“That Ship Is Really Sinking”: Police Detective Blasts Betts

The race for St. Louis city sheriff has narrowed into a two-person affair, with Anthony Anderson dropping out of the race and throwing his weight behind Alfred Montgomery, the former deputy challenging incumbent Vernon Betts.

“Let St. Louis know, I’m supporting the young guy,” Anderson said in a phone call yesterday with the RFT.

A retired St. Louis Metropolitan Police officer who currently works as a detective for the North County Police Cooperative, Anderson says he’s dropping out as his mother and his father-in-law are battling health issues, and he needs to concentrate on them rather than a campaign. However, he remains steadfast that the city needs a different person as its sheriff.

“He's got that plantation mentality,” Anderson says of Betts. “It’s destroying the Sheriff's Department.”

He describes Betts’ leadership style as “y’all going to do what I say, or else,” a mindset that he says is driving deputies away from the office: “They can’t even man the courts.”

Anderson is referring to a December dust-up between the judges of the St. Louis City Circuit Court and Betts. The judges briefly mulled hiring their own deputies after taking the sheriff to task for not staffing every courtroom with a deputy.

In addition to the judges, Betts has faced biting public criticism from criminal defense attorneys and controversy among some of his own deputies . He also had a recent spat with jail administrators over who was responsible for a paralyzed detaining left to lie in a cell in his own feces.

“That ship is really sinking,” Anderson says.

Anderson is a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, including two decades with the SLMPD. After leaving the city department but prior to joining the North County Co-op, Anderson worked in a management role at Metro Transit, overseeing security. Betts has frequently taken credit for putting deputies on Metro trains and at MetroLink stops, a set-up that Anderson says he was actually the one to quarterback.

“That was me that brought that to him,” says Anderson.

If Montgomery should win, Anderson says he’s made himself available to be a part of the new administration.

The biggest change he wants to see at the top of the office is someone who will “be fair, and treat people with respect. And I think Alfred will do that.”

Betts has outraised Montgomery in the race so far, having brought in about $40,000 compared to his challenger’s $18,000. However, Montgomery pulled in more money than the incumbent in the first three months of this year.

In what may be an indication this race could be more heated than the average sheriff’s election, Montgomery tells the RFT he’s had numerous “Montgomery for Sheriff” signs stolen from front yards across the city. He shared with the RFT a surveillance video of a large sign being torn down in the middle of the night from its perch at Grand and Meramec.

"It's important that we rise above the negativity," Montgomery said about the pilfering of his campaign signs.