The names of four African-American St. Louis County police officers were removed from a list of promotions, according to documents obtained by the St. Louis American.
On February 11, the commander of the Personnel Services Unit sent out an inter-office memorandum that listed 33 officers as being eligible to go to the next phase of the promotional process — an oral interview. Four African-American officers were on the list.
However, on February 14, the commander, Lt. Jack Webb, sent out an “amended notice,” listing only 24 names. None of them were African American.
In his explanation, Webb stated that “upon closer examination” of the department’s Promotional Policy, “at least three candidates must be considered to have passed the test for every projected opening at the time the promotion process is announced.”
The number of original projected openings was eight, he stated. By this explanation, 24 names would only be the bare minimum.
The Ethical Society of Police, a police association for city and county officers who advocate for diversity and equality, tweeted about the promotion list’s downsizing on the morning of February 20.
ESOP claimed the downsizing was done at the “urging” of the bargaining police union for the county, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 111. ESOP also called on the department’s new Diversity and Inclusion Unit (DIU) to make a public statement on “how awful this is.”
“The FOP and DIU claim to be for fairness for ALL officers,” according to the tweet. “Will the FOP and DIU do anything to address this?”
Nine people in total were dropped from the list, and four of them were African American.
“They have done harm to nine people,” said Heather Taylor, president of ESOP. “This process didn’t lend to equality. It was a terrible process. They did not handle it professionally.”
Matt Crecelius, the business manager for the FOP, said that the police officers themselves sent emails and text messages to police department leaders flagging a violation of the promotional policy. Crecelius said that early in January, the department announced the promotional process, asking officers to turn in their forms. At that time, the police chief was required to announce the number of openings, which was stated as eight.
Crecelius said that 72 officers took the written test. The promotional policy states that, “Any candidate who scores in the 70 percentile or higher on the written test will be placed on the list for oral boards.” Crecelius said that this is the 70 percentile of their peers, not on the test itself, and that would limit the list to 24 candidates.
“I feel horrible they got taken off the list,” he said in response to the African-American officers. “But this is a competitive process.”
He said it was unfair to the 24 candidates to expand the number of openings to 11 after the announcement, flooding the list to 33 candidates. And it was not done to exclude black police officers, he said.
“As ESOP is aware, our association has zero decision making authority in this matter,” according to an FOP statement. “That authority rests solely with the Board of Police Commissioners and the Department. This matter was brought to the Police Board and it was determined that the policy had been violated.”
The American reached out to the St. Louis County Police Department, and it is working to get a comment, a spokesman said. The American also reached out to the Police Board of Commissioners and is awaiting a response. The American also reached out to the County Executive Sam Page’s staff about the issue, and a spokesman said they are looking into the issue.
This story is developing.
