At the deadline of last week’s paper, the St. Louis Police Officers Association announced its endorsement for St. Louis mayor in the primary election on March 7. We did not hold up our edition for the news, but we could have gone to press saying the coppers endorsed Lyda Krewson, as anyone would have guessed they would do, and which they did.
When we heard the news, we asked the four candidates for mayor that we consider to be serious – Tishaura O. Jones, Lewis Reed, Antonio French and Krewson herself – to respond to the police union’s endorsement. We asked them to consider whether the meaning of the endorsement was affected by the fact that Jeff Roorda made the announcement. Roorda, a Democrat from Jefferson County, is business agent and spokesperson for the city police union.
He also is a conservative ideologue who publishes things like this, addressed to President-elect Donald Trump.
“You’re off to a good start. You said all the right things on the campaign trail, keenly recognizing the complexities of modern-day police work and fearlessly rejecting the false narratives abounding that portray cops as racially biased, trigger-happy, soulless storm troopers. Contrast that with your opponent who parroted the same tired, baseless criticisms of police the Obama administration has advanced for eight years. She then had the audacity to invite the mothers of would-be cop killers to join her on the stage at the Democratic Convention, a slap in the face to police officers, their families and their supporters,” Roorda wrote to Trump.
“I believe that was the moment the winds changed in the 2016 election. In fact, I expect historians to remember it as the moment you sealed your victory, Mr. Trump.”
So what do these candidates make of this endorsement of this candidate coming from this spokesperson? Only French responded by deadline. It’s interesting, especially, that Krewson passed up a chance to brag about the endorsement or defend it. Jones responded after deadline, and her response will be discussed here next week.
“When Lyda Krewson chooses to stand with Jeff Roorda she is showing her true stripes. Lyda has no intention of working to repair the broken relationship between the police and the black community. She opposed creating a strong Civilian Review Board in 2006. Her new crime plan is just fulfilling a Jeff Roorda wish list that will cost taxpayers $34 million without adding one layer of additional oversight or accountability,” French wrote.
“Lyda Krewson doesn’t get it. She has no idea what the problem is and therefore no chance of fixing it. Our city must move away from the occupying force model and become a national leader in true community policing. That requires trust and accountability. It requires a mayor who’s on the side of the people of St. Louis city and not Jeff Roorda of Jefferson County.”
French’s campaign manager Ryan Hawkins also pointed out “two giant inaccuracies in Lyda accepting this endorsement.”
He pointed out that in a September 2016 interview with St. Louis Public Radio, Krewson said that St. Louis could not arrest its way out of its crime problem. She said there “needs to be a greater focus on the root causes of crime, including a lack of early childhood education, inadequate mental health services and ‘a flood of guns into our state and surrounding areas as well.’” Indeed, she makes similar points in an op-ed in The American this week.
“However,” Hawkins pointed out, “when accepting the endorsement she changed her tune: ‘We’re not going to improve neighborhood safety in this city unless we work hand-in-hand with the police department,’” she said. “’That’s not the only element of a neighborhood safety plan, but it’s certainly one of the major elements.’”
Secondly – “and probably even worse, in terms of pandering for support from the union,” Hawkins noted – has to do with the funding for new police. In her crime plan, “My Commitment to Safe Neighborhoods,” Krewson states that “we will find the money to fund this plan. Period.” She said she “will initiate a review/audit of all city spending” to “identify savings” and “clarify the cost of all city operations so that city leadership can make informed choices.”
However, Hawkins noted, Roorda told St. Louis Public Radio that “the conversations have been ongoing and frequent with Lyda’s campaign about the different possibilities, whether it’s a sales tax, personal property tax, a fee increase, or some combination of those things. And some of this is just about setting your priorities.”
And if her priority is hiring 200 more cops, as she says and the police union seems to believe, then where does the city find the money for things like more early childhood education and more adequate mental health services, which Krewson herself acknowledged are essential to reducing crime?
The St. Louis Police Officers Association currently has 1,118 members, according to Roorda – “including over 300 minorities, which is more minorities than the Ethical Society of Police represents,” he added, getting in a dig at the black fraternal police association. Roorda said only 601 members (about 54 percent) live in the city, but about 60 percent of its more than 1,500 retirees live in the city.
Bruce Franks sues police
State representative-elect Bruce Franks Jr. – last seen in these pages getting robbed and carjacked at gunpoint in downtown St. Louis on December 19 – filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit on December 22 against four police officers, alleging that they used excessive force in his arrest while he was acting as a peaceful mediator at a protest on December 23, 2014.
The suit alleges that Franks, 32, was brutally beat, kicked, and pepper sprayed while acting as a “Peacekeeper” at a protest in Berkeley that occurred after the police-shooting death of Antonio Martin two years ago.
In the complaint, the ArchCity Defenders, who filed the suit on Franks’ behalf, allege that police officers from Berkeley and St. Louis County used excessive force, assaulted and battered Franks, all in violation of Franks’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Franks claims that he has suffered permanent physical injuries and damage and asks for monetary relief, but doesn’t set an amount.
The suit names St. Louis County police Officer David Steinmeyer, Berkeley police Officer Evelio Valdespino, an unidentified Berkeley officer and an unidentified St. Louis County officer as defendants.
St. Louis County Counselor Peter Crane told The American he had not yet been served the lawsuit so he couldn’t comment on it. Berkeley Police Chief Art Jackson had not returned The American’s request for comment at press time.
Franks did not pursue a legal remedy immediately because he wanted to first engage the two police departments in discussions and raise awareness about needed police training and reform, said Nathaniel Carroll, staff attorney with ArchCity Defenders.
Franks leads a group called 28 to Life, which attempts to foster better relationships between law enforcement agents and the youth in his neighborhood.
“Despite advocacy efforts, he was not able to get the results he was hoping for, and Mr. Franks began working on the lawsuit with ArchCity Defenders,” Carroll said.
With a two-year statute of limitations, the window for Franks to take legal action loomed two days after he filed his suit on December 24, an ArchCity representative said.
In the incident at the protest, officers charged Franks with “assault on a law enforcement officer,” and “resisting or interfering with an arrest,” both of which were eventually dropped.
Claire fluffs Trump tweet
How will U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill – the only Democrat from Missouri in the U.S. Senate and, along with state Auditor Nicole Galloway, one of only two Democrats holding statewide office in Missouri – adjust to the presidency of Donald Trump?
Last week, she went along with Trump on one of his out-of-context and unpresidential tweets concerning government business because it could result in a contract for a major Missouri employer.
Trump had tweeted that “based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns” of the F-35, he has asked Boeing to “price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet.” McCaskill followed with a press release: “The F-18 Super Hornet is the backbone of our Naval air fleet – it’s proven itself a reliable, cost-effective part of America’s arsenal time and time again—and I know firsthand that Boeing’s St. Louis workforce is among the best, most innovative in the country. The Hornet is also the most important unfunded priority of the Navy’s. I’ve called for years for a blend of air power, partly because of the F-35’s cost overruns and missed deadlines, and I look forward to talking more with President-elect Trump’s Administration about how the Super Hornet can continue to fill a vital need in our nation’s defense.”
McCaskill is a senior member of the Armed Services Committee – and a Missouri Democrat who has to run for reelection in 2018 in a state that Trump won by 20 points.
