By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 11:41 AM
PUB DEF VIDEO REPORT Labels: Police, Video_Reports
Members of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression (CAPCAR) held a press conference in front of City Hall yesterday to call attention what they claim are serious violations to the state's Sunshine Law by the St. Louis Police Board.
Jamala Rogers and John Chasnoff said that the version of a Civilian Review Board reflected in a General Order signed in May by Police Board President Chris Goodson is different from the one presented and approved at the board's April meeting.
The Coalition said these changes are significant, and that they were not made in an open meeting is a violation of Missouri's laws on open government.
"You can talk in detail about whether the changes improve the bill or weaken the bill," said Chasnoff. "But the fact that these are unauthorized changes is a slap in the face to open government."
CAPCAR noted 13 differences between the order signed by Goodson and what was agreed to at the April meeting. Among the most significant are changes to how the CRB can interact with witnesses to allegations of police misconduct and how board members can be removed.
The latter document inexplicably removes a clause that would allow the CRB, by a majority vote, to request the Chief of Police to allow one of its members to be present at an Internal Affairs interview of a witness to police brutality.
Also absent in the second document is the phrase "for good cause" in reference to how and why CRB members can be dismissed by the police board.
Richard Wilkes, spokesman for the police department, said these issues will be readdressed at the next police board meeting. He said that there was confusion in the department over what objections to the CRB that Chief Joe Mokwa raised in the public meeting and what changes he requested to the police board members in writing.
Chasnoff said that if that's true, it is possibly another violation of the Sunshine Law since that document was not made available to the public at the time of the meeting.
What is clear is that the differences between what was presented in public and what was ordered by the police board would likely have simply become law if not for the watchful eye of citizen activists like Chasnoff and Rogers.
11 Comments:
"Sneak it through and hope nobody notices" has unfortunately become fairly standard operating procedure for St Louis police. It is similar to their phony crime statistics that were skewed by the then-secret practice of writing unfiled "memos" instead of actual police reports for crimes, notably rapes. (Result: Rapes were reported as down when they were really up.) That was designed to help loft developers sell their properties to unsuspecting yuppies and promote Mayor Slay's plans for regentrification of the city at the expense of the poor. (I wonder how long the city's Democratic Party can continue its charade of pretending to represent "working families" and the poor, 'cause they ain't doin' it.)
6/13/2006 12:29 PM
Oracle, you mean the city's "only" party, right?
A 2 party system in STL could go a long way towards prviding the people with a better choice of thier elected officials.
6/13/2006 1:47 PM
I would say a multiple party system. The more choice, the better.
But for any system of choice to work, voters must occassionally respond by selecting something different from the establishment. It's not healthy when unprogressive hacks like, say, Sheriff Jim Murphy, win re-election more or less automatically because the straight ticket ballots alone provided a majority in the contest. Other parties can't really be faulted for deeming city voters to have forfeited their right to choose.
In this regard, the controversial Republican law eliminating single-punch straight ticket voting (the law does NOT keep a voter from voting individually for every candidate from the same party) may actually be beneficial here, by causing voters to think a moment about what they're doing. The cries of "The lines are too long already" come from people who must think that democracy is OK, just so long as it doesn't take too much of my free time." I have no sympathy for them.
6/13/2006 2:16 PM
As to the first Oracle comment..'so you would rather all the poor folks live in the city, unable to pay propety taxs to support the school district or to support the delivery of city serivces. We needed, and still need, people with money to move into the city; and that includes the yuppies downtown as well as the many African-Americans moving into the West End neighborhood, the old McRee town, Old North on the near northside and St. Vincent's Place on the near southside.
Please stop trying to divide this city up to slap the Mayor. African-Americans WITH MONEY are moving into new or rehabbed units all over the city, so your yuppy argument does not hold water.
6/14/2006 4:34 AM
the city has historically under reported crime rate numbers because the police are presured to lower the crime rate but they cant. anyone who lives in the city can clearly see that crime has increased. And about the rehabed home comment, Im wouldnt by a rehab in the city, A rehab is a hussle move, by crap, fix it up, sell in for alot and the guy who buys the house is the sucker, LOL. I have foreclosure listings and south saint louis "rehab" areas are high in foreclosers, so buy one of them and sell it to another sucker and get rich. same thing with a loft, get a crap building for around 300k, pay a cleaning crew to clean it out, pay a crackhead to paint it and sell the units for a fortune to a sucker, LOL. I live in a average house in an average neighborhood and have made millions in this city off suckers who have bought my houses that cost me nothing, I would never move back to the city and neither would my business partners who do what I do, that whole move to the city thing was a hussle move to get people to buy into our crap, we dont care about that stuff, and when they foreclose in a few years we'll head back into the city to do it all over again, Hey one more point, Ever notice that the mayor gives a ten year tax abatement on some properties, dont let the realtor fool you, that tax abatement is for the builder not the buyer, the buyer is the sucker, you get whats left on the abatement, LOL. Suckers! ! !
6/14/2006 9:29 AM
Why would some one that has made millions hussleing suckers tell people on this blog?
I think the tin foil hat crowd is moving in.
6/14/2006 9:49 AM
Eventhough this guy is full of crap, he makes a valid point about out-of-city property owners. Many, including one on my block in quiet North Hampton, often purchase property cheaply, put litte into the building, and jack the rent up. This is an obvious problem for the tennant, but also the surrounding property owners.
Hopefully the new building code violation ordinance will keep the slumlords in check, however only time will tell.
6/14/2006 10:06 AM
come on, new building codes, thats a joke, look, most politians or on our side, who do you think gives to them most of the time??? Maybe if my houses were'nt selling for so much or if my rent wasnt so high maybe then you could give more and impact the area, but according to history I win in the end, LOL. Who cares if I tell you I made millions in real estate, will that discourage you from buying, NO! you'll still spend your hard earned dollars on my stuff and I'll spend those dollars you earned on investments like puting a mc'd's in your area and gas stations so you can buy my houses, shop at my stores and buy gas from me!!! Its america, what can I say? But I will tell you this, if you want to get ahead, DONT BORROW MONEY, now I just told you that out of love, lenders make more money than me anyday off people who pay them back with that high interest. but thats another story, im finished here.
6/14/2006 11:04 AM
We do have choice in our elections. Not only are many of the elections highly contested in the primary, such as the current race for the 4th district Senate seat, but we even have Republicans in the race. They just disguise themselves as Democrats, like Derio Gambaro has.
The one area that limits choice is when incumbants run unopposed. To fix that we need more people willing to do the heavy lifting of leading our community by running for office. Which of you will be the first to step up?
6/14/2006 11:27 AM
Travis, I am a Republican, and trust me, Derio Gambaro is a Democrat. He may be more to the center than to the left of your party, but he is definitely not one of ours. Having said that, he is more palatable to me than the other 4th District candidates whose followers think they can discredit Derio by calling him a Republican. Saying he is a Republican doesn't make it so.
6/15/2006 11:09 AM
To St. Louis Oracle- The Slay adminstration put out a piece recently that said they had built (or substantially rehabbed) 850 affordable housing units and spent $14.5 million. If that is true, that is a lot of housing for working families.
6/18/2006 7:23 AM
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