well, everyone in the department knew it was a lie when O’Toole said it. The Ethical Society of Police went public to expose the lie.
The mayor did not fire O’Toole. Instead, he was paid a retention bonus when Hayden was promoted over him. Then Hayden thanked O’Toole for his “honorable” service as interim chief. We must be careful about how we use adjectives. Honorable is one word that shouldn’t be used in the same sentence with the name of Lawrence O’Toole.
New faces may mean new opportunities, but they don’t always equate with transformative change. In St. Louis, it is imperative that we embark upon a new and different way of policing and addressing crime.
The city has more police-involved murders per capita than any city in the nation. Violent crime has many roots, and the same response doesn’t work for all situations. We need some innovative approaches to public safety that instill trust and confidence in a department that is perceived by the African-American community as corrupt, insensitive and ineffective.
It is up to the citizens to continue articulating our vision of public safety and to hold people accountable towards fighting for those goals. The community is the determining factor in whether we end up with genuine public safety that works for all and a system of accountability for everyone.
