A Republican Missouri senator has introduced a bill that would withhold state money from municipalities that reduce funding for their police departments and decriminalize hitting protesters with a vehicle or using other deadly force against them.
Sen. Rick Brattin represents Missouri’s 31st district, which ecompasses an area just south of Kansas City and includes Barton, Bates, Cass, Henry and Vernon counties. His bill, Senate Bill 66, has gone through two readings on the Senate floor and was heard by the Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee Jan. 25.
The bill would ensure a driver is not liable for “injuries to another person who blocks traffic if such person was exercising due care and was not grossly negligent” and also would allow a person to use deadly force against another “if such force is used against a person who is participating in an unlawful assembly and unlawfully enters or attempts to enter private property that is owned or leased by an individual.”
In addition to these protest-related items, Brattin also wants to make it a felony to intentionally impede traffic and would categorize rioting as an assembly of at least six people violating state or federal laws.
The bill would also impose a prison term of five to 15 years for vandalizing a monument on public property.
If passed, the measure would go into effect Aug. 28.
Police funding
Brattin’s bill also includes an item that would make municipalities “ineligible to receive funds from the state if the body decreases the budget for its law enforcement agency by more than 12 [percent] in relation to other budget items in the proposed budget.”
For the current fiscal year, St. Louis’ public safety budget is $358,158,835 — with $50,474,496 of that money coming from “grants and other funds,” while $264,333,130 comes from the general fund; $23,528,961 from the local use tax fund; $100,000 from the economic development sales tax and $19,722,248 from the Prop P sales and use tax fund.
Of that budget, police operations accounts for 49% of the funds used, and police retirement accounts for 11%. In addition, 3% is allocated to corrections and the Workhouse.
St. Louis doesn’t receive any funding from the state for the operation of the police department, according toTyson Pruitt, a spokesperson for St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Green. He noted that’s been the case for several years, since the city regained local control over the police department.
While the city does receive a small amount of public safety grants, Pruitt said, most are federal funds administered by the state and are usually for specific programs.
In St. Louis County, the total police operating budget is $155,801,469 for the current fiscal year. That includes things such as payroll, equipment, services, training and department resources. Police administration is a different, separate category in the budget.
The county was unable to provide approximately how much of their police budget is funded by state money in time for the publishing of this story.
Bill reaction
The Ethical Society of Police has come out in fierce opposition to the bill. The society is an association of more than 300 police officers, park rangers and civilians that advocates for racial and gender equity in law enforcement.
“Not only is this legislation ill-founded, it appears, on its very face, to be directly and specifically designed to be disproportionately adverse to people of color, meaning that it has serious, intentional racially adverse overtones,” ESOP wrote in a statement.
“As well, it appears to be specifically designed to prevent the peaceful exercise of constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and assembly.”
The group urged the Missouri legislature to denounce this proposal and deny its passage.
A spokesman for the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association said that group does not comment on state legislation, leaving that up to their parent organization, the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, which released a statement in support of Senate Bill 66.
“The Missouri FOP is unyielding in the belief that our citizens possess the right to peaceably assemble and demonstrate for the greater good,” they wrote. “However, endangering the lives of protesters, motorists, and police officers by blocking roadways and highways is not a safe method of demonstration. Not only does it affect the physical safety of those involved, but it risks the lives and property of other Missourians by interrupting critical emergency services.”