A Black St. Louis County police lieutenant colonel on Wednesday sued the county for discrimination after he said he was passed over for a promotion to chief of police, a position instead given to a white woman.
Lt. Col. Troy Doyle has been with the department since April 1992. In that time, he has received promotions to the ranks of sergeant, lieutenant and captain. He has been a lieutenant colonel since 2014.
He filed a complaint of discrimination against St. Louis County with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights on July 24. On Jan. 22, the commission issued a notice of his right to sue in the matter.
Following is Doyle’s account of what happened, according to his lawsuit, filed in St. Louis County Court on Wednesday:
In 2019, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page invited Doyle to his house, where Page told Doyle that he wanted him to be the next chief of police for the St. Louis County Police Department. Page also told Doyle that he was “the right person for the job,” that “it was the right thing to do,” and that it would be “historic.”
The St. Louis County Police Department has never had a Black chief.
Page assured Doyle he would appoint members to the Board of Police Commissioners who would support this.
Page then instructed him to meet with several people, including The St. Louis American’s publisher, Donald Suggs, for an endorsement for the position, as well as Page’s campaign manager Richard Callow.
By late November 2019, Page had successfully appointed four people to the Board of Police Commissioners: William Ray Price, former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court; Michelle Schwerin, a St. Louis attorney; Thomasina Hassler, an associate professor at Harris-Stowe State University and a scholar in residence at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; and Dr. Laurie Punch, an associate director of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine.
What followed those appointments were several instances in which Jon Belmar, then-chief of police, transferred Doyle and other Black police officers to lower ranking leadership positions within the department and replaced them with white officers.
Meanwhile, Page told Doyle in late January 2020 that he was getting “push back” regarding the appointment of a Black police chief and that he was now having difficulty “pushing this across the finish line.”
In particular, Page told Doyle he was “shocked” at what a few members of the St. Louis Police Foundation said to him, indicating they made racist comments in regards to appointing a Black police chief. Page also noted he was struggling to raise funds for his campaign.
The foundation is an organization that provides significant financial support to political candidates.
On Feb. 10, 2020, Belmar announced that he was retiring, effective April 30. Around that time, the Board of Police Commissioners changed the qualifications to allow candidates with the rank of captain or above to apply for the chief of police position; before then, only those with the rank of lieutenant colonel were qualified to become chief.
Doyle applied for the chief of police position March 10 and was given one 20-minute interview with the police board for the position.
A little over two weeks later, on March 29th, Captain Mary Barton, a white woman, was selected as the next chief of police.
