The City of St. Louis now faces nearly 25 lawsuits alleging police misconduct – all stemming from the nine months that former interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole was leading the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
O’Toole – who is now assistant chief – was at the helm of the department when a circuit judge ruled on September 15, 2017 that former city police officer Jason Stockley was not guilty of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011.
O’Toole led the police’s response to the community’s outcry and protest over the court’s decision in the following months.
On October 2, six new lawsuits were filed on behalf of a pastor, a photojournalist in a wheelchair, and an elected official who were allegedly pepper sprayed in the face, as well as a protestor who was allegedly tazed without warning. The allegations stem from a Stockley protest at Busch Stadium on September 29, 2017.
The city told The St. Louis American it had no comment on the new suits at this time.
The lawsuits state that protestors had lawfully and peacefully entered Busch Stadium on September 29 with tickets and unfurled a giant banner as a sign of protest. They left voluntarily and then rejoined protestors who were marching outside the stadium.
At one point, police officers grabbed a white female clergy member, and Rev. Darryl Gray yelled out against the action.
“Instantly and without warning, an SLMPD officer wearing an SLMPD baseball cap violently threw Reverend Darryl Gray to the ground breaking the Reverend’s glasses,” the lawsuit states.
An officer then shot protestor Calvin Kennedy with a Taser. The lawsuit states that Officer William Olsten was taunting the protestors with obscene language, and then without warning, Olsten “pulls out a large fogger like canister of pepper spray,” the lawsuit states.
The acting scene commander Major John Hayden, who is now police chief, was standing about five feet away when Olsten sprayed the crowd, as seen in this St. Louis American photo.
Committeeman of the 5th Ward Rasheen Aldridge, independent photojournalists Heather De Mian and Amir Brandy, and protestor Crystal Brown were all allegedly sprayed in their faces. These individuals, along with Gray and Kennedy, filed the lawsuits on October 2.
All the lawsuits are supported by the findings in the order that U.S. Judge Catherine Perry wrote in the ACLU’s class-action lawsuit filed over the September 17 “kettling” arrests.
On November 15, 2017, Perry issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to immediately stop using chemical weapons on protestors.
In her order, Perry stated that the ACLU is likely to succeed on their claim that the city’s police have “a custom or policy” of deploying pepper spray against citizens who record police or exercise their rights of free speech to criticize officers. Perry also found that the ACLU presented “sufficient, credible testimony and video evidence” of people being maced without warning and who were not “engaging in violent activity” or “in defiance of police commands.”
O’Toole led the chemical-weapon offense, beating and arrests of more than 120 people on September 17, 2017 in downtown St. Louis, where afterwards he boasted about the police “owning the night.”
He told the press that the “unruly crowd became a mob” after dark – a statement that a federal judge found false a couple months later in the ACLU’s class-action lawsuit against the police department. The federal judge cited video that showed the scene was “calm” before the police began kettling the protestors to arrest them.
After the mass arrests, the police department released a statement that one officer suffered a serious injury.
“This was an egregious statement,” said attorney Javad Khazaeli, of Khazaeli Wyrsch LLC law firm. “They are trying to accuse the people arrested of beating a police officer, when in reality the officer who suffered injuries was an undercover cop who the St. Louis police department themselves beat. How can a police chief brag about owning the night and beating their own officer?”
Khazaeli Wyrsch has now filed 21 lawsuits representing 23 individuals against the city and police department. The city also faces three other lawsuits – including a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, filmmakers from Kansas City and the ACLU’s class-action suit – that the Khazaeli Wyrsch firm is not representing.
The current police chief and current assistant chief were leading the police actions that are at the heart of what are now 24 pending lawsuits. If these lawsuits succeed, the city could be paying millions of dollars in damages and attorney fees – especially because there will likely be more people who come forward, Khazaeli said.
“If these all went to trial, you are looking in the millions and millions of dollars in damages and attorney fees,” Khazaeli said. “It depends on how long the city wants to drag this out.”
In November 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice and the F.B.I. announced an inquiry into whether St. Louis police violated civil rights of protestors in the kettling incident – meaning O’Toole is still under federal investigation – but no outcome has been announced.
In December 2017, O’Toole became assistant chief and Hayden was named police chief. Interestingly, in July O’Toole filed a complaint claiming that he was discriminated against in the police chief selection process because he is white.
Earlier this year, The St. Louis American spoke to Hayden about the department’s future policies towards protests. Hayden said that he wants to work with Forward Through Ferguson to talk to protestors about “things that they thought were helpful and things that obviously weren’t,” regarding police response to protests.
“Obviously the kettling incident is something that people would refer to as something really awful,” Hayden said. “I wasn’t working that night. I’m not making any excuses for anything about that night. It’s under federal investigation. I am interested in future conversations.”
In the ACLU’s lawsuit, Judge Perry ordered a mediation process between the police and the ACLU. The deadline to come up with an agreement between the two parties passed on February 1, and now a trial has been set for October 2019.
Khazaeli said the police department’s unwillingness to come to the table with ACLU has been disheartening and was a motivation to file these lawsuits.
“I don’t think the city is taking this seriously or has shown any intention to change the way they act,” Khazaeli said. “It’s been 11 months now since a federal judge said that it was likely that they violated the constitution and ordered them into mediation. They haven’t changed any policies and have done anything to make any change.”
Khazaeli Wyrsch is also representing 15th Ward Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green in her lawsuit stemming from police actions during a protests in the Central West End the day the Stockley verdict was announced. The nonprofit ArchCity Defenders law firm is co-counsel on 12 of these lawsuits stemming from the kettling arrests.
