ST. LOUIS • Voters across the state on Tuesday will decide whether St. Louis city leaders should control their own police force.
The fight is lopsided. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and other city politicians have been working toward this day for years. Financier and philanthropist Rex Sinquefield has bankrolled a $2 million statewide campaign in support. And more than 400 elected officials across Missouri have signed on.
But two disparate opponents have recently risen against Proposition A.
Civil rights activists argue that the new law would effectively end their hopes for civilian review of police misbehavior. And the police officers themselves — once unified in support of the measure — are now publicly divided.
Some officers still believe that local control is inevitable, and this is the best deal they’ll get. “We consider Prop A to be a compromise that is in the best interest of our officers,†said Jeff Roorda, business manager for the St. Louis Police Officers Association.
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Others are dead-set against it, no matter the terms. “They claim this is the best thing for the residents and the Police Department. They claim they have built in safeguards to protect officers from political influence if this passes,†said association President Dave Bonenberger in a recent newsletter. “Who are they kidding?â€
The mechanics of the issue are simple. If a majority of Missouri voters pass Proposition A, the governor-appointed commissioners who now run the St. Louis Police Department will step down. And the police will become a division of the city’s Department of Public Safety, under mayoral control.
Few argue that the structural change would be bad for residents.
Crime is a perennial issue here, as officers struggle against pockets of abject poverty, high unemployment and struggling neighborhoods. Moreover, the city pays the bills — this year, it is projected to send $172 million to the department, more than one-third of its general fund budget.
Yet neither the mayor nor the city’s legislative body, the Board of Aldermen, has any direct control over policing. The mayor holds a seat on the five-member commission that runs the department, but Slay has long argued that he can’t quickly order a change in tactics to respond to crime trends, hold the chief accountable for lax policing or tell the department how to spend city money.
A few years ago, for instance, police pension costs “went through the roof,†said Jeff Rainford, Slay’s chief of staff. But when the mayor approached his fellow Police Board commissioners about cutting costs, the board president said he wasn’t interested. “Just send us a budget number,†Rainford said the mayor was told. “If it’s not enough, we’ll cut police officers. And if crime goes up, we’ll blame you.â€
Worse, said Rainford, city residents can’t vote police commissioners out of office.
The board — as Prop A proponents frequently point out — is a vestige of the Civil War.
Gov. Claiborne Jackson and pro-Southern members of the state Legislature wanted to contain the Union-leaning city police department, and seized upon a reform measure other U.S. cities had adopted to combat political scandals. Jackson signed the bill creating the new board in 1861, and then quickly appointed four like-minded commissioners.
Today only two cities in the country — St. Louis and Kansas City — still lack control of their own police force, proposition supporters say.
Prop A only would affect St. Louis. Kansas City Mayor Sly James has endorsed the proposition but also said his city wasn’t yet ready to be included.
Brooke Foster, deputy director for the local control campaign, dubbed “A Safer Missouri,†said St.Louis should eventually save a few million dollars a year by combining payroll, information technology and other administrative functions.
But Prop A opponents aren’t arguing publicly against those points.
Bonenberger’s editorial, in the most recent edition of the police association newsletter the Gendarme, points out two concerns often repeated: that city politicians want preferential treatment and control of police officer pension funds.
Yet the proposition’s language explicitly addresses both. It calls for a $2,500 fine per offense, and removal from office, for any official who attempts to “impede, obstruct, hinder or otherwise interfere†with law enforcement. It bars retaliation against whistle-blowers. And it says that “any police force†established under the new law would continue to be governed by the current pension laws.
Bonenberger, who was elected by officers on a platform opposing local control, did not return calls seeking comment.
But a coalition of civil rights activists, including representatives from the local branches of the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union, also has railed against the proposition.
John Chasnoff, program director for the ACLU here, said he has long supported a move to regain control of the Police Department. But this isn’t the right proposition, he said. The biggest problem is a section that closes personnel records and gives the city’s Civil Service Commission — which oversees employee discipline — “exclusive authority†to reprimand officers.
“It makes it impossible for St. Louis to have effective civilian review,†Chasnoff said recently, and could even restrict what documents are available via state public records laws. “The basic principles of what we’re trying to achieve are gone.â€
But again, Prop A proponents point to language in the new law giving “those who possess authority to conduct investigations regarding disciplinary matters†access to discipline records. “There is absolutely nothing in our language that precludes the creation of a civilian review board,†said Foster.
Newly elected state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed is one of the hundreds of elected officials supporting the measure. “If you can find common cause, common interest for the betterment of people we represent, then why shouldn’t we come together?†she asked recently.
Chasnoff is not convinced. Passage here will bring lawsuits and stalemate, he said.
“That’s reason enough,†he said, “to go back to the drawing board and get this right the first time.â€