St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the Ferguson Police Department will command the police response to protests planned for the coming one-year anniversary of the police killing of Michael Brown Jr. Ferguson Interim Chief Andre Anderson will make decisions in Ferguson, though Belmar’s cops will be at his command, along with Missouri Highway Patrol troopers assigned to Ferguson and working with the County.
Belmar likened the arrangement to the December 23 police response to protests in Berkeley after the police killing of Antonio Martin, when County police responded in force but commanders on the scene took direction from Berkeley Chief Frank McCall.
Belmar said he was waiting as long as possible, for human and financial reasons, to place his officers on 12-hour shifts, but he would do so before the August 9 anniversary. He plans to run a command center from County emergency operations, moving a command post to Ferguson only if the situation escalates.
The 12-hour shifts, he said, are required to ensure adequate staffing if there are extensive protests and to avoid the nightmare of Ferguson calling Code 1000. This was one of many police command decisions from August in Ferguson harshly criticized by the Department of Justice. Code 1000 is a call for all available officers to report, which resulted in chaotic, unsupervised self-deployments.
Belmar, who has been meeting with protestors and community leaders, said he has been told personally to expect civil disobedience as part of the protest movement’s strategy for calling attention to its issues.
“And if there is going to be civil disobedience, we need police to be there and they need to be prepared to fulfill their mission,” Belmar told The American in a long sit-down on August 3. “We are obligated to prepare and maligned if we don’t.”
Belmar said the County has been preparing with de-escalation training. He said County officers are now trained in de-escalation, and the County Police Department is certified by the Missouri Police Officers Standards and Training Commission to offer de-escalation training, which it has been doing in the Ferguson Police Department.
“De-escalation should be part of a police officer’s daily job,” Belmar said. “I don’t know how you’ll live long in this job without it. You can’t bull-rush everything.”
The DOJ blasted police response in Ferguson last August as escalating, rather than de-escalating, community grief and the protest response. The DOJ criticized Ferguson Police for its early introduction of canines, and Belmar for his early and prominent use of hulking, militaristic vehicles, with armed snipers often perched on top of them. He plans to have the big trucks and Tactical officers at the ready, but not on location in Ferguson.
“Our goal is not to bring these trucks into any of these arenas,” Belmar said. “It’s easy to discuss in theory, but there are circumstances where, for the safety of everybody, it’s contingent that we have the right tools to do the job.”
He understands what he calls the “optics” of these hulking, heavily armed trucks, but insisted they are more properly described as defensive, rather than militaristic. “They are not there to attack, but to give police officers that level of protection that prevents a situation where someone has to pull a trigger,” Belmar said.
Belmar cited two examples where their use could be needed. “Let’s say we have to extract someone who has been injured and the crowd won’t cooperate, or if a police officer has been injured,” Belmar said. “I don’t want to see those trucks, but then again I can’t give you the assurance they won’t be there.”
Belmar said he is aware of no alarming intelligence about any violent plans for the protests or any specific danger to police officers and had passed on no warnings to Gov. Jay Nixon.
All arrests to County jail
Belmar said police leaders also want to improve upon chaotic arrest conditions, if protests result in arrests this weekend. He said any and all arrests will be funneled to St. Louis County, rather than whatever municipal jail has an open cell.
“That way, we know who has been arrested and families know where people are,” Belmar said.
Though a judge sets bond amounts and conditions, Belmar said in “99 percent of misdemeanors” in the County, the accused is released from jail without being required to post bond.
Belmar’s preparation for the protests began and continues with community engagement, and it was clear that Belmar had been doing his legwork. Out of respect for their credibility, The American won’t name the community leaders Belmar said he had found helpful and cooperative, but clearly some new connections have given him new hope.
“You win the little victories that you can,” he said. “I want to put more attention in what winning looks like than what losing looks like.”
Belmar is claiming Senate Bill 5, signed into law by Gov. Nixon, as a victory. Belmar testified before the Missouri Legislature on behalf of the bill, which puts a lower cap on the revenue that St. Louis County municipalities can generate from court fines and fees, puts new teeth in enforcing that cap, and requires a checklist of good-government improvements for municipalities like Ferguson.
Belmar speaks with disgust of the use of police to generate revenue. Ferguson’s police chief, city manager and judge all resigned after the Department of Justice reported emails where the chief openly discussed using officers to raise revenue with city and court officials.
“I’ve never had to worry about how much money the County Police bring into the County,” Belmar said.
Ferguson protestors may find it odd to hear Chief Belmar claiming municipal court reform as a victory of their movement, but he did just that. In fact, since August, Belmar has gradually shifted from talking about “protestors” to a “protest community” to a “new civil rights movement,” a phrase The American first heard come from the County chief on August 3.
“If this is a new civil rights movement, then let’s see what becomes of it,” Belmar said. “Let’s take a look at what this could mean many years from now.”
