Last week, the courts ruled in favor of the deceptive language in the ballot initiative for local control of the city police. The ballot initiative is the handiwork of Mayor Slay, the St. Louis Police Officers Association (POA) and A Safer Missouri, the latter being a front group funded by billionaire Rex Sinquefield. The wicked triumvirate has been exclusionary and short-sighted in its process to oppose the full complements of local control. In doing so, they have added to the growing distrust of the police department. The groups may have won the first round of the legal battle but have lost the public relations war.
Mayor Slay and the POA have long opposed local control. The POA has fought hard against the 20-year-old efforts of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression (CAPCR). The mayor joined their efforts to sabotage the process built by the coalition when it was clear that local control had a good chance of passing in the Missouri Legislature.
The St. Louis Board of Aldermen Public Safety Committee recently held a hearing and a public forum on the issue of local control. Three issues have become unmistakably clear in listening to the testimonies of the representatives of the triumvirate.
The first is that any entity that was non-white was left out of their exclusive process. The chair of the Public Safety Committee is Alderman Greg Carter, a black man; the Police Chief is Dan Isom, a black man; and the CAPCR co-chairs are Zaki Baruti and me, both black. Worse yet, the St. Louis Ethical Society (the group representing black police office officers) was left out of the process for hammering out the ballot initiative. The St. Louis American published a letter from Eddie Simmons, the group’s outgoing president, on the POA’s disrespectful course of action.
Secondly, an aversion to transparency and accountability has been made quite clear. The ballot initiative contains language about “exclusive authority” that is designed to keep secret the operations, including criminal investigations, of the police department. The POA is on record opposing a civilian review board so citizens would be blocked from utilizing an independent and open process when they have a complaint against the police.
Lastly, the three amigos obviously didn’t think through the implications of the ballot initiative. At the two hearings, they have been unable to explain how the process affects existing city statutes and processes. They were so busy trying to maintain the cloak of secrecy that no real attention was paid to how the ballot initiative will be implemented in the real world.
The Police Officers Association has disregarded public sentiment before. Despite citizens wanting and voting on their officers living in the city of St. Louis, the group got the Board of Police Commissioners to vote to relax the residency requirement. The POA will undoubtedly pay a price for their continued disregard for the citizens who pay their salaries.
Meanwhile, the struggle for local control continues. The ACLU will appeal the decision on the ballot language by the court. The Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression is working to raise awareness about the ballot’s deception. If you signed the petition for local control and didn’t understand that it was actually in opposition to real and effective local control and a civilian review board, please contact the CAPCR at capcr_cob@hotmail.com or 314-454-9005.
