The shooting death of 24-year-old St. Louis Police Officer Katlyn Alix by another cop on January 24 has raised several concerns about the culture of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
Among them is allegation that the police department has been creating roadblocks for the St. Louis circuit attorney to conduct parallel investigations into officer-involved shootings.
“It’s frustrating,” said someone who has prosecuted such cases in the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office but asked to remain anonymous. “Citizens who are involved in officer-involved shootings, they don’t get a level playing field in terms of an investigation. These cases are not handled like any of the other homicides, and it’s unfair.”
In September 2014, then-Police Chief Sam Dotson established the Force Investigative Unit (FIU) to handle criminal investigations for all officer-involved shootings. At the same time, then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce pledged that her office would conduct an independent review of the FIU’s findings, but later began conducting independent investigations.
The investigation into Alix’s death – where on-duty Officer Nathaniel Hendren allegedly killed Alix in a Russian roulette-style shooting – has revealed the challenges that the prosecutor’s office has faced in conducting parallel investigations, inside sources said. Hendren has been charged with voluntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
On January 28, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner sent a letter to Police Chief John Hayden expressing concerns about her team’s attempt to gather evidence at the crime scene in South St. Louis on the morning of January 24. A prosecutor and two investigators from her office spoke with three police officials about their desire to have blood drawn for testing from both of the on-duty officers involved, Hendren and Officer Patrick Riordan, Gardner stated in the letter.
The police told Gardner’s staff that they would see about getting the officers tested and would let them know if they needed to prepare a search warrant, she stated.
“Shortly thereafter,” Green stated, a lieutenant told one of her team members that “Saint Louis University Hospital would not honor a search warrant to draw blood,” Gardner stated.
Gardner stated, “I’m sure you are aware that we have a protocol with area hospitals that they will honor our search warrants for blood draws. This procedure is common in criminal investigations.”
The next day, Hayden’s staff told Gardner’s team that the “Internal Affairs Division had collected the urine sample and the breathalyzer under Garrity,” she stated.
Garrity rights, which originate from a 1967 United States Supreme Court decision in Garrity v. New Jersey, protect public employees from being compelled to incriminate themselves during investigatory interviews conducted by their employers.
In this case, the officers were told that if they did not agree to do the drug tests, they would be fired. Because the two officers were coerced to agree to the tests under threat of losing their jobs, that information cannot be used to prosecute them for any crimes, per Garrity.
If Gardner’s team would have obtained a search warrant for the tests, the officers would have been compelled by the courts, not their employer, and Gardner’s office could have used that evidence to build their criminal case against Hendren.
“Taking these tests under the cover of Garrity appears as an obstructionist tactic to prevent us from understanding the state of the officers during the commission of this alleged crime.”
Sources from the prosecutor’s office said that this was not an isolated incident when it comes to investigating officer-involved shootings.
At a January 31 press conference held at police department headquarters, Hayden responded angrily to Gardner’s letter.
“The accusation lodged by the circuit attorney to say the least was both offensive and insulting to the Force Investigative Unit and myself,” Hayden said, punctuating his statement by pounding his fist on the podium.
One reporter asked, “You used the words ‘offensive’ and ‘insulting,’ but you did not say she was wrong. Was she wrong in making the allegation that there was some obstructionist behavior that night?”
Hayden responded, “We followed department procedures to the letter. If there is ever a question with obtaining certain evidence, certainly that could be obtained through a subpoena.”
However, Gardner’s concern was not whether she will eventually be able to see the drug test results but rather about her ability to use the evidence to prosecute Hendren.
“If you shot someone in the chest and your level of intoxication was something that we need to know in investigating the case, we would have got a search warrant, and we would have gotten your blood and it would have been at the lab right now,” said someone who has prosecuted cases in St. Louis. “No questions asked. Everyone remembers how to do it when it’s a regular defendant. But when it’s a police defendant?”
Legislation for an independent unit
When the Force Investigative Unit was first created, the prosecutor’s office would wait until the police completed their final report before investigating officer-involved cases. However, after handling a couple cases like this, prosecutors realized that it could take the police up to a year to provide their report. Kajieme Powell, who was shot and killed by police on August 19, 2014, was one example of this, inside sources said.
Mansur Ball-Bey, who police killed in the Fountain Park neighborhood on August 19, 2015, was the first case where the prosecutor’s office conducted an investigation simultaneously with the police, sources said.
Police officers were not being screened for drug use at officer-involved shootings until former officer Jason Flanery smashed his police vehicle while intoxicated and high on cocaine on December 19, 2015. A year before on October 8, 2014, Flanery shot and killed 18-year-old VonDerrit Myers Jr. in the Shaw neighborhood while working in private security.
In a 2016 interview, Joyce told The American that Flanery’s toxicology results from 2015 had no legal bearing on his actions in Myers’ shooting death in 2014. However, she said, it did point to the need to test officers for drugs and alcohol after an officer-involved shooting. On January 29, 2016, Dotson issued a policy that ordered toxicology screenings in officer-involved shootings, even though the police union opposed him, he told The American in 2016.
Recently, Gardner said many of these “complex issues” – including obtaining toxicology screenings for officers – could be solved by finally implementing what city residents voted for in 2017. For two years, Gardner said she has been trying to get legislation passed to establish an Independent Investigative Unit within her office, using funds from a sales-tax increase that voters approved for this purpose in April 2017.
However, the bill that would have established that unit died again in committee this session. It is expected to be re-introduced in April.
During a hearing for the bill in March 2018, Gardner testified that St. Louis is close to being number one in officer-involved cases nationwide and community trust is at the heart of the issue.
“It is no longer acceptable,” Gardner said, “for the police to investigate themselves.”
