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State Takeover of St. Louis Police Force Goes Before Mo. Governor
- Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe is expected to sign a plan that would put the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department under state control as part of a wide-ranging crime bill.
By Jack Suntrup
Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri’s takeover of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department began Wednesday as Gov. Mike Kehoe signed off on a wide-ranging crime plan in the capital city.
The Republican governor’s signature will usher in a new era of state control for the city police department — over a decade after Missouri voters chose to place the city police under local control.
The transition to state control — opposed by local leaders such as Mayor Tishaura O. Jones — goes into immediate effect.
The law, House Bill 495, requires the Republican governor to appoint a transition director to oversee the state takeover’s implementation. That period will need to end by July 1, 2026, the law says.
Kehoe, who made the takeover a priority, didn’t name a transition director Wednesday. He said the legislation won’t guarantee lower crime in the city of St. Louis.
“You can’t legislate lower crime,” Kehoe told reporters. “But what you can do is give law enforcement the tools that it takes.”
He noted a requirement in the bill forcing the city to boost spending on the police department.
“We believe that a citizens board — not a political board — makes a big difference,” Kehoe said.
The legislation says the new Board of Police Commissioners will take over the department during the implementation period. At that point, the law requires the department’s assets and debts to be transferred to the new board.
The legislation calls for a six-member board. The mayor, who had been in charge of appointing the police chief, will hold one seat while five gubernatorial appointees will make up the rest of the board. The five gubernatorial appointees will require Senate confirmation.
One of the gubernatorial appointees will be a nonvoting member of the board and could reside in St. Louis County if he or she owns and pays taxes on land in the city.
The other four gubernatorial appointees will have had to reside in the city for at least two years. Kehoe has 90 days to appoint the four citizen commissioners.
The legislation requires the state to assume all “contractual obligations and other lawful obligations of the municipal police department.”
Prior to local control, the Missouri attorney general’s office represented the police department in legal matters.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, said Wednesday the city police department would be the attorney general’s “newest client.”
“I’m excited to welcome the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department as our new clients ... to offer civil defense for the police officers,” Bailey said. “You can count on us for consistent, quality, competent representation.”
Kehoe is scheduled to appear in St. Louis at 10 a.m. Thursday for a ceremonial bill signing at the Hampton Avenue headquarters of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, which supported the legislation.
Missourians voted for local control of the city police department in 2012. The department had been under state control dating to the Civil War, when pro-Confederate state officials wanted to contain the pro-Union city police department.
Kehoe on Wednesday was joined by representatives of the SLPOA as well as the Ethical Society of Police, a group representing Black city officers, which also supported the plan.
Jones in a statement Wednesday called the bill “a sham” and said Kehoe’s “signature represents nothing but disrespect for every Missouri voter who supported local control.”
Jones, who faces reelection next month after winning the mayor’s office in 2021, is the city’s first Black woman mayor.
During debate, state Rep. Kimberly-Ann Collins, D- St. Louis, called the takeover a “slap in the face” to the city.
“Individuals want to take over our police department because we have an African American female mayor who currently serves the city of St. Louis,” she said.
The measure won bipartisan support in the Legislature, though no Black Democrats voted for the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer, R- Parkville, previously said the legislation removes “political control of the St. Louis Police Department from the mayor” and returns it to a citizen board.
“The men and women in uniform deserve the ability to do their jobs without interference from radical politicians who are soft on crime,” he said.
Additional measures
While the state takeover has garnered the most attention, the 68-page measure signed into law Wednesday was the product of intense negotiations, including with Democrats who ultimately voted against it.
The crime bill grew to include Democratic priorities, including establishment of a task force on missing and murdered African American women, limits on how much jails and prisons may charge for phone calls, and a provision allowing for more exonerees to gain restitution from the state.
The legislation also seeks to limit shackling of pregnant women in local custody, requires law enforcement training for the St. Louis sheriff, and repeals the Missouri Incarceration Reimbursement Act.
The omnibus measure also creates the crime of stunt driving in connection with street takeovers and makes first-degree child endangerment a class B felony if fentanyl is involved.
The package also boosts the penalty for first-degree child sex trafficking, allowing for life sentences with the possibility of parole after 30 years instead of after 25 years in current law.
In addition, first-degree child sex trafficking would apply when the victim is younger than 14.
Currently in Missouri, someone commits first-degree sexual trafficking of a minor if they cause a child younger than 12 to engage in a commercial sex act. Second-degree child sex trafficking will carry a 20-year minimum prison sentence, up from the current minimum of 10 years.
Kehoe applauds St. Louis police takeover bill. Jones calls it ‘disrespectful,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘cowardly’
The Missouri House on Wednesday gave final approval to a proposed state takeover of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, sending the plan to Gov. Mike Kehoe.
State takeover of St. Louis police department clears Missouri Senate with bipartisan support
The Missouri Senate easily approved a state takeover plan for the police department over the objections of the city’s mayor and local senators. Four Democrats voted for the bill.
St. Louis state senator blasts St. Louis mayor after state takeover of police advances
State Sen. Steven Roberts, a St. Louis Democrat, sharply criticized Mayor Tishaura O. Jones on Thursday after Republicans advanced a state takeover of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
Can Kehoe sell Missouri lawmakers on the rest of his agenda? It includes school choice.
Two school-choice priorities remain on new governor’s to-do list: an open-enrollment plan for public school students, along with $50 million in direct spending for the state’s private school voucher program.
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