While St. Louis Metropolitan Police scrambled to investigate a staggering six homicides in a half-day, police work was thoughtfully discussed in the neighboring St. Louis County municipality of University City on Thursday, January 15.
Better Together St. Louis and state Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-University City) hosted the fourth in a series of town hall forums that Better Together organized for the report on police work in the St. Louis region it commissioned from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
A wide range of compelling citizens spoke in a lively two-hour session at the University City Public Library, moderated by Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, who peppered comments between speakers in his distinctly Bostonian accent.
Black youth, middle-aged white protestors, a retired West County police chief, the black wife of a St. Louis cop, a Saint Louis University law professor, a black Washington University medical student, a white University City school board member, a black aldermanic president from Moline Acres, a young white urbanist blogger from St. Louis, a black mayor of Vinita Park, a white public school teacher from St. Louis, a social work student from the city and psychologist from the county all had their say.
“We are scared, and we want to know if the police are there to protect us,” said Dulani Evans, a black Lutheran North High School student.
Valerie Felix, a black middle-school student from Berkeley, said the police often seem scared themselves. She suggested more thorough, ongoing psychological evaluations, because the harsh experiences that come with their jobs “can change your judgment.”
A number of white protest supporters were unanimous in their criticism of what they described as the police’s tendency to escalate situations in a militaristic fashion.
“Police here act like military in enemy territory rather than part of the citizenship,” said Reese Forbes, a white man who lives in St. Louis but has real estate in North County.
Margaret Johnson, an elder white woman who introduced herself as “one of those damn protestors,” said she works as a de-escalator in the movement and thinks police need more de-escalators. “Non-violent or violent, we have a choice,” Johnson said.
John Quinn, an elder white man who said he ended 47 years of law enforcement work as police chief of Manchester, placed the responsibility on families who raise children who challenge police and commit crimes. “Parents need to teach their children respect,” Quinn said.
Sidney Moore, a black woman who lives in the city and is married to a cop, said her husband works a secondary security job downtown at night “which is mental illness central.” Surrounded by so much routine danger, she wants him to protect himself. “I’d rather he be judged by 12 than carried by six,” she said, quoting the police maxim about preferring a jury to pallbearers.
Roger Goldman, a white professor at SLU Law, talked of the need for a licensing system for police, where professional violations of code can result in a license being revoked. “The Department of Justice now has the power to go into problem police departments, we should be able to revoke the licenses of problem cops,” Goldman said.
Mia Henderson, a black medical student at Washington University, said she had seen too much problem policing in St. Louis to stay here after she completes her degree. “I’m done,” Henderson said. “I can’t live in a place where people are policed like this.”
George Lenard, white school board member in University City, said police training to use excessive firepower and failure to provide first aid need to be addressed. “As soon as the threat is removed, you have to realize, ‘Now I have to help a human being live,’” Lenard said.
Shonte Young, the black aldermanic president in Moline Acres, said she thought the human touch is lost when smaller municipal police departments are folded into larger departments – an outcome most expect to be Better Together’s goal. “I’m skeptical a bigger police force is better,” Young said.
Richard Bose, a young white man who lives in St. Louis (and, Wexler said, writes for the NextSTL blog), addressed the consolidation agenda on the other side. He said he was jumped one night by teens who had been driven off the University City Loop into the City of St. Louis. Bose said their being run off by the cops, from one municipality to another, “got them all worked up” and he suffered from it. “Those invisible lines have bad outcomes,” Bose said.
James McGee, black mayor (and former police chief) in Vinita Park, provided unintentional comic relief in his description of community policing. He said police officers should know “your mother, your brother, your dog, your cat.” Kevin Taylor, a black man from University City, heckled him: “When I am driving through Vinita Park, your police don’t know my dog, my cat.”
Darlene Hawkeself, a white public school teacher in St. Louis, said she has a woman cop friend who cleans up gory crime scenes. “Trauma is part of the job and needs to be addressed,” Hawkeself said. Yet she identified herself as a protestor against “400 years of codified racism” in St. Louis.
Jacob Blanton, a student of law and social work at Washington University, said gender is equally problematic. “Problematic forms of masculinity are infecting our police departments,” Blanton said.
Diane McCormack, a white mental health professional from Florissant, said she thinks police need professional help managing their impulses and fears. “I don’t like how quickly guns are drawn,” McCormack said. “An officer in fear is at the most dangerous.”
Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson told the St. Louis County grand jury that Michael Brown Jr. looked “like a demon” before Wilson shot Brown six times, twice in the head, on August 9.
The state senator who co-hosted the forum said education is needed on both sides.
“Part of the problem is lack of education,” Chappelle-Nadal said. “Many of the kids I met on the Ferguson frontlines did not know how to articulate their anger.”
