Two back-to-back news articles rocked St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) last week, citing a problem that most of our readers have known for years: there is a clear disparity in how different parts of the City are policed.
Affluent neighborhoods, like the Central West End and Shaw, have long benefited from the implementation of “community improvement districts” (CIDs) and “special business districts” (SBDs), which generate special pools of tax revenue that can then be used by the “districts” for improvements. Most neighborhoods choose to use those funds for special events, street landscaping, cleaning, public improvements, and advertising.
There are no serious officer recruitment issues. Rather, our police department has a competition problem, where officers are incentivized by the higher wages and questionable bonuses paid in private security employment.
Some, however, have chosen to use those funds to pay for private security – the majority of whom are off-duty SLMPD officers. Private security companies like The City’s Finest, Campbell Security Group, and GCI Security hire law enforcement officers from St. Louis City and County as security guards. The companies then contract with CIDs and SBDs to provide private security guard services, which are paid for by the special pool of tax revenue.
Neighborhoods without CIDs or SBDs don’t have this additional funding stream, so they are unable to “buy patrols” from the private security companies.
Although these officers are privately-retained by CIDs and SBDs, they still wear their SLMPD uniforms and carry their SLMPD guns. They ride around in cars marked as “POLICE,” but the cars aren’t owned by SLMPD. Logic would assume that if a person looks like a police officer, acts like a police officer, and makes arrests like a police officer, then that person is a police officer.
Not, however, when it comes to private policing in the City of St. Louis.
Local law enforcement officers and their secondary employers enjoy hiding behind the shield of “private security.” While most government employees are not entitled to legal protections like qualified immunity when they commit crimes outside of their employment, somehow private security guards still manage to be protected by a system supposedly meant for officers in the line of duty. We need look no further than the tragic 2014 murder of VonDerrit Myers, Jr., a Black teenager who was gunned down by SLMPD officer Jason Flanery, working as a private security guard for GCI in the Flora Place CID. A private autopsy by Myers’ family revealed inconsistencies in SLMPD’s and the prosecution’s version of events. St. Louis Police Officers Association, the white police union, began a smear campaign against the 18-year old. And despite eye witness accounts from Myers’ friends who witnessed the entire encounter differing wildly from the investigative report, no charges were filed against Flanery. Flanery kept his SLMPD job for more than 15 months before a drunk driving incident in his SLMPD car forced his resignation.
Perhaps less well known publicly about private policing is the extent to which private policing has impacted SLMPD’s operations and ability to serve the citizens of St. Louis.
ProPublica reporter Jeremy Kohler, formerly of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, found that around 200 SLMPD officers work for The City’s Finest alone, including four of the six district commanders. Two of SLMPD’s highest-ranking officers also work for the private security firms. When GCI was investigated in 2014 following the Myers murder, their numbers were reported as nearing 170.
The deep-dive into private policing also revealed that the security firms raised their wages to exceed SLMPD’s overtime pay rate, outbidding the police department for its own employees. SLMPD officers moonlighting as private security guards have no incentive to pick up overtime shifts and unpaid time off is easily made up with higher wages through private secondary work.
In addition to private entities outbidding a public service, SLMPD officers working for private security firms have created a conflict of interest: by being more effective at their jobs as public servants – SLMPD police officers – they would put their private employers out of business. Officers, who are otherwise barred by state law from accepting rewards for capturing fugitives in the line of duty, are paid private bounties for “solving crimes” or making arrests as private security guards. By not showing up for shifts, declining overtime, or just doing a slovenly job, SLMPD officers make clear their financial stake in maintaining the current unequal policing system.
National reporting of St. Louis’ private policing system showed that we are the only city in the country where privately-paid security guards are not accountable to their municipal government or department. Private security guards are allowed to wear their SLMPD uniforms and tell people that they are “police officers,” even though they are off-duty and are essentially functioning as mall cops. The system as it currently stands is untenable and unacceptable for our city.
Contrary to what pro-police advocates would have you believe, SLMPD doesn’t have a staffing shortage. There are no serious officer recruitment issues. Rather, our police department has a competition problem, where officers are incentivized by the higher wages and questionable bonuses paid in private security employment. This problem, unless the Board of Alderman or the Department of Public Safety intervenes, will continue to deepen the divide between wealthy and low-income neighborhoods, white and Black, haves and the have-nots.
No-Show Schmitt Skips Debate
Last week, for the first time in decades, Republican Eric Schmitt became the first major party candidate for U.S. Senate or governor to fail to show up for a Missouri Press Association debate. Of course, Schmitt’s no-show comes after he criticized the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Trudy Busch Valentine, for “refusing to debate.”
Schmitt has mostly been MIA since his office botched the emergency closure of Agape Boarding School, an unlicensed religious school for “troubled” youth known for physical and sexual abuse of students and harboring sex offenders and domestic abusers as staff members. Only after extensive statewide reporting in the past few weeks did Schmitt finally address his office’s failure to close the school and cited “new evidence.”
While Schmitt continues to lead the race for Sen. Roy Blunt’s vacant seat, the typically low key Valentine has started to show her teeth and called out Schmitt for his 2013 vote to lift a statewide ban on foreign entities owning Missouri farmland. While we are not totally aligned with all of her policy positions, she has embraced pro-worker policies, supports women’s reproductive rights and supports a federal law protecting access to the vital medical procedures. Most importantly she is the only viable opponent to Schmitt who has embraced the radical racist xenophobic Trumpism of the Republican Party. She will caucus with the Democrats in the Senate to currently help ensure priorities that best serve our families and communities. Self-interest compels us to understand the reality of Missouri’s politics and not let the ideal keep us from understanding what is at stake in this Senate race. We must recognize how important the interests of working people are served by supporting Busch-Valentine over Schmitt. She has not shied away from saying the word “abortion” and supports a federal law protecting access to the vital medical procedure. Taking bolder stances on issues important to more progressive voters in this traditionally conservative state has in turn garnered support for Valentine from political powerhouses such as the Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, and Pro-Choice Missouri.
