We are encouraged by the early performance of new Police Chief Sam Dotson in his first month leading the department that performs the toughest job in this city. Though Dotson rightly insists his first priority is to reduce crime, he has taken command of a problematic department at a challenging and opportune time. The public rightly expects an accounting of how he perceives his position and his strategy and plans for the police department. Dotson has been eloquent in speaking to public concerns as he sets about leading the department.
“We’ve had one chance in the last 150 years to reinvent the place,” Dotson said about the city assuming local control of the police department, “and that’s how we are approaching it now. I told all of our commanders that everything is on the table.” We often have said that St. Louis needs more forward-looking leadership to meet our challenges, and his words reflect a leader who is looking forward. This is highly encouraging.
We expect for Dotson to protect the interests of his staff. However, his comments address two major concerns of the community. He surprised many by granting up front that local control should include civilian review, and under close questioning by our reporter Rebecca S. Rivas he also committed to following through with a cutting-edge mediation process initiated by the ACLU. These can be characterized as major concessions to the community’s concerns, and we commend Dotson for making them.
However, Dotson clearly does not intend to accept a civilian review board that includes subpoena power, as the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression has urged. “The officers are most concerned about being compelled to testify in the court of public opinion in front of a civilian review board, which would be subject to open record laws,” Dotson told us, and he clearly intends to heed those concerns.
In recent years, as we have reported, the St. Louis police board has turned a very blind eye on charges of misdeeds by police officers. Any form of civilian review would be more effective than our recent governor-appointed citizen colonels, along with Mayor Francis G. Slay, a member of this largely worthless police board for 11 years. But the actions of Slay appointee Gloria Wessels on the Zoo-Museum District board should remind us that civilian review of any public institution can be damaging as well as constructive. Certainly a loose cannon like Wessels with subpoena power could become a nightmare for any public institution, be it a museum or a police force.
As Dotson looks forward, we would like to remind him of the recent past. The U.S. Attorney in St. Louis closed the investigation of the police department towing scam, effectively declaring that Police Chief Joe Mokwa had been exonerated. However, anyone who followed the Post-Dispatch’s excellent initial investigation of the towing scam could see that many more people had to be involved in this prolonged criminal activity than the few who were brought to justice. Dotson admitted to us that he accompanied Mokwa on some of his regular visits to towing vendor Greg Shepard, who went to prison for his fraudulent activities. For Dotson’s officers to do their job properly, they need the public’s trust. Though he is off to an impressive start, Dotson has a long way to go in gaining and sustaining that trust for him and his department.
