St. Louis Observer: December 24, 2021
Search for new SLMPD chief undermined by City old guard; Republicans seek to create obstacles for ballot initiatives; national use-of-force database at risk of termination
Editor’s Note
For this note, our Editors would like to express immense gratitude to our readers, whether you started with us six months ago or recently have joined our weekly newsletter. We are happy to have you all here.
Since our May launch, we have peeled back another layer of the mysterious Veiled Prophet, and we followed along with the trials of the St. Louis Metropolitan police officers who eventually were convicted for beating their Black co-worker. We’ve seen the start of radical transformation, promised and delivered by Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, and we’ve watched new leadership at the Board of Aldermen shake up the way TIFs and development deals are issued in the City.
We are grateful for your interest in abolition-related news in St. Louis and Missouri, and we hope to continue to have your support in the new year.
In the News
Police and prosecutorial accountability
The City of St. Louis’ search for its new police chief has been hindered by the personnel department, which has rejected the majority of 30 out-of-state candidates and administered a written test to two white internal candidates. One of the remaining candidates is current assistant chief Lt. Col. Lawrence O’Toole, who oversaw police operations during the disastrous 2017 Shockley Protests and who has a pending lawsuit against the City alleging racial discrimination when current police chief John Hayden was selected. [St. Louis American/Dana Rieck; St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tony Messenger]
The FBI’s National Use-of-Force Data Collection program is at risk of shutting down, citing years of insufficient participation by law enforcement agencies in Missouri and across the county. The program relies upon data submitted by local agencies, but the FBI must have reports from 80% of agencies in order to publish data and 60% participation to continue collecting data. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Josh Renaud]
A St. Louis man, originally sentenced at age 16 to serve 241 years of incarceration, has been cleared for parole by the Missouri Probation and Parole after more than twenty years behind bars. For more than ten years, Bobby Bostic has been seeking relief under U.S. Supreme Court cases that previously declared as unconstitutional life sentences ordered against juvenile offenders for non-homicide cases. A new law passed earlier this year by the Missouri General Assembly created a pathway to parole for persons sentenced to 15 years or more as juveniles. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Joel Currier]
Economic development in St. Louis City
Missouri’s first Black-owned cannabis dispensary is scheduled to open in January 2022 in The Grove neighborhood in St. Louis City. Businessowner Adrienne Scales-Williams’ Luxury Leaf is the first in nearly 200 dispensaries across the state that is owned by a Black entrepreneur. [St. Louis American/Alvin A. Reid]
A local doctor has opened TPD Pharmacy in Walnut Park to expand access to prescription medication in North St. Louis City. Dr. Tracy M. Reed’s new facility can provide same-day prescription dispensing, curbside service, and mail delivery, filling a critical need for a historically-underserved area. [St. Louis American/JoAnn Weaver]
Further reading
Recent reports have revealed that some Missouri counties have stopped tracking the number of COVID-related deaths, concealing the full impact of the virus within the state. Some elected coroners have stated that they give discretion to families of whether to list COVID on a death certificate and put the obligation on the families to produce a positive COVID test in order to include that information. [Missouri Independent/Dillon Bergin and Rudi Keller]
A Black history mural on Washington University’s campus has been defaced with racist symbols, including the logo of a white supremacy group that formed after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. University officials have stated that there are security cameras in the area and the footage would be reviewed to investigate and potentially identify the person(s) who vandalized the mural. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Michele Munz, Katie Kull]
A bill has been pre-filed in the Missouri General Assembly that would require schools to filter their water supply for lead. Roughly 10% of drinking fountains in Missouri schools are estimated to have higher lead levels than what the EPA presently allows, and medical professionals have said that there is no safe amount of lead for children to consume. [Missouri Independent/Allison Kite]
Although the Build Back Better social infrastructure plan has been jeopardized, disability rights advocates are calling attention to parts of the bill that would subsidize higher wages for caretakers and help to improve workforce recruitment and retention. Since the start of the pandemic, local assisted living facilities have greatly reduced the number of patients they can serve, citing employee shortages as the primary reason; workers have argued that poverty wages and the lack of benefits have caused the mass exodus. [Missouri Independent/Tessa Weinberg]
A recent discovery by Washington University researchers has cast a new light on one of the University’s founders, William Greenleaf Eliot, showing that he inaccurately has been portrayed as an abolitionist. Eliot’s writings, as analyzed by Professor Iver Bernstein, have instead shown that the co-founder was in favor of further colonization in North America and saw the abolition of slavery as a hindrance to that expansion. [St. Louis Public Radio/Marissanne Lewis-Thompson]
Missouri Republicans are trying to make amending the Missouri Constitution more difficult, with at least nine bills pre-filed to ask voters to raise the threshold and increase the number of votes needed to approve an amendment. Currently, amendments need a simple majority of voters statewide to pass; Republicans would seek to raise that threshold to 66%, as well as increasing the number of signatures required to place petition-driven measures on the ballot.[St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Kurt Erickson]
A Missouri legislator has pre-filed a bill with the General Assembly that mimics the Texas abortion ban, becoming part of a larger wave of states considering the facially unconstitutional law for 2022. Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman of Arnold - who also is a licensed attorney - has launched an effort to allow an uninterested third party to sue an abortion provider if said third party believes that the doctor violated the law. [St. Louis Public Radio/Sarah Fentem]
A Kirkwood school has been accused of racial discrimination and failing to intervene in the ongoing harassment of a Black Muslim student. According to CAIR-Missouri, Nipher Middle School has allowed months-long bullying of the 12-year old and even suspended him for 10 days when he tried to defend himself from a physical assault by a classmate. [St. Louis American/Dana Rieck]
Two Washington University teams have received a combined $7 million in grants to address racial equity in Alzheimer’s research. Although Black Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to develop the neurodegenerative disease, they are nevertheless greatly underrepresented in medical research - an issue the researchers seek to address. [St. Louis American/JoAnn Weaver]
Legislative & Legal Update
City of St. Louis
BB 101, introduced by Ald. Vollmer (Ward 10) and President Reed, would allow the Board of Aldermen to redraw their own ward boundary lines in consideration of voter-approved ward reduction and recent census numbers. The bill was passed by the full Board of Aldermen and Mayor Tishaura O. Jones is expected to sign it into law.
BB 118, introduced by Ald. Jesse Todd (Ward 18) would allocate $1.1 million received under the federal YouthBuilds grant program, distributing the first $80,000 received to SLATE. This bill has been placed on the informal calendar after its third reading on December 14.
BB 119, introduced by Ald. Todd and Ald. Ingrassia (Ward 6), would repeal the City’s current loitering ordinance and would provide a legal defense for the amended criminal charge of loitering. This bill has been held in the Public Safety Committee since November 16, 2021.
State of Missouri
The Missouri State Legislature is on recess until January 5, 2022.