The St. Louis City NAACP is joining with activists and faith leaders to call for independent investigations of police shootings in the city and, in an initial discussion, St. Louis’ city government seemed receptive.
At a meeting of the Board of Alderman’s Ways and Means Committee on June 14, St. Louis NAACP President Adolphus M. Pruitt and Missouri Missionary Baptist State Convention President Lindon Bowis called on the committee to work with them on creating and funding an independent way of investigating police shootings. Pruitt said it was important to remove the investigations from any pressures that could come from a prosecutor’s relationship with the police department.
Pruitt and Bowis were representing the Justice 2020 St. Louis initiative, a coalition which hopes to establish a criminal justice reform plan with the goal of creating trust and understanding between St. Louis’ black community and police department.
“The history on this issue is one that is clear in the St. Louis region and in some cases across the nation,” Pruitt said. “When there is an officer-involved shooting, especially that is resulting in a loss of life, it leads to mistrust between the department and the community, it interrupts commerce, it gives the region and the city a black eye, it leads to all sorts of negative impact on the community.”
Pruitt said the only way that issue could be addressed was through the creation of an independent investigative unit that would examine police shootings, one that could have the trust of both the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) and the public.
“Without that, each and every time there’s an officer-involved shooting in the city of St. Louis and in most cases the region, each and every time it results in a loss of life, we can find ourselves right back in the throes of what happened after the shooting of Michael Brown, the throes of what happened after the Stockley trial, what happened with all of these shootings,” Pruitt said.
In the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch presented evidence to the grand jury that chose not to indict then-Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. In 2017, then-SLMPD Police Officer Jason Stockley was found not guilty in the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith; the case was prosecuted by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office. In both cases, the findings that white officers were not criminally responsible for the deaths of black men drew outrage and months of protests.
The Justice 2020 St. Louis coalition believes creating an investigative unit for these cases separate from prosecutors and circuit attorneys, who work frequently with police departments, could avoid unjust prosecutions or the appearance that prosecutors are biased.
Pruitt said he wanted to begin work now with the Ways and Means Committee to begin discussing how to structure and fund that investigative unit.
In a letter to Alderman Frank Williamson, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Pruitt, Bowis and pastor Rodrick Burton of the New Northside Missionary Baptist Church said the initiative hopes to build on the work of the circuit attorney’s office (CAO).
“2020 St. Louis will build on the CAO’s efforts to expand diversion programs, to improve technology infrastructure and data collection, provide employment assistance to first-time, low-level offenders, the offering of mental health services delivered through a partnership with BJC; and the COA’s work with the nationally recognized leader in bail reform, the Vera Institute,” the letter said.
Gardner said in a letter to Pruitt that she looks forward to working with the initiative.Â
At the Ways and Means Committee meeting, the aldermen in attendance seemed receptive to the idea. Williamson said he would be willing to work with the circuit attorney and NAACP to set aside money for the project.
“I think what you’re doing is excellent, and you need to be commended for it,” Williamson said.
In a press release, the NAACP said it hopes to have a plan ready this fall, “with the hope that the resulting plan will serve as a blueprint and community communication vehicle for St. Louis’ criminal justice reform strategy – with objectives and metrics.”
Bowis said the initiative could not cite a definite amount of money an investigative unit would cost or how to structure it, but there are models across the country that St. Louis could adapt.
“We are here,” Bowis told the committee, “and we’re going to being asking to deal with you guys for the next year or so that we can begin to, hopefully, put in place the things that will make this possible.”
