St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson released a statement urging the Ferguson Commission report’s calls to action as the way forward for our troubled region. She called for St. Louis to “double down on the Ferguson Commission report” and pledged to use her political capital to implement the report’s calls to action. To us, Krewson’s call seemed belated at best and hypocritical at worst, considering that she has opposed or frustrated many of the most important reforms the Ferguson Commission included in its report.
The Ferguson Commission report called for new police policies and training. These should be low-hanging fruit for a mayor truly dedicated to implementing the report’s calls to action. To change police policies, a mayor does not need to go through the legislative process – she can simply direct interim Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole to change the policies. Although it is still early in the administration, St. Louis police behavior reflects no changes to police policies or training protocols to indicate Krewson’s supposed commitment to the Ferguson Commission report.
The report called for reducing the use of militarized weaponry. If the mayor was truly committed to implementing the Ferguson Commission’s calls to action, we would not have seen military-grade MRAPs and automatic weapons guarding her Central West End neighborhood. Yet when the protests came – as expected – so did the military weaponry.
When we asked a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department spokesman what policies had been changed since the Ferguson Commission report, we received a list of new policies and training protocols that had been adopted in response to the Ferguson crisis. But, when asked who directed those changes, the response was, time after time, former Police Chief Sam Dotson – the same person Krewson unceremoniously “retired” as her first act in office.
In 2015, according to the police, the department began training in de-escalation and implicit bias. Every officer on the department has received Continuing Educational Training in de-escalation and implicit bias, and de-escalation training is included in recruit basic training. Dotson made that change before Krewson’s election and his “retirement.”
This year, also before Krewson’s election and Dotson’s “retirement,” the department: partnered with the St. Louis Crime Victim Advocacy Center to provide training on working with LGBTQ+ victims of violence, with more than 1,000 officers trained; implemented an officer wellness program designed to help officers learn about and cope with the stress factors unique to their profession; and launched the Community Engagement and Organizational Development Division, which implements community outreach programs and focuses on organizational development and internal training.
Dotson was vilified by the protest movement and therefore a political liability who was removed by Krewson on her first day in office. Unfortunately, according to the police department itself, she has directed no new changes to police training, management or behavior – even knowing from the day she took office that the department would face massive protests when the expected not-guilty verdict was handed down by Judge Timothy Wilson in the Jason Stockley murder trial.
Her replacement for Dotson was the police leader who said his officers “owned the night” after they executed an unconstitutional kettle mass arrest while chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” This Ferguson movement chant was most previously appropriated by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia. When The American asked Krewson during a press conference whether she had discussed that openly racist echo with O’Toole, she said no. It had not occurred to her.
As for municipal court reform, so crucial to the Ferguson Commission report, Krewson inherited Gordon Schweitzer as the city municipal court’s administrative judge. Schweitzer is one of the few people in this region who can legitimately claim foresight before Ferguson, because he instituted reforms of many municipal court abuses that contributed to the Ferguson unrest – before Ferguson happened. However, his daughter, Anne Schweitzer, managed Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones’ mayoral campaign that narrowly lost to Krewson – and Judge Schweitzer promptly lost his job after Krewson took office.
“It probably didn’t escape the mayor that my daughter was the campaign manager for her opponent,” Schweitzer told Tony Messenger of the Post-Dispatch. Schweitzer was replaced with Newton McCoy, who (Messenger noted) donated $3,000 to Krewson’s campaign.
So two people in city government who had started policy changes called for in the Ferguson Commission report were both dumped by Krewson for political reasons, and replaced with people who have made no proactive or progressive changes of their own.
The Ferguson Commission called for child savings accounts as a racial-equity measure. In 2016, Krewson voted to defund the Financial Empowerment Center and child savings accounts instituted by Treasurer Jones, who was shaping up to be her mayoral opponent. Yet Krewson voted for it as an alderwoman in 2015, and then again as mayor voted on the Board of Estimate & Apportionment, making her support or opposition to the program look situational and political.
Krewson’s support for a city-wide minimum wage increase – an obvious harbinger of racial equity – has been questionable. As an alderwoman, Krewson did not vote for raising the minimum wage ordinance. Instead, she “took a walk,” the cowardly tactic that aldermen employ to defeat an ordinance without casting a vote against it. And then, as mayor, Krewson refused to challenge a state law that prohibited the city from raising the minimum wage, despite the fact that courts had struck down the last two attempts by the state to pass similar bills.
Many suspect that her political consultant Ed Rhode, who also lobbied against the minimum wage for the restaurant industry, influenced Krewson’s decision to forgo a challenge to the state law. This, again, would be payback politics trumping progressive policy for the mayor.
Yet Krewson has shown some clear commitment in applying a racial equity lens to city government. Early positive signs for the administration included the appointment of Nicole Hudson – who consulted for the Ferguson Commission and had a major role in crafting its report – as deputy mayor and Krewson’s decision to keep Chief Resiliency Officer Patrick R. Brown from the Slay administration. The two seem to be dedicated to finding ways to apply a racial-equity lens to city government, including the posting of a full-time job to carry out that mandate. Likewise, the promotion of Alice Prince to lead SLATE empowered a black woman with deep roots in the community and tremendous potential to bring positive change in workforce development.
Krewson’s call for the United States attorney to review the city’s protest response was a welcome development in the spirit of the Ferguson Commission’s calls to action. But if the mayor plans to use the Ferguson Commission as her talking point in the future, she will first need to stop obstructing Ferguson Commission reforms – and actually start making some.
When asked what Ferguson Commission calls to action Krewson has implemented, she responded mostly in terms of things she wants to do, not what she has done. For the record:
“I agree with the Ferguson Commission report call to actions that we must change the way we handle use-of-force investigations and prosecutions. I also want to strengthen the Civilian Oversight Board, with likely changes including granting the board subpoena powers. I agree that community policing standards and procedures should be developed together with law enforcement, community and neighborhood groups,” Krewson stated.
“Since March, the City has been involved in the Misdemeanor Justice Project, which in partnership with other justice system actors, is focused on data on low-level offenses. We are also involved in the National League of Cities Jail Reduction Initiative, which is focused on policies that will reduce disparities in jail populations. I know I don’t have decision making power across all of those things but I am committed to adding my political will to the push to find the right way to get those things done. This is by no means a complete list.”
Let’s add to that list then: She needs to find and appoint credible, responsive, progressive leaders for the posts of director of Public Safety and chief of police.
