Missouri House passes bill for state control of St. Louis police

ST. LOUIS — The State of Missouri took a big step toward taking control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The House of Representatives approved a “state control” bill in a landslide 109-36 vote.

The debate was passionate and heated on the house floor prior to the vote on Thursday.

“Don’t let anybody fool you,” said South County Republican State Rep. Brad Christ.  “This is about supporting public safety and solving a public safety crisis in the St. Louis region that’s affecting the entire state.

His bill, HB 1481, calls for a new state police board made up of the St. Louis Mayor and four members appointed by the Missouri Governor to operate the city’s police department, staffed with at least 1,313 officers.

The department has fewer than 900 officers now, according to the St. Louis Police Officers Association. From the Civil War until 2013, a state-appointed board ran the department.  It was initially established to keep Union supporters in St. Louis from controlling the police department’s weapons arsenal.

Voters approved city control as a statewide measure in 2012. Then-Mayor Francis Slay (also a police board member at the time) made the transition official in 2013.

Since then, the mayor has appointed a police chief to lead the department. A force of nearly 1,400 officers has shrunk by more than a third, with officers unable to address the lawlessness, including rampant public gunfire, reckless driving, and one of the nation’s top homicide rates, which supporters of state control say is driving out residents and giving a proud city an unwanted, worldwide reputation.

“Every decade, every year, we lose population,” said Democrat State Rep. Steve Butz of St. Louis. “I’m going to tell you a reason… as a guy who’s lived there for 60 years, you talk to people who live in the City of St. Louis; worries about crime and violence are at the top of that list.”

“There’s also basic quality of life crimes that are occurring on a regular basis that are creating a difficult and challenging environment for people to live in,” said High Ridge Republican Dave Casteel.

“State control will not stop those crimes and this is a bad bill.  The City of St. Louis does not want it,” countered St. Louis Democrat Marlon Anderson.

“I am so ‘St. Louis’ that this bill should die a flaming hot death right here,” exclaimed St. Louis Democrat Lakeysha Bosley.

In a social media post, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones called the bill “disastrous… an egregious attempt to make our city less safe.”

Jones has cut police staffing during her first term and is pushing an agenda of “reimagined” public safety with fewer police.

St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy declined comment but testified against state control at the Capitol earlier this year.

However, two organizations representing St. Louis police officers support state control.

The Ethical Society of Police, created more than 50 years ago to represent the interests of black officers and the St. Louis Police Officers Association often clash but not on this issue.

“They are ‘hand in hand’ in coming here and asking that we return state control,” Butz said.

The measure now goes to the Missouri Senate. It’s future there is uncertain.

“I do know there’s some consternation there.  So, it’s certainly not an easy lift,” said Missouri Senate President Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican.  “We know we have an ongoing public safety problem in St. Louis.  That is a real problem.”

“You can’t continue to change people out and have this back and forth between state control for 10 years and local control for 10 years,” said Missouri Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, a Democrat from Independence.  “They probably need to pay police officers more.  They probably need to have more officers available on the street. I don’t think state control changes one thing with the crime in St. Louis.”

The House vote was mostly partisan, with just six Democrats in favor: Butz and Donna Baringer of St. Louis, along with Doug Clemens of St. Ann and Gretchen Bangert of Florissant.

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