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Friday • 03.24.2017 • $1.50
HEALTH CARE ULTIMATUM Trump demands House vote after 24 hours of tense negotiations in bid to close the deal
BY MIKE DEBONIS AND JULIET EILPERIN Washington Post
‘We’re very confident that the bill will pass tomorrow morning. This is the bill, this is the vote.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders
President Donald Trump delivered an ultimatum to House Republicans on Thursday night: Vote to approve the measure to overhaul the nation’s health care system on the House floor Friday, or reject it and the president will move
on to his other legislative priorities. The president signaled that the time for negotiations was over with rank-and-file Republicans who were meeting late at night on Capitol Hill to try to find common ground on the embattled package crafted by House
‘I’m desperately trying to get to yes. I think we need to make sure that it lowers health care costs.’
See HEALTH • Page A10
Freedom Caucus chief Mark Meadows
METROLINK SAFETY UNIFIED CALLS FOR MORE SECURITY; LESS UNITY IN REPORTING, SHARING CRIME DATA BY LEAH THORSEN AND WALKER MOSKOP St. Louis Post-Dispatch
J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com
Metro public safety officers ask a man why he is hanging around on Wednesday at the MetroLink Station at 18th and Clark streets. An officer said that young men are up to no good at the station. “We have to make this station safe for our grandparents and our kids,” he said.
The public has seen brutal attacks on MetroLink passengers and security guards — maybe not in person, but through video and photos posted on social media or in news coverage. Fall 2016 saw a series of violent incidents: A security officer shot at the Wellston stop. A man shot in the face at the Swansea stop. A person shot in a suspected robbery at the East Riverfront station. A passenger attacked and robbed at the Delmar station. And on Sunday, a man was fatally shot as he stood on the Busch Stadium platform. Mac Payne, 57, was killed when a gun went off inside a train during a beating. A bullet passed through a window and struck Payne in the head. “If we don’t fix this, MetroLink is going to fail as an enterprise,” said Vincent C. Schoemehl, a member of the board of commissioners of BiState Development, which oversees Metro Transit. Riders will avoid the light-rail system no matter how many new lines get built if they don’t feel safe, Schoemehl said. He called for a dramatic increase in security forces on the trains and platforms. It’s impossible to glean a deeper understanding of MetroLink’s safety based on the available data. See METROLINK • Page A5
MOST RIDERS GENERALLY FEEL SAFE BUT WOULD LIKE MORE SECURITY Aaron and Kami Wood of Belleville have been commuting to work together for about five years, riding the train from Fairview Heights to downtown St. Louis. They say they normally feel safe on their commute, but some of their co-workers are afraid and refuse to ride the Metro. “There’s a perception that the Metro is dangerous, but don’t rule it out until you try it,” Aaron Wood, 27, said. “It’s so convenient.” The couple said they saw security guards at the Fairview Heights station but would like to see more guards throughout the system, especially on trains at night.
Quez Roberson, 19, started riding MetroLink three years ago from his home in East St. Louis to school at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville. He also takes the trains to go to work at a fast food restaurant and to meet up with friends. “I feel pretty safe,” he said. “I’m mostly riding around my hometown. It’s my environment. My neighborhood. So, I usually feel safe.” Roberson, who boards trains at all times of the day and night, said there were some stations on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River that he avoided.
VIGNETTES BY NASSIM BENCHAABANE WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY J.B. FORBES • FOR MORE, GO TO PAGE A5 AND STLTODAY.COM
NY women arrested in alleged cigarette-tax ploy
London ‘not afraid’ a day after rampage by ex-con
BY KEVIN McDERMOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch
BY JILL LAWLESS AND PAISLEY DODDS Associated Press
Police in the tiny town of Foristell, responding about 2 a.m. Thursday to a report of marijuana smoke coming from a motel room, arrested two women from New York who tried to escape by jumping out a second-story window and running half-naked across Interstate 70. Then things got weird. Back in the motel room, police didn’t recover the alleged pot, but they found a different kind of smoking material: about 160 cartons of cigarettes.
LONDON • Authorities on Thursday identified a
See CIGARETTES • Page A10
See LONDON • Page A10
52-year-old Briton as the man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament in London, saying he had a long criminal record and once was investigated for extremism — but was not currently on a terrorism watch list. As millions of Londoners returned to work a day after a rampage that killed four victims and injured at least 30, British Prime Minister Theresa May had a message for other attackers: “We are not afraid.”
Democrats plan Gorsuch filibuster
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Keystone XL pipeline likely is a go
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Israel arrests teen over JCC threats
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New clubs cater to gamers
GO! MAGAZINE
Smoke and mirrors
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Crime statistics are incomplete METROLINK • FROM A1
While information about fatal crashes is available to drivers and widely reported, and crime data kept by police departments also is a matter of public record, those who rely on MetroLink are kept in the dark about safety on trains and platforms that see 16 million boardings each year. “I can understand why some people are scared to ride the train,” said Constance Hilliard, 26, at the Civic Center station Tuesday. She said she has seen fights, drugs and robberies on MetroLink, and that more security is needed. But Candace Monroe, who has commuted to work and events downtown from Belleville for 10 years, said she “can’t say she’s ever felt unsafe.” She said she is less comfortable riding the train at night through areas she’s not familiar with, “But even when I’ve felt a little uncomfortable, I can’t say I’ve ever felt unsafe. I’ve had people asking me for money, but I’ve never felt threatened.” In fact, most riders interviewed by a Post-Dispatch reporter on Monday said they felt safe on the trains, although many still wanted better security.
MULTIPLE JURISDICTIONS The system’s 37 stops sit in multiple jurisdictions, which leads to difficulties in collecting data. And when a police officer makes a crime report, it may or may not be labeled as being at a MetroLink stop or platform. Metro Transit won’t release its data on reported incidents, saying the numbers it keeps don’t paint an accurate picture of crime and that compiling statistics is the job of the police agencies it contracts with. The Post-Dispatch since October has sought crime data for the last five years for reported crime on MetroLink trains and platforms. Bi-State Development responded in a letter that it doesn’t “generate and maintain” crime data and police reports, and that it doesn’t have to comply with public-information laws because it’s an interstate compact agency. It operates in Missouri and Illinois. “In addition, the Agency also reserves the right to close any record at its discretion if the Agency deems such closure to be in the Agency’s best interests,” said that letter, signed by Barbara Enneking, Bi-State’s general counsel and deputy secretary. Metro’s budget, which is supported by taxpayers, is about $309 million, with roughly 43 percent coming from St. Louis County. Metro’s refusal to release crime data doesn’t sit well with County Executive Steve Stenger. “It’s a publicly funded agency,” he said. “To skirt transparency in the name of basically what amounts to a loophole in the law is not the way to do business when you’re doing business with taxpayer dollars.” John Nations, Bi-State’s president and chief executive officer, said crime information should come from the police departments that patrol MetroLink because they have the most accurate data. “We don’t release incomplete or misleading information,” Nations said.
MESSY DATA A state law on the books since 1993, when MetroLink opened, bars Metro Transit from having its own police force. About 215 people provide security, including 38 county and eight city officers, as well as about a dozen St. Clair County Sheriff’s deputies, 120 security guards and 37 Metro public safety officers. But security guards and public safety officers cannot write tickets or make arrests. Crimes that occur on a MetroLink platform or train or on the tracks are recorded by the three police agencies. But the way crime is documented means that it’s sometimes difficult to use police data to identify whether a crime occurred on a platform or outside of a station. In some cases, an officer might list an address of a station for the location of a crime, but not include the word MetroLink, making it difficult to later query the data to get a comprehensive accounting of crime. Additionally, incidents that occur in a MetroLink parking lot or just outside of a station are typically handled by a local municipal jurisdiction, making it difficult to identify the number of incidents without requesting crime reports from more than a dozen municipal police departments. St. Louis police on March 8 provided the Post-Dispatch a spreadsheet of incidents at MetroLink stops, many of which were noncriminal in nature. But a quick Google search turned up a 2013 homicide at the Laclede’s Landing station that was not on the spreadsheet. The Post-Dispatch also found several assaults and robberies written about in news articles or included in other publicly available crime data that
J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com
Constance Hilliard, 26, waits for a train on Tuesday at the MetroLink Station at 18th and Clark streets. Hilliard said she works the night shift at United Parcel Service. “I can see why some people are scared to ride the trains,” she said.
were not included in the incidents provided by city or county police. The data indicated a drop in incidents at city MetroLink stops, but that was mostly attributable to the vanishing incidence of farehopping. Since 2015, the records included a total of only five instances of failing to pay a fare in the city. That’s the year a change in state law and court procedures took effect that allowed only St. Louis County and St. Louis police to write fare evasion summonses on the Metro transit system in Missouri, which led to a significant decline, Metro said. Federal authorities earlier this year denied a request by Nations that would have allowed Metro public safety and security officers to once again write tickets. Excluding noncriminal offenses, city police recorded just over 100 incidents at the city’s 10 MetroLink stops in 2016, many of them crimes that would not be included in FBI statistics. Aside from transgressions such as disturbing the peace, public urination and trespassing, there were 11 robberies, 17 assaults and 15 thefts recorded, as well as a handful of drug possession and unlawful use of a weapon incidents. To try to isolate more serious incidents that would be included in city crime figures, the Post-Dispatch also analyzed data available from the city police department website. Excluding less serious offenses, in 2016, there were 59 crimes where MetroLink was specifically referenced as a location, including station parking lots. St. Louis County police reported 48 serious crimes in 2016, an increase over the previous year that probably resulted from more officers being stationed at platforms. The number of less serious offenses not counted in final county crime totals nearly tripled from 2015 to 2016, to 433 incidents, with drug crimes being the most common offense. Numbers requested from the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office were not available Thursday.
SHARING INFORMATION Richard Zott, Metro’s chief of public safety, said his department finds out about MetroLink-related crimes most of the time, but that the county has its own radio frequency and there are times when a crime occurs and Metro never learns of it. He also said that what people look for in crime statistics is an accurate summary of what happened, which could be different than how an incident is initially described — something Metro doesn’t tally, and that police handle. “We’re not a police agency, so we don’t deal with that kind of data,” he said, although his agency does do weekly trend analyses. He said ongoing discussions about the best way to share data have been happening for the last six or seven months, and are continuing. “We know enough to know we don’t know all the numbers,” said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar of MetroLink stats. He wants to see a computer-aided dispatch center specifically for Metro, with a dedicated phone number. Such a setup would give a fuller picture of crime. The Metro Transit Police Department in Minnesota that serves the Twin Cities and surrounding areas has used such a system
since 2008, and replaced it earlier this year to link to the same systems used by police departments in its coverage area, said Tim Lynaugh, business technology manager for the transit police. Every vehicle has a GPS transponder, which allows the dispatch center to select and route the closest car to a call for service. “For all of us to see each other in real time brings all the advantages for getting the closest squad car to the scene,” Lynaugh said. His agency’s crime statistics are available upon a records request. Others go even further — the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority posts daily blotter reports and other crime reports on its website.
ENDING A FREE RIDE To further cut down on crime, Belmar would like to see turnstiles added to MetroLink stations to better secure the platforms, saying the convenience of open platforms is outweighed by people who congregate there for reasons other than catching a train. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said he’d like to devote more officers to the MetroLink unit, but said he doesn’t have enough to do so — the department has about 1,200 officers, which is 1,000 fewer than it had in 1970. He also supports turnstiles, and wants them installed at the new MetroLink station being built within the Cortex technology district to see how they work. A previous estimate showed that adding turnstiles would cost $100 million, something Stenger disputes. He said a $10 million proposal was submitted for turnstiles and facial-recognition technology for MetroLink, although Nations said he has never seen it. Until something more permanent can be done, Bi-State board member Schoemehl, who spoke to the Post-Dispatch Thursday on behalf of out-of-town board chair David Dietzel, said he would recommend creating a board-level security commission to work on safety issues. Schoemehl, who was mayor of St. Louis when the first MetroLink line was designed, said he’ll ask that Metro put an officer capable of making arrests and issuing tickets on every train car and every platform, an endeavor that comes with an estimated $31 million price tag, about double what is paid now. As the days tick down before voters on April 4 decide whether to support a salestax hike to help pay to expand MetroLink, and before Cardinals fans headed out for opening day on April 2 make their way to the station where Payne was killed, some riders remain uneasy. Jalexys Cookwood, 16, said she needs the MetroLink any time she has to leave her home in University City. “It kind of made me not want to get on the train for a little while,” she said of Payne’s death. “But I had to because I’ve got things to do.” Staff writer Nassim Benchaabane and staff photographer J.B. Forbes contributed to this report. Leah Thorsen • 314-340-8320 @leahthorsen on Twitter lthorsen@post-dispatch.com Walker Moskop • 314-340-8349 @walkermoskop on Twitter wmoskop@post-dispatch.com
CRIMES AT METROLINK STATIONS CITY OF ST. LOUIS 2016 The figures include Part 1 crimes (which are more serious and are reported to the FBI) and less serious Part 2 crimes (which are excluded from the city’s annual crime totals). Assault: 17 Disturbing the peace: 15 Stealing: 15 Robbery: 11 Public urination/ defecation: 10 Trespassing: 6 Drug possession: 5 Unlawful use of a weapon: 4 Property destruction: 4 Drinking in public: 3
Receiving stolen property: 3 Prohibited conduct on public transportation: 3 Didn’t pay fare: 2 Making/selling a controlled substance: 1 Marijuana possession: 1 Theft of firearm: 1 Panhandling: 1 Unspecified complaint: 1 Sexual assault: 1 Auto theft: 1
CRIMES AT CIVIC CENTER STATION, MARCH 2012-PRESENT During the past five years, the Civic Center station, one of the busiest, had the most crimes reported of any stop in the city. Most crimes recorded, however, were not violent and most weren’t serious enough to even be counted in the city’s final crime numbers. The number of incidents at the center has declined in recent years. Public urination/ defecation: 13 Robbery: 10 Disturbing the peace: 10 Didn’t pay fare: 8 Stealing: 8 Trespassing: 7 Assault: 6 Drinking in public: 4
Marijuana possession: 4 Prohibited conduct on public transportation: 3 Unlawful use of a weapon: 2 Impeding traffic: 1 Unclear: 1 Prohibited entry: 1 Exposing: 1
ST. LOUIS COUNTY (INCLUDING AIRPORT STATIONS) 2016 The number of incidents has more than doubled since the county increased the number of officers patrolling stations in the county. The county also is far more populous and has more stations than the city. PART 1 CRIMES Larceny: 28 Assault: 15 Robbery: 8 Unlawful use of a weapon: 1 PART 2 CRIMES Drug violation: 118 Miscellaneous: 74 Disorderly conduct: 54 Simple or other assault: 47 Trespassing: 35 Liquor violation: 29 Fraud: 22 Weapons violation: 14 Property destruction: 12
Littering: 9 Unlawful flight to avoid prosecution: 8 Stolen property offense: 5 Loitering: 5 Public intoxication: 3 Sex offense: 2 Pedestrian check: 2 Peace disturbance: 2 Counterfeiting: 1 Curfew violation: 1 Prostitution: 1 Criminal nonsupport: 1 Runaway: 1 Incorrigibility: 1 Tampering with vehicle: 1
SOURCE: Post-Dispatch analysis of data from St. Louis police, St. Louis County police. Figures for Illinois stations were not available.
RIDERS HAVE MIXED REACTIONS BUT THEY FIND THE TRAINS ESSENTIAL Abby Cheruiyot, a medical student at Washington University, said she doesn’t use MetroLink often but that she rides it to get downtown or to the airport. “I ride it occasionally and it’s always been fine,” she said. “It stops right at my school so it’s very convenient for me.” She said she felt that the fatal shooting Sunday was “an isolated incident. “I think people who are scared to ride the Metro just haven’t tried it.”
Damien Deshae, 38, works at the Civic Center MetroLink stop almost daily. He has a license to sell drinks and snacks there. “I make a living from this, but I could make more if I stayed longer,” he said. “I won’t stay here after dark. It’s too dangerous. There is no point in talking about expanding MetroLink until they get the security under control on the trains they have now.”
VIGNETTES BY NASSIM BENCHAABANE WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY J.B. FORBES • FOR MORE, GO TO STLTODAY.COM
S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S
UP TO
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SUNDAY • 07.23.2017 • $3.00 • FINAL EDITION
THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO PATROL TRANSIT PLATFORMS
CAMERA COVER-UP
County officers repeatedly seen papering over lens in Metro station office St. Louis County police loitering in office during their MetroLink duty Zott on officers: ‘We have no idea what they do or where they go’
TONY MESSENGER St. Louis Post-Dispatch
METRO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
In this still image from surveillance video, an unidentified St. Louis County police officer places a sheet of paper over a camera in the security office at the North Hanley MetroLink station.
A federal Homeland Security law enforcement officer was assigned to Metro transit patrol as part of a beefed-up security plan for the busy Fourth of July weekend. He didn’t like what he saw. Late in the afternoon on July 4, the officer walked into the North Hanley MetroLink substation to find 12 St. Louis County police officers milling about. A resulting Metro check of video footage determined that not only were county police officers loitering in the North Hanley security office instead of patrolling trains or platforms, at one point they covered the security camera with an envelope and tape. That incident was not unique. At least eight times since 2015, the camera inside the MetroLink substation that serves the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Express Scripts has been covered by county police officers, according to records obtained by the Post-Dispatch through a public records request. At a time in which St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger has said he doubled the number of officers patrolling
Metro Department of Public Safety Chief Richard Zott
St. Louis County police Capt. Scott Melies
VIDEO See county police officers inside Metro security office in surveillance clips from July 4-5. stltoday.com/watch
MONDAY Tony Messenger digs deeper in his column in Monday’s paper.
See MESSENGER • Page A4
Rethinking city’s ward funding
Two felons tied to bankrupt international firm in Moberly After prison, convicted entrepreneur, disbarred judge led company
STARS RISE, FALL FAST WITH CARDS SPORTS • B1
BY JESSE BOGAN St. Louis Post-Dispatch
CHRIS LEE • clee@post-dispatch.com
Pedestrians cross Connecticut Street as they walk along South Grand Boulevard on Wednesday. Funds from two aldermen helped with renovations along Grand.
SEE WINNERS OF GARDEN CONTEST STL LIFE • H1 TODAY
82°/98° HOT AND HUMID
TOMORROW
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No eye in the sky
Equal shares may not always be equitable
HALF-CENT SALES TAX REVENUE In millions of dollars per fiscal year $19.5 projected $19.7 $19.6 $19.3
$20
$18.2
BY DOUG MOORE • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS • In April 1993, the city’s financial picture was bleak. Hobbled with declining revenue from a decades-long population drop and a growing debt, St. Louis badly needed an infusion. Incoming Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. had an idea: Push a sales tax for capital improvements that would quickly bring in millions of dollars a year to go directly toward repairing crumbling streets and sidewalks, improving parks and replacing trash See FUND • Page A7
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$18.0
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FY2012 ’13
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SOURCE: City of St. Louis
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MOBERLY, MO. • The same sorry story keeps being told here, only each decade there seems to be a different newfangled business collapsing. In this city of 14,000, folks have grown used to hometown corporate failures. They’ve heard the same spin, the same promises of economic prosperity ultimately unfulfilled. At the center of much of it has been Floyd E. Riley, the “consummate entrepreneur” and showman who is revered as Moberly’s booster and benefactor. Some of his past ventures have landed him in federal prison. Even so, he keeps resurfacing with gusto. Riley is a glass half-full kinda guy, especially with bankers and anybody else with money to invest. His diverse list of ambitious business pursuits ranges from cattle embryos to incinerators, retread tires to
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POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®
Could 2017 be St. Louis’ biggest concert year? Chug through Chattanooga for family fun
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Incentives revive development in Hazelwood
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St. Louisan who created ‘Ozark’ knows lake well •
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County police duty for Metro scrutinized MESSENGER • FROM A1
the transit system to deal with a spike in violence, the public documents, photos and video demonstrate a disturbing pattern of county police officers loitering in offices, covering a camera and refusing to cooperate with Metro public safety officials. “I don’t see how any of this is serving the public interest or public safety,” said Metro Department of Public Safety Chief Richard Zott, who agreed to an interview after the Post-Dispatch obtained the records. For the past several months, Metro officers have been unable to enforce laws, even for skipping fares, on the transit lines in the county, under legal threat from both county Police Chief Jon Belmar and St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch. Those county officials allege that the Metro officers — all of whom have Class A peace officer licenses through the state of Missouri — lack the proper legal authority to enforce the law. But the county police officers who are supposed to keep transit lines safe have been found hiding away in security offices rather than patrolling trains and platforms, according to the records kept by Metro. Maintaining those records has become more difficult in the past few months as the dispute between the county and Metro has intensified. Last year, the county officers patrolling Metro stopped using a radio channel that the Metro officers could also monitor. And for the past few months, county police have stopped sharing duty logs with Metro. St. Louis County police spokesman Sgt. Shawn McGuire declined to make either Belmar or Capt. Scott Melies, who supervises the county officers who police MetroLink, available for an interview. Metro operates 46 miles of light rail and 79 bus routes in its territory, which spans St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis, and St. Clair County in Illinois. The records obtained by the PostDispatch raised the most serious questions about St. Louis County police officers assigned to Metro. In response to spikes in violence, including shootings and assaults on light-rail platforms in the city and county, St. Louis County now supervises all the officers working the transit system under a memorandum of understanding signed by regional political leaders. On any given day, Zott and his staff don’t know which county officers are patrolling Metro or
PHOTOS VIA METRO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
St. Louis County police officers gather in the North Hanley MetroLink security office on July 4. A federal Homeland Security law enforcement officer assigned to Metro transit patrol as part of a beefed-up security plan for the busy Fourth of July weekend found 12 St. Louis County police officers milling about in the office.
In a still image from surveillance video, an unidentified St. Louis County police officer places a sheet of paper in front of a security camera on July 5 at the North Hanley MetroLink security office. Metro records obtained by the Post-Dispatch indicate there have been at least eight such incidents of the camera being covered since 2015.
where they are stationed. “We have no idea what they do or where they go,” Zott said. On July 4, after the federal Homeland Security officer reported he saw no county officers patrolling platforms, a Metro officer checked the cameras at the North Hanley station. From 5:52 p.m. to 9:48 p.m., both the video and a memo from Metro indicate, there were five to 12 county police officers milling around in the security office at any given time. At 11:11 p.m., a county officer grabs an enve-
lope, steps on a chair and covers the camera. A little more than an hour later, the camera is uncovered, and two county police officers leave the station. The next day, the act is repeated by two county officers in the North Hanley security office. The camera is covered from 11:27 p.m. to 12:31 a.m. Metro posted a camera in its North Hanley security office after an incident involving a county police officer in 2014. Officer Dawon Gore was charged with assaulting a Metro
customer, grabbing him on the platform and taking him into the office. County internal affairs investigators asked Metro for camera footage inside the office. At the time, there was no camera. Metro installed one, “to protect both the county officers and our officers,” Zott said. Metro Public Safety Detective Daniel Donahue, who reviewed the footage requested by the Post-Dispatch, said that unlike the cameras on platforms, the camera in the North Hanley security office isn’t regularly
monitored. But if complaints are made, officers pull the footage. It is in those circumstances that Metro officials discovered at least eight instances of the camera being covered. The first time Zott saw such a video was in December 2015 after a Metro information technology employee who was working in the North Hanley office reported to supervisors that a county police officer was asleep in the office. A check of the video footage showed the camera had been covered. “I saw this, and I thought it was ludicrous,” Zott said. On Dec. 4, 2015, Zott sent a screenshot of a county officer covering a camera to Melies, who supervises the county MetroLink officers. “Really?” Zott wrote. “I’m at a loss.” Zott said he never received a response from Melies. A retired special agent with the federal Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Zott says he continues to be confounded as to why county officers would cover a camera in a police office. One of the most recent camera-covering incidents happened June 25, just hours after a 14-year-old boy was beaten and robbed by two armed assailants at the North Hanley station. That evening, a public safety officer noticed something strange. There were no county police officers patrolling the platform. Where were they? the Metro public safety officer wondered. They were loitering in the North Hanley security office, up to five St. Louis County officers at a time, “feet kicked up on a desk,” apparently “texting or using their phone apps” and not “engaged in any police duties,” according to a memo a different Metro officer wrote to Zott the next day after checking video from the camera. “At 9:58:35 p.m., an unidentified County officer stands up and places a white envelope, with the seal facing the camera, covering the lens of the camera, and remained there as it is now,” he wrote. “Because the camera was disabled, it is unknown how long the officers remained in the office.” The camera was covered for a total of 18 hours, the Metro memo indicates. “There is only one purpose to cover the lens of a camera,” the officer wrote, “to hide whatever activities someone is engaged in that they want concealed or undiscovered.” Tony Messenger • 314-340-8518 @tonymess on Twitter tmessenger@post-dispatch.com
It’s a record: Temperature hits 108 degrees in St. Louis BY DENISE HOLLINSHED St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Nelly’s lyrics, “so hot in here,” are an understatement: St. Louis broke the record for the date Saturday with a high of 108 degrees. The city set its new record for July 22 about 3:50 p.m. at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, according to Lewis Kanofsky, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. The previous record of 107 degrees was set on July 22, 1901.
Kevin Korleski, 4, of Rockwell City, Iowa, plays in the water at Kiener Plaza on Saturday. The temperature in St. Louis reached 108 degrees, breaking a record for the date.
A cold front was expected to push through the area Saturday night, with temperatures dropping to the upper 70s to 80 degrees. Sunday was expected to be in the upper 90s, and Sunday night in the low 70s. “We will have a cold front coming through,” Kanofsky said. “We should see cooler temperatures on Monday.” Monday is expected to be in the lower 90s, he said. “It should be a bit cooler than what we have seen in the last few days,” he said.
Portable air conditioners ordered for workhouse BY DENISE HOLLINSHED St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Mayor Lyda Krewson announced on Saturday that the city has placed orders for portable air-conditioning units to be installed at the city’s medium-security jail, which has been the subject of inmate complaints and protests by activists during recent extremely high temperatures. Five units ranging from 25 to 50 tons will be installed to bring relief to the older sections of the facility that lack air conditioning, according to a City Hall statement. The city expects the units to be in place by the end of this week. Last spring, the city spent $200,000 to upgrade the electrical service at the Medium Security Institution at 7600 Hall Street, known at the “workhouse,” so that additional air conditioning could be supported, Krewson said. Currently, the cafeteria and some other common areas are the only parts of the facility with air con-
ditioning. About 150 people demonstrated for about two hours outside the workhouse Friday night while some inmates yelled chants and waved towels from windows. Police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd. More protesters gathered in the heat and subsequent rain Saturday, with several clashes with police and some arrests as of late Saturday night. “I support air conditioning at MSI for the health and safety of everyone who is in that jail,” Krewson said. “Once my administration determined that temporary air conditioning was a viable solution, I ordered that temporary air conditioning units be installed as soon as possible.” The workhouse was built in 1966. Voters turned down a tax increase in 2015 that would have installed permanent air conditioning at the jail among other citywide infrastructure improvements. But heat is just one of many complaints about the jail. Allegations of unsanitary conditions and abuse from guards continue to circulate about the facility, which houses more than 750 people who cannot afford bail while awaiting trial. Many of the dorms have operated for more than 50 years without air conditioning, according to Krewson. She said as many people as possible are housed in the air-conditioned sections of the facility, including all women and medically sensitive people. With the temperatures soaring past
DAVID CARSON • P-D
100 degrees — even hitting a record 108 degrees Saturday — the Arch City Defenders civil rights law firm and other groups have called conditions at the jail “inhumane” and demanded it be shut down. Organizers also have raised money to post bail for at least 15 of more than 100 inmates who were seeking bail support
so they could be released while awaiting their trials. Denise Hollinshed • 314-340-8319 @Hollinshed57 on Twitter dhollinshed@post-dispatch.com
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MONDAY • 07.24.2017 • $1.50
‘HIDING SOMEWHERE’ Customers complain that they don’t often see county officers on MetroLink platforms. The evidence may just back them up.
A bus drives past the St. Louis County Police MetroLink Cross County Police Substation at the Clayton MetroLink station on Friday.
On the very day last year that St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger announced he was doubling to 44 the number of county police who patrol Metro transit, a regular customer of the system filed a complaint. It was March 9, and Chris Polka of Shrewsbury had a question. “Where did all the taxpayer money that was supposed to be dedicated to real law enforcement officers go over the past decade?” Polka, who rides MetroLink nearly every day, filed his complaint with Metro transit, which is operated by BiState Development Agency. The transit system has its own public safety force, but it contracts for law enforcement
TONY MESSENGER St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Reports compiled by Metro showed St. Louis County police officers underperforming their counterparts, even though there were more of them
DAVID CARSON P-D
See MESSENGER • Page A4
ON STLTODAY.COM • See surveillance clips of county police officers inside Metro security office. > Read Tony Messenger’s previous column, ‘Camera Cover-Up’.
Storms take edge off heat, but thousands lose power
Trump likely to sign new sanctions bill against Russia, White House says Measure punishes Russia, Iran and N. Korea; Congress could review any action by Trump to ease Moscow penalty FROM NEWS SERVICES
WASHINGTON • The White House indicated
Sunday that President Donald Trump would sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House could take up this week, that requires him to get Congress’ permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Moscow. Lawmakers are scheduled to consider the sanctions package as early as Tuesday, and the bill could be sent to Trump before Congress breaks for the August recess. The legislation is aimed at punishing Moscow for meddling in the presidential election and for its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the newly appointed White House press secretary, said the
See SANCTIONS • Page A7 J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com
Malika Ray (left), 29, Teona Braxton, 32, and their dog, Tobias, had to be rescued by St. Louis firefighters from their secondfloor apartment in the 5000 block of Highland Avenue on Sunday. Ray said they woke up to the fire alarm sounding and then they saw thick black smoke coming under their door. The only way out was out the window. Firefighters put a ladder up to their window and caught Tobias, who jumped about four feet into the arms of a firefighter. The women were uninjured.
TOTAL ECLIPSE 2017 We’ll bring you a new eclipse story every Monday up to the big day, Aug. 21
Sizzling temperatures are expected to return Wednesday; power outages force rescues
Researchers revel in eclipse opportunity
BY DENISE HOLLINSHED AND ASHLEY JOST St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Thunderstorms that rolled across the St. Louis region Saturday night and early Sunday cooled things off briefly, but also left thousands without power. After Saturday’s record-setting heat — the high hit 108 degrees — thunderstorms roared through after sunset. Ameren reported more than 12,000 Missouri customers and about 12,000 Illinois customers still without power at 7:30 p.m. Sunday as crews worked to restore service throughout the area. Thousands more had been without power at the peak of the outage. The utility said it had more than 400 workers See WEATHER • Page A4
TODAY
Power to the people
90°/70° MOSTLY SUNNY
TOMORROW
91°/74° PARTLY CLOUDY
WEATHER A15
BY ASHLEY JOST • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS • From the sun’s corona to the frequency of buzzes from a bee hive, universities across Missouri and Illinois are tapping into the wealth of research opportunities that come with the solar eclipse in a few weeks. One astrophysics professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia has been preparing for the Aug. 21 eclipse for, quite literally, years. Angela Speck is so excited — and maybe a little nervous — about the coming event that she can’t even commit to where she will be that day.
DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com
An Ameren worker tests equipment at a substation in the 5600 block of Gravois Avenue on Sunday. Thousands of Ameren customers were without power after overnight storms.
See ECLIPSE • Page A9
Help for Epilepsy
Cubs beat Cards, move into first
Family starts foundation here
Boy, 10, killed by shot to head
INSIDE • A2
‘Unsinkable Molly Brown’ captivates
Training to avoid ‘friendly fire’
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Vol. 139, No. 205 ©2017
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M 1 • MONDAY • 07.24.2017
Storms cool air but sap power from thousands WEATHER • FROM A1
trying to restore power, with more than 100 additional linesmen coming from elsewhere to help early Monday. Ameren said St. Charles and North County were hard-hit. Sunday afternoon, firefighters helped senior residents out of a 200-unit building at Aboussie Pavilions in the Bevo neighborhood because the building lost power. It was about 80 to 85 degrees inside the eight-story building at 4635 Ridgewood Avenue, which also lost elevator service. About 100 residents were taken to an adjoining building with air conditioning, according to Gary Christmann, commissioner of the St. Louis Emergency Management Agency. Others left with family members or friends to spend the night elsewhere. Firefighters and paramedics helped move residents who use wheelchairs or aren’t able to get out of bed. A few people were taken to a hospital to be checked out. Madzida Beslija arrived Sunday afternoon to pick up Tehvida Kusuran, 80. Beslija said her mother is friends with Kusuran and told her to go pick up the older woman. She helped Kusuran down four flights of stairs. “She doesn’t have family, Beslija said of Kusuran, who doesn’t speak English. “But she’s OK now.” Early in the day, at least 130 residents of a senior citizen apartment complex in St. Charles were evacuated because of a power outage. The St. Charles Fire Department said firefighters went door-to-door at the Jaycee Terrace Apartments, at 1111 Boone’s Lick Road. Residents who needed help
DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com
Gary Winter sits on the front porch of his home in the 5300 block of Alfred during a power outage in the neighborhood on Sunday. “At least it’s comfortable out here right now,” Winter said. “I hope it comes on in 2 or 3 hours so food in my refrigerator doesn’t go bad.”
were moved to common areas where portable generators and air conditioners were set up. Some residents were moved to the homes of friends or family, and two were taken to a hospital to be treated. Power was restored at about 8:40 a.m. The St. Louis Fire Department was also busy fighting blazes in the hot weather. Firefighters rescued two women and a dog from a second-floor window of a four-family home in the 5100 block of Highland Avenue Sunday morning after smoke from a fire on the main level overtook the second floor. Capt. Garon Mosby said ladders went up quickly when fire crews got to the home in St. Louis’ Kingsway West neighbor-
hood. Mosby said as crews were trying to rescue two occupants and the dog, a Yorkshire Terrier, the dog was trying to jump from its owner’s arms. A firefighter was able to grab the dog and drop it to another firefighter below, then rescue the two residents. Mosby said a preliminary cause for the fire points to wiring in an air conditioner cord on the first floor. That was one of multiple calls the department ran on Sunday morning, as temperatures climbed into the 90-degree range. The high humidity, which pushed the heat index over 100, wasn’t helping. At another house fire in the 2000 block of Hickory Street near Lafayette Park,
County police respond to camera controversy
County has the most officers assigned to system MESSENGER • FROM A1
with St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis and St. Clair County. Of those agencies, St. Louis County has the most police officers assigned to patrol the system. But customer complaints and Metro records obtained by the PostDispatch through an open records request raise serious questions about what those police officers are actually doing. “In 15 plus years of riding Metro transit daily, I have never, not once, seen a (city of St. Louis) officer on a train, platform, or bus. Ever. Maybe four times a year I will see a county officer ride a stop or two,” Polka wrote in his complaint. Earlier this year, Polka started a closed Facebook page where transit riders file complaints about safety issues. What Polka didn’t know then is that the Metro Department of Public Safety had been tracking that very problem — or was at least trying to — for a couple of years. In 2014, Maj. Steve Devore of Metro started compiling monthly, quarterly and yearly reports comparing the performance of the “on-the-street” officers from the various agencies that patrol the transit system. He tracked calls for service, assists, stops and arrests. “I was just trying to see what our people were doing, to see that they were out there doing what they were supposed to do,” Devore said. It didn’t take long for Devore to notice a disturbing pattern. County officers were woefully underperforming their counterparts, even though there were more of them. On some days, a county officer, sometimes multiple officers, would go through an entire day appearing to do nothing at all. “This can’t be right,” Devore recalled thinking. In some months, the activity of Metro public safety officers appeared to be nearly 20 times that of their counterparts in the county, Devore’s reports found. St. Louis city and St. Clair County officers generally had higher activity reports than officers in St. Louis County, though their numbers, too, were far below that of Metro’s officers. Devore told his bosses, including Assistant Chief Jason Davis, a former St. Louis police officer, and Chief Richard Zott. In various emails to St. Louis County Capt. Scott Melies, who supervises the county police officers who patrol Metro transit, Zott and Davis sought answers. They didn’t get any. For instance, in mid-November 2015, Davis asked Melies about a 67 percent drop in summonses issued over the previous year’s first quarter. On Dec. 2, Melies responded: “By asking me why our ticket production is lower compared to the stated past time frame, are you implying there exists at Metro performance quotas on enforcement and we are not meeting them?” Melies suggested the county data was different than the Metro data. So Devore went to the video. He found officers sleeping in offices. He found county police officers taping over a camera at the North Hanley substation. He found officers claiming to be walking a foot patrol at one place while video showed them at another office. Among the video,
Mosby said fire officials requested additional crews as temperatures climbed so they could rotate firefighters out to hydrate and recuperate. The fire in the Lafayette Square neighborhood was in the attic and roof of a three-story brick house. Mosby said the homeowner told firefighters that roofers were working on his home when they came down, told him to call the fire department and then left. There was significant damage to the roof and water damage to the rest of the house, but no one was injured. The National Weather Service says temperatures Monday and Tuesday should be more typical, but the extreme heat returns Wednesday.
BY MIKE FAULK St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Someone sent me these two pictures a few minutes ago, who saw two of our County officers, one he recognized … who is supposed to be assigned up in Sector one around the Hanley area now, at a local gun store in Afton [sic]. …” — Richard Zott, chief of the Metro Department of Public Safety, in an email to colleagues OFFICERS PATROLLING METROLINK IN JUNE 2016 Metro St. Louis city St. Louis Co. St. Clair Co. Avg. officers* per day 16 3 14 5 Avg. calls/checks/arrests per day 319 11 24 8 Avg. calls/checks/arrests per officer* 19.9 3.6 1.7 1.6 *Excludes supervisors SOURCE: Data provided by the Metro Department of Public Safety; St. Louis County police dispute Metro’s figures.
memos and emails obtained by the PostDispatch, several such incidents are documented. Nov. 15, 2016 • An off-duty municipal police officer emailed two pictures to Zott showing a county police officer who was supposed to be patrolling the area between Forest Park and North Hanley who was instead at a gun store in the Affton area. During the time the officer was at the gun shop, he received a call to transport and book a prisoner. It took him more than 30 minutes to get there, according to call records. March 1, 2016 • A county officer reported to dispatch that he was on foot patrol at the Richmond Heights platform. Video confirmed he wasn’t there. Feb. 17, 2016 • A county officer reported being on foot patrol in Maplewood. Video showed he never left the Clayton substation. Between 3 and 10 p.m. that day, video shows, as many as seven county officers were in the substation at various times. Twice the lights were turned out. “They’re sitting there not doing anything,” Devore said. “There’s one time where it appears an officer in the Clayton office slept the entire shift. It’s kind of shocking.” For transit customers, this has been an open secret, as violence spiked on platforms and in trains. “The only time you see cops is when they get a radio call for something that happened on the train or platform,” one Metro customer wrote in a complaint. “The rest of the time they are hiding somewhere.” That somewhere may be a police substation with the lights turned out. That’s what frequent MetroLink rider Michael Sorkin found in June. Sorkin, a journalist and retired Post-Dispatch reporter, took matters into his own hands on June 5 after riding the train in the city and county and never seeing an officer. He posted this message on the NextDoor social media site: “Where are the St. Louis County Police officers who are paid to patrol the MetroLink platforms in St. Louis County? They are hiding in darkened, cavelike offices, out-of-sight and underneath the train platforms. I decided to investigate and, on June 5, 2017, at approximately 6:20 p.m., I
got off the train and opened the door to the police substation underneath the Clayton Metro platform. There were four St. Louis County Police officers. Doing nothing. In the dark.” It’s not just Metro public safety officers and residents who are complaining, either. In March, in an email to several colleagues, St. Louis Deputy Chief Ronnie Robinson raised the issue. “We all know resources are not being used to its full potential and I want to apply pressure on County to do a better job,” Robinson wrote. “With the recent homicide I believe we can point out their lack of consistency of riding trains. … Until there is more buy in from the county the pressure has to come from the chiefs to affect change.” St. Louis County Police spokesman Sgt. Shawn McGuire declined to make either Chief Jon Belmar or Melies available for an interview. In a statement, Belmar said: “I am confident that the doubling of manpower on the line by the St. Louis County Police Department last year partnered with the good work of our police officers, is making a difference.” Devore, 66, isn’t filling out his monthly reports anymore. He retired from MetroLink in June. After Metro officials tried to get Melies to address the issue, the county simply stopped providing duty logs to Metro. They also switched to a different radio system so Metro public safety officials can no longer track county police officers while they’re on the transit system. Devore, who worked at Metro for 13 years, is a former Jefferson County deputy sheriff. He retired from the Army after a career in the military police. Devore believes violence on MetroLink got immediately worse when the county said it was taking over and started to cut Metro police officers out of the safety loop. He remains shocked that he has seen such clear evidence of so many county police officers doing everything they can to avoid the work they’re paid to do. “In 47 years of policing,” Devore said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Tony Messenger • 314-340-8518 @tonymess on Twitter tmessenger@post-dispatch.com
St. Louis County police say they are looking into allegations that officers covered up security cameras during shifts at a MetroLink substation, among other allegations raised by Metro transit officials in a Sunday Post-Dispatch column. The statement released Sunday by county police Chief Jon Belmar and spokesman Sgt. Shawn McGuire implies the allegations are the result of “politics and infighting.” The statement says the security camera at North Hanley MetroLink substation, which documented at least eight instances since 2015 of police covering up its lens, is improperly placed in a “private room.” “A limited number of carefully selected images from over a two-anda-half-year period that were pulled from an improperly-placed surveillance camera in a 12x14 private room appeared with the article,” McGuire wrote. “This room is used to monitor security cameras, hold briefings and complete report writing. It is also the only room officers have to take breaks from work and weather as well as change clothes and equipment at the end of a shift.” McGuire wrote that the camera, which is monitored by the Bi-State Development Agency, “is clearly an invasion of privacy.” “Regardless of the critic’s opinion, however motivated such an opinion may be, I am confident that the doubling of manpower on the line by the St. Louis County Police Department last year partnered with the good work of our police officers, is making a difference,” Belmar said in the statement. The department previously had declined to make Belmar or Capt. Scott Melies, who supervises the county officers working MetroLink, available for Sunday’s piece by columnist Tony Messenger. Metro operates 46 miles of light rail and 79 bus routes in its territory, which traverses St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis, and St. Clair County in Illinois. In response to spikes in violence, including shootings and assaults on lightrail platforms in the city and county, St. Louis County now supervises all the officers working the transit system under a memorandum of understanding signed by regional political leaders. The allegations follow months of building tension between county police and Metro public safety officials over patrolling the public transit rails. Metro officers have been unable to enforce laws on the transit lines in the county under legal threat from both Belmar and St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch. Those county officials allege that the Metro officers — all of whom have Class A peace officer licenses through the state of Missouri — lack the proper legal authority to enforce the law.
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TUESDAY • 07.25.2017 • $1.50
BELMAR ON DEFENSIVE St. Louis County Council considers inquiry into MetroLink allegations Lack of contract leads to lack of accountability
Under fire, chief stands firm, blames infighting
Bi-State Development Agency’s public safety committee chairman calls on St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar to resign. Chief Belmar responds: “I am not going anywhere.” He classifies allegations against county officers as mostly “anecdotal.”
BY CELESTE BOTT AND CHRISTINE BYERS St. Louis Post-Dispatch
TONY MESSENGER St. Louis Post-Dispatch
It was April 2015, and John Nations left the office of St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar feeling hopeful. Nations, the president and chief executive of Bi-State Development Agency, the organization created by a federal compact to build and operate the MetroLink transit system in the St. Louis region, was trying to finish up contract negotiations with the county’s police department. Public safety on the region’s transit system is handled by contract with the three law enforcement systems that serve the footprint of the Metro transit system: the city of St. Louis, See MESSENGER • Page A4
Allegations of St. Louis County police officers loitering and covering up security cameras during shifts at MetroLink substations garnered strong reaction Monday from state and county officials calling for further investigations. • The chairman of the Bi-State Development Agency’s public safety committee on Monday said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar should resign or be fired. • The St. Louis County Council will consider a resolution Tuesday that calls for an investigation to “ensure that County, state and federal laws were not violated.” • Missouri legislators say they expect the state to conduct an inquiry
CHRISTIAN GOODEN • cgooden@post-dispatch.com
The police substation in the North Hanley Metro transit station is shown Monday. The security camera in the ceiling is alleged to have been covered up during shifts.
See METROLINK • Page A4
I-55 standoff ends in death
Health care vote puts GOP on tightrope
Carjacker shot at officers, wore a bulletproof vest, police say
McCain says he’ll return to Capitol WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON • The Senate plans to vote Tuesday to try to advance a sweeping rewrite of the nation’s health care laws with the last-minute arrival of Sen. John McCain — but tough talk from President Donald Trump won no new public support from skeptical GOP senators for the flagging effort that all but collapsed last week. In a bit of drama, McCain, R-Ariz., who announced last week he was diagnosed with brain cancer, said Monday night that he will return to the Capitol on Tuesday to vote on whether to start debate on the health See HEALTH CARE • Page A7
‘NOTHING TO HIDE,’ KUSHNER TELLS SENATE
PHOTOS BY LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
Police cars gather at the scene of a standoff Monday on Interstate 55 near Highway 61 in Jefferson County. No officers were hurt.
INSIDE • A7
BY CHRISTINE BYERS St. Louis Post-Dispatch
J E F F E R S O N CO U N T Y • A
standoff between police and a man they say was on a suicide mission as he shot at officers Monday after carjacking a vehicle ended with the suspect dead. Jerrod Kershaw, 30, of the 1500 block of Bertha Lane in Pacific, died after a gunbattle with police. When his body was found, he was wearing a bulletproof vest. The incident began around 9 a.m. when St. Louis County police officers responded to Kershaw a call about a one-car crash near the interchange of Interstates 270 and 55. It appeared a car ran off the road and others were trying to help the driver, police said. When one good Samaritan approached the car, Kershaw held him at gunpoint with a shotgun and handgun and demanded his car. Kershaw then carjacked a different car before heading south on I-55, police said.
School officials evaluate means of determining district success BY KRISTEN TAKETA St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Test scores are the single most important factor in how Missouri judges its public schools. But that wasn’t always the case. Two decades ago, Missouri rewarded school districts with good marks if they got parents involved, offered a variety of extracurricular activities and had safe schools. Districts were applauded if they had deep financial reserves, a competent staff and a school board that got along well with administrators. Today, none of those matter when it comes to grading Missouri schools. But many educators say they should.
ABOVE • Police investigate the vehicle driven Monday by Jerrod Kershaw on Interstate 55. According to police, Kershaw carjacked the vehicle before heading south. The car was disabled by police near Highway 61. Shots were exchanged before police approached the vehicle and found Kershaw dead. LEFT • A police car has bullet holes in the front and back Monday. Traffic was rerouted around the scene.
See STANDOFF • Page A6
TODAY
Keeping watch
71°/92°
See GRADES • Page A7
CARDS TOP ROCKIES
MOSTLY SUNNY
Did Trump carry Blunt ‘over the line’?
• A5
Missouri Senate back in special session
TOMORROW
75°/97°
Fulton hospital to close in September
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SPORTS • B1
Mizzou football prepares for camp
• A5
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Vol. 139, No. 206 ©2017
FROM A1
A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
M 1 • Tuesday • 07.25.2017
Bi-State put in cameras after officer struck man
“I have said before, the fingerpointing has to stop, and apparently it hasn’t. We cannot restore confidence until we stop the infighting,” Belmar said, adding that Bi-State officials are turning the issue into a power play for their own MetroLink police force. That’s something the Missouri Legislature could consider in the coming months, said state Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin. “People out in West County, where I represent, have real fears of getting on MetroLink given recent crimes there,” Dogan said. “To know that some of that at least is because you have county police officers who are literally not doing their jobs? That’s inexcusable.”
raised have made it abundantly clear that Metro needs its own police force, with overlapping agencies causing a “bureaucratic jam.” “Public transportation is a necessity that we often take for granted, and often overlooked in the fight against poverty,” Pruitt said in a statement. “A professional, well-organized transit security authority is the key governance requirement to contribute to Metro’s sustainability.” Belmar maintains that violent crimes in the MetroLink system are down, and that both the department and St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger are moving in the right direction to increase safety. “The good work that we do goes unnoticed,” Belmar said Monday at an unrelated news conference. The County Council resolution suggests the matter may be referred to state or federal law enforcement, “where appropriate to ensure an independent and thorough investigation regarding state and federal laws.” It also tasks Stenger and the police department with preparing a plan to restore public trust. The St. Louis County police department is governed by a five-person board of police commissioners, who are appointed by the county executive. Chairman Roland Corvington said in a statement Monday that he has been “in discussions” with Belmar. “We, the board of police commissioners, will continue to work with Chief Belmar to ensure county police resources that are used to support MetroLink continue to be used effectively and efficiently. We will look at the facts to determine if Chief Belmar and his command staff have reason to take action based upon applicable general orders; policies related to performance and/ or policies related to misconduct.” Corvington said he plans to meet with Belmar on Tuesday about the issue and that he plans “to have ongoing contact with the chief regarding this matter.” A spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens also was not able to comment. On Monday afternoon, St. Louis County police Capt. Scott Melies, the county officer overseeing security throughout MetroLink’s service area, was scheduled to address the St. Louis County Public Transportation Commission about security matters. Melies did not attend the meeting. No explanation was given for his absence.
SECURITY IS KEY
Stephen Deere of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
METROLINK • FROM A1
into the allegations. Rep. Kathie Conway, a St. Charles Republican who serves as the appropriations chair for the Missouri Departments of Public Safety and Transportation, said she planned to call a committee hearing to explore the issue, likely around the Legislature’s veto session in September. In addition to covering up cameras for sometimes hours at a time, allegations raised in public documents obtained from Metro and reported Sunday and Monday in columns in the PostDispatch included officers loitering in security offices, texting or sleeping while on duty and providing inaccurate information on their whereabouts. Belmar has said most of the allegations against county officers, as reported by Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger, are “anecdotal.” Metro operates 46 miles of light rail and 79 bus routes in its territory, which traverses St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis and St. Clair County in Illinois. In response to spikes in violence, including shootings and assaults on light-rail platforms in the city and county, St. Louis County now supervises all the officers working the transit system, under a memorandum of understanding signed by regional political leaders. But leaders of Bi-State Development, the agency that oversees MetroLink, have blamed the recent wave of crime on MetroLink stations and trains on its officers’ inability to write tickets. Tension between county police and Metro public safety officials has been building for months. “It’s time St. Louis County restores the credibility of its police department, and that can happen only with the resignation or firing of Chief Belmar,” chairman Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. said in a statement on Monday. His statement misspells Belmar’s last name. “For the past several years Chief Belmar has systematically sought to delegitimize the authority of the Bi-State Public Safety Officers, which has driven more crime onto the MetroLink platforms and trains as criminals have come to believe the Metro PSOs have no legal authority,” Schoemehl continued. “I believe Chief Belmar has been motivated by vanity, power grasping and politics — nothing more.” On Monday, Belmar said calls for his resignation are “ridiculous.” “I am not going anywhere,” he said.
PRIVACY VIOLATIONS? One incident of an officer covering up a security camera was brought to Belmar’s attention in 2015, after which the officer claimed he did so in order to change his clothes. Though
CHRISTIAN GOODEN • cgooden@post-dispatch.com
Fragments of green tape remain stuck to the sides of the surveillance camera in the North Hanley Metro transit station Monday. It’s the same kind of tape normally used to seal evidence.
CHRISTIAN GOODEN • P-D
LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
A sign on the wall at the North Hanley Metro transit station reads, “YOU ARE BEING RECORDED.”
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar defends officers’ work on MetroLink at a press conference Monday at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department in Hillsboro. Belmar calls the recent allegations against officers a political move by the Bi-State Development Agency.
police were unable to refute his statement, that officer was transferred, Belmar said. Belmar’s only regret at that time was not insisting the camera come down or be turned off unless a suspect was inside the room, he said. “It’s highly unusual for a third party to monitor police officers,” said Belmar, who argues the cameras are violations of county officers’ privacy. On Monday, the substation at North Hanley Road where officers were videotaped covering up a security camera was empty. Fragments of green tape remained stuck to the sides of the camera — the same kind of tape normally used to seal evidence. Bi-State installed the camera after a county officer struck a man’s hand with his baton, breaking three of the man’s fingers, and then held him in the substation for 90 minutes in
2014. A sign on the wall reads: “You are being recorded.” A computer displayed footage from security cameras on the platform. Belmar has said his officers use the room to change clothes, but the door to the substation is not lockable from the inside. The office is near the train platform, and hundreds of riders pass it walking to and from a commuter parking lot. Any one of them could open the door. About 25 steps from the substation is a private restroom to which Bi-State employees and county police have access. Belmar has vowed to look into the allegations but didn’t offer specifics as to how an investigation might proceed. He said none of the concerns at hand were brought to the attention of county police at a July 11 meeting with MetroLink’s director of security.
Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis chapter of the NAACP, said Monday the security issues
Celeste Bott • 573-556-6186 @celestebott on Twitter cbott@post-dispatch.com
Proposed contract changes cut ability to track officers’ actions MESSENGER • FROM A1
St. Louis County and St. Clair County in Illinois. Historically, each of those entities has appropriated tax dollars to Metro, which then pays the police agencies according to the contract. The county contract had expired in 2014, and negotiations on renewing it were taking longer than Nations had expected. A contract attorney by training, Nations thought he and Belmar left the April meeting on the same page. “Chief Belmar was very accommodating,” Nations said. A few days later, a county officer emailed Nations the draft of the contract. It was nothing like the one to which he and Belmar had agreed. “I was rather surprised to see the complete change of provisions that not only do not comport with our discussion Monday, but in the case of the final accounting, completely removed any ability we had to get a refund for monies paid when SLCPD does not perform the services,” Nations wrote in an email to Metro Department of Public Safety Chief Richard Zott and other Metro executives. The Post-Dispatch obtained the email and other records in an open records request that raised serious questions about county police officers shirking their duty toward patrolling MetroLink trains and platforms. Among other things, the records and video showed county police officers covering a camera in a police substation for hours at a time, congregating in police substations, sometimes appearing to
be sleeping and reporting inaccurate information to Metro officials on their whereabouts. The contract as proposed by the county would not satisfy BiState or federal auditors, Nations wrote back in 2015. Nations also wrote the county police department to outline the same concerns. The details of the contract changes desired by the county are laid out line by line in an email from Zott to Nations. Nearly all of the changes — nine in total — reduce the ability for Bi-State to track officers’ actions and financial accountability. Among the changes sought by the county: • Removing the 3 percent yearly cap on cost increase. • Removing the requirement that the county document overtime costs. • Removing the requirement that county officers use the “deggy” system that allows supervisors to track movement from station to station. • Removing Metro input over daily management of police manpower. • Making it harder for Metro to remove poorly performing officers from its system. The changes would have been unique among the three contracts Metro has with its partner law enforcement agencies. In the city of St. Louis and St. Clair County, contract provisions require a variety of accountability measures. “I have to account for the money that comes to me,” Nations said. “If I can’t account for it, that’s a huge issue with my board.”
After letting the county police department know about his objections, Nations heard nothing for several weeks. When Nations ran into Belmar a couple of months later, he asked the chief what was up. “He said the ‘ninth floor’ took over the contract negotiations,” Nations said of Belmar. That is a reference to the floor on the county government building where St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger’s office is. A year later, in April 2016, Nations heard from Jeff Wagener. The chief of policy for Stenger wanted to meet with Nations. So Nations went to the county government center in Clayton and met on the ninth floor with Wagener, who handed him the proposed new policing contract between the county and Metro. It was similar to what Nations had received from the county before. He objected to Wagener, suggesting the contract required Bi-State to pay the county police for services, even if the county didn’t pay Bi-State from transportation funds. Wagener didn’t budge, and no progress has been made on the contract. There was another meeting in August, but none since then to address the issue. “I have never heard from them again, even to this day,” Nations said Monday. At a time in which Stenger has said he doubled the number of county officers patrolling the transit system, there is no accountability in place to determine what police officers are actually doing. When violence spiked this year, Stenger blamed
Nations for not signing the contract with the county. But in the meantime, the County Council passed a budget ordinance to spend $4 million directly to the police department from the county’s transportation funds — passed by taxpayers to fund transit services. Wagener said in a statement sent by a county spokesman that he got involved in the contract discussions at the request of Belmar. “Crime on MetroLink had become a concern, and Chief Belmar determined that his department must have control over its officers,” the statement said. Since Friday morning, Belmar has so far declined a request to discuss the allegations about his officers detailed in public complaints as well as Metro memos, emails and videos. Speaking to reporters at an unrelated press conference Monday, he defended both his own leadership and the MetroLink security work of county officers and called for a stop to the “finger-pointing” and “infighting.” With no contract in place, Nations did sign a memorandum of understanding that was produced by Stenger and other political leaders in the region, including St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. The memo is nonbinding and specifically says it is not a contract. It suggests a vague outline of cooperative efforts to be taken by the various entities responsible for public safety on the Metro transit system. That memo aside, the lack of accountability in the contract and financing between St. Louis County and Bi-State mirrors
concerns the records obtained by the Post-Dispatch raise over such issues in daily policing of the transit lines. In January, for instance, Zott told Nations and others in an email of the problem he was having connecting the dots between weekly reports he received from St. Louis County police Capt. Scott Melies about county police activity and Metro’s own dispatch records. “Not to belabor the point,” Zott wrote, “but as in previous cases, there are inaccuracies, embellishments, and selective reporting in most of the reports we receive from the county.” With no contract, and relations between county police and their Metro counterparts diminishing, tracking results at a time when crime is spiking on the transit system is next to impossible. And that’s a shame, Nations said. He would rather not be in a fight with the county police. In the department’s hallways hangs a picture of Nations’ father, Gus, who was chairman of the county’s Board of Police Commissioners between 1973 and 1978. “The system has to be safe,” Nations said. “I think what the system requires is quality, vigorous law enforcement. We need to make sure all the law enforcement organizations are performing with the highest professionalism. The county is the leader of the task force, and our expectations are that they will lead by example.” Tony Messenger • 314-340-8518 @tonymess on Twitter tmessenger@post-dispatch.com
S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S
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SENATE TAX PLAN
RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
GOP CLOSE TO PASSING OVERHAUL
FLYNN PLEADS GUILTY TO LYING TO FBI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Telling reporters “we have the votes” on the tax plan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the chamber Friday after a meeting with GOP lawmakers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, leaves federal court in Washington on Friday.
Final vote shaping up to be 51-49 in favor
Former Trump adviser cooperates with Mueller
Corker, R-Tenn., may be lone GOP holdout
Kushner implicated in ongoing investigation
Final bill must be reconciled with House version
Trump’s attorney plays down impact of deal
lone GOP holdout. The measure would still have to be reconciled with an earlier House-passed version before being sent to President WASHINGTON • Senate ReDonald Trump. Yet in getting publicans were heading early the bill through the Senate, Saturday toward passage of a Republicans would have suc$1.5 trillion tax bill that would ceed where they failed earlier bestow massive benefits on this year, when their efforts to corporate America and the Corker repeal the Affordable Care Act wealthy while delivering collapsed in mortifying fashion. mixed blessings to everybody else. After a frantic round of negotiations, This time, urged on by donors and Republicans came together in near una- fearful of facing voters in next year’s nimity behind the legislation. The vote midterm elections without a legislative on final passage was shaping up to be 5149, with Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the See TAXES • Page A6 BY ERICA WERNER AND DAMIAN PALETTA Washington Post
he had misled the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts WASHINGTON • Former nawith Kislyak. But court records tional security adviser Michael and people familiar with the Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to contacts indicated he was actlying to the FBI about his coning in consultation with senior tacts with Russian AmbassaTrump transition officials, indor Sergey Kislyak. In an omicluding President Trump’s nous sign for the White House, son-in-law Jared Kushner, in Flynn said he was cooperating Kushner his dealings with the diplomat. in the ongoing probe by speFlynn’s plea revealed that he was in cial counsel Robert Mueller of potential coordination between the campaign of touch with senior Trump transition ofDonald Trump and the Kremlin to influ- ficials before and after his communications with the ambassador. ence the 2016 election. When Flynn was forced out of the White House in February, officials said See FLYNN • Page A6 WASHINGTON POST
Normandy schools receive provisional accreditation
County police reprimand 11 MetroLink officers
BY KRISTEN TAKETA St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS COUNTY • Eleven
BY MARK SCHLINKMANN St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY • Just three years
after an unprecedented and turbulent state takeover, the Normandy school system will regain provisional accreditation, a major step toward restoring its status in the eyes of the public. The Missouri Board of Education voted unanimously Friday to upgrade Normandy’s accreditation effective Jan. 2, citing improvements in not just academics but system leadership and school culture. “It would be wrong to deny the children and the Normandy community this status,” board member Mike Jones said. “The reality is, this is a good day.” With the vote to provisionally re-accredit Normandy, no school district in
See NORMANDY • Page A5
TODAY
Strategic retreat
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St. Louis County police officers assigned to patrol MetroLink were issued written reprimands — some for loitering in Metro security offices and others for covering security cameras in the offices. County police, in a news release issued Friday, also said SURVEILLANCE VIDEO several other allegations of Surveillance video shows an unidentified St. Louis misconduct were determined County Police officer apparently placing a sheet of to be “unfounded or not sub- paper over a security camera at the North Hanley stantiated” in a 16-week inter- security office at the MetroLink station. nal affairs investigation of the County Police Chief Jon Belmar inidepartment’s MetroLink unit. Twelve reprimands were issued, with tiated the investigation in July after two going to one officer. The officers’ Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Mesnames were not released. The repri- senger published a series of reports almands concern six incidents between leging misconduct by officers. The series was based largely on December 2015 and last July at MetroLink’s Clayton and North Hanley stations. See METROLINK • Page A5
Education chief is ousted by new gubernatorial appointees BY KRISTEN TAKETA AND KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri’s top
educator has been fired in what was a drawn-out but ultimately successful political move by Gov. Eric Greitens. Five people whom Greitens appointed to the Missouri Board of Education in the past four months — including one board member appointed just Thursday — voted to remove Mis- Vandeven souri Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven. The vote was 5-3. The state board then voted 7-1 to appoint Deputy Commissioner Roger
See EDUCATION • Page A5
Cards meeting with Stanton’s reps
Suspect charged in teacher’s shooting
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12.02.2017 • Saturday • M 1
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ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A5
11 officers assigned to MetroLink reprimanded METROLINK • FROM A1
documents and videos obtained from MetroLink through a public records request. The series appeared at a time in which county officials said they had doubled the number of officers patrolling the transit system to deal with a spike in violent crime. Belmar submitted the report last week to the county Police Board. Belmar said in a statement that he began the investigation because county officers were and should be held to a very high standard. “This department has never shied away from discipline when appropriate,” the chief said. Police Board President Roland Corvington said in a statement that the board found the investigation “to be thorough and conducted to logical conclusion.” County Executive Steve Stenger declined to comment. So did officials with the Bi-State Development Agency, which oversees Metro. Bi-State “will not comment on county police personnel matters,” agency spokes-
woman Patti Beck said. County Council Chairman Sam Page said he had yet to see the news release. However, he said he believed there remained a need for an outside investigation, as called for in a resolution passed by the council in July. The county police news release said that in two incidents, officers got reprimands for loitering or “spending more time than acceptable” in a security office. In three others, officers were reprimanded after admitting they covered cameras “for privacy reasons,” the release said. In another camera incident, police said “the involved officer” was reprimanded after he admitted covering one “for the purpose of putting on his ballistic vest.” The officer, police said, forgot to remove the paper from the camera when finished. However, Sgt. Shawn McGuire, a county police spokesman, said in an interview that investigators were unable to find any evidence of the officer sleeping there, as had been alleged by a Metro information technology employee. McGuire said Metro refused to provide
the name of the employee reported to have made the allegation. In all, McGuire said, 12 allegations of misconduct were investigated and six resulted in reprimands. Among allegations county police said were unfounded was one on Nov. 15, 2016. In that case, an off-duty municipal police officer emailed two pictures to Metro that showed that a county police officer who was supposed to be patrolling MetroLink was instead at a gun store in the Affton area. During the time the officer was at the gun shop, he received a call to transport and book a prisoner. It took him more than 30 minutes to get there, according to call records. County police said the investigation found that two officers were present at the gun store but with “supervisor approval” to buy raffle tickets for a benefit for the family of Officer Blake Snyder, who was killed in the line of duty. The store, police said, was near “a Metro property.” Police said the officers responded and transported the prisoner in question within 22 minutes, not more than 30.
Normandy schools move closer to full accreditation
CHRISTIAN GOODEN • cgooden@post-dispatch
Denita Robinson (left), an instructional coach with the Pattonville School District, and Olga Hunt, the Normandy district science curriculum coordinator, inventory science experiment kits in 2016 at Washington Elementary in the Normandy School District. NORMANDY • FROM A1
Missouri will be unaccredited. Provisional accreditation is one step closer to full accreditation, which is considered a district’s basic seal of approval. “This was a short-term goal. The longterm goal is that we truly create a quality system,” said Normandy Superintendent Charles Pearson after the board’s vote and a round of applause. When evaluating school districts, the state looks at a number of factors, including academic achievement, graduation rate, attendance and college and career readiness of students. Normandy’s score on its annual state performance report rose from just 7.1 percent of all points possible in 2014 to 62.5 percent this year. The school system has scored as well as a provisionally accredited district for the past two years. Last school year, 34 percent of Normandy students scored proficient or advanced on state tests in English and 19 percent did so in math, up from 24 percent and 12 percent respectively in 2015. Its four-year graduation rate increased from just 53.6 percent in 2013 to 81 percent this year. Normandy has made these gains even while most of its 3,100 students come from low-income families, which studies show increases the risk of poor academic performance. Education officials overwhelmingly say that achieving academic success is more difficult if students come to school hungry, witness violence in their neighborhoods or have unstable families. Normandy’s improvements were significant enough for the Missouri Department
of Elementary and Secondary Education to recommend upgrading the district’s accreditation status. With Friday’s vote, the approximately 600 Normandy students who transferred to schools in accredited districts will lose the right to do so. But all of the 20 districts and charter schools that receive Normandy students have already signed agreements with Normandy to let transfer students stay at their current schools at least until the end of this school year. Many have agreed to allow those students to stay until they reach a natural grade transition point. Most will also accept a lower tuition rate of $7,000 from Normandy. The agreements say Normandy doesn’t have to pay for transfer student transportation. The transfers will cost Normandy $5 million this year. Friday’s vote marks a dramatic change in the board’s view of Normandy, even from two years ago. In 2010, the district absorbed students from the failing Wellston School District that the state dissolved. In 2013, the district lost its accreditation amid academic failure and violence in the schools. In 2014, the school system was near bankruptcy after losing 1,100 students in its first year of complying with Missouri’s transfer law. As a result, Normandy received more intense state intervention than any other district in Missouri. In 2014, the State Board hit the reset button on Normandy, which became the first Missouri district to fall directly under state oversight. The state education department lapsed the Normandy district,
replaced it with a renamed Normandy Schools Collaborative and gave it a new governing board. The beginning of the takeover was painful — the state department replaced half the district staff with inexperienced teachers and cut the high school’s honors and Advanced Placement classes. Parents and students said they couldn’t remember school being worse. In 2015, officials slammed Normandy High School after a Post-Dispatch story revealed that students there weren’t learning much. But under the leadership of Pearson, who took the helm in 2015, the school system worked to rebuild what was lost in the takeover, restructure schools for better school climate and establish a culture of academic improvement. Normandy leaders created a kindergarten center, moved sixth-graders from the middle school to elementary schools and expanded preschool to focus on closing achievement gaps before kindergarten. The school system now has a financial reserve of 15 percent. Normandy also benefits from close and structured partnerships with local organizations such as the Wyman Center, Beyond Housing, For the Sake of All and Affinia Healthcare that provide services to meet students’ physical, social and emotional needs. Area school districts also stepped in to share staff training and other resources with Normandy educators. Soon, the district will open a new early childhood center and restructure its elementary and middle schools into K-8 schools.
Police on Friday also said investigators were unable to reach Michael Sorkin, a former Post-Dispatch reporter who posted on social media that he found four county officers doing nothing in a darkened security office last June 5. Messenger recounted Sorkin’s experience in one column. Police said Friday that the officers involved “indicated they were eating dinner” and they turn the lights off for safety reasons. Sorkin told the Post-Dispatch on Friday that he had never received the email message that police said they had sent. He called ridiculous police claims that they couldn’t find him. “And the proof of what I reported is there for anyone to see,” Sorkin said. “All the investigators have to do is go to the MetroLink platforms and ask the same question I did: Where are the county police who are supposed to be there on patrol?” Mark Schlinkmann • 314-340-8265 @mschlinkmann on Twitter mschlinkmann@post-dispatch.com
DIGEST ST. LOUIS COUNTY > Cities agree to policing policies • Local police departments in St. Louis County are committed to using “best practices” and having professional accreditation by 2022 under a resolution adopted unanimously Thursday by members of the Municipal League of Metro St. Louis. The resolution was jointly developed by the league, the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association and the St. Louis Area City Managers Association. Meetings have taken place for more than a year. Best practices required under the agreement include having written policies on: appropriate use of force; handling crises; bias-free policing; vehicle operation, accidents, and pursuits; investigation of officer-involved shooting incidents; in-custody deaths; and a citizen complaint process. Also, there must be 24-hour police service with at least one officer on duty with direct access to a supervisor or to another department for mutual aid. Professional police liability insurance will be required, and all officers must be Peace Officers Standards and Training certified, and detailed continued education requirements and background checks will be required. League President Chuck Caverly of Maryland Heights noted that among county police agencies there was 25 percent certification, compared with a national average of 5 percent. The accreditation effort is “much more carrot than stick,” said Clayton Police chief Kevin Murphy, president of the police chiefs association. “Municipalities which need financial help in getting accreditation will have financial assistance available.” OZARK, MO. > Juror’s excuse goes to the dogs • A circuit clerk’s office in southern Missouri has found that dogs don’t eat only homework, they eat jury questionnaires too. The Springfield News-Leader reports that the Christian County Circuit Court received a chewed-up jury questionnaire several weeks ago, with a note that read: “Sorry for the damage, the dog thought it was his.” Deputy Court Clerk Michele Walker decided to send the misbehaved puppy a letter in return. In her letter addressed “Dear Dog,” Walker asked the dog to thank his owners for taping the questionnaire back together. She wrote that the clerk’s office hopes that he didn’t get in trouble and wishes him happy holidays. Walker says the circuit clerk’s office mails 1,500 to 2,500 jury questionnaires every four months, many of which return defaced. She says she has never come across a dog excuse before, but that it made her day. From correspondent and wire reports
Missouri School Board fires Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven EDUCATION • FROM A1
Dorson as interim education commissioner until it finds a new school leader. Greitens, a Republican, praised the board’s move, saying in a statement that, “Today, kids, teachers, and families won.” The governor said he wanted to “raise teacher pay, support public schools, and help students succeed.” He said he thought too much public school money went to school administrators who earned six-figure salaries rather than to teachers or into classrooms. The five appointees of Greitens declined to comment on their votes after the closed-door meeting. Among them was new appointee Eric Teeman, who was sworn in just minutes before the meeting to replace board member Claudia Greim, who quit Thursday over the pressure Greitens was using to sack Vandeven. Greim had been the lone new appointee to vote against firing Vandeven at a meeting last week. Board members who opposed Vandeven’s ouster scoffed at Greitens’ claims about administrator salaries. Board President Charlie Shields, a former Republican state senator, said pitting teacher pay against administrator pay was a political trick designed to disrupt a school system. “It never has a positive outcome,”
Shields said. Board member Mike Jones, who was appointed by then-Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, said the governor’s claims were “untethered from reality.” And board member Victor Lenz, also a Nixon appointee, called the governor’s claims “a joke.” All three board members decried the intense political maneuvering by Greitens to stack the board and remove Vandeven, saying the state’s education professionals had been working together on behalf of the 900,000-plus public school children. “I believe strongly that we are heading in the right direction,” Shields said. Vandeven, too, said she believed she was leaving her $194,000-per-year job with the office in “good shape.” “Schools are stronger,” she said. But, she added, “Political forces are eclipsing educational decisions.” Those political forces are not going to go away soon. The five new members still must be confirmed by the Senate beginning in January. Senators opposed to Greitens’ push to fire Vandeven are expected to contest those appointees. “The removal of Dr. Vandeven is completely without merit, and anyone who cares about Missouri’s schools should be outraged,” said Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors. “Dr. Vandeven challenged the status quo and got real results for Missouri students,
teachers and taxpayers. It’s a shame to see her ousted by the governor in a political power grab.” There also is a legal battle underway over one of the seats after Greitens replaced two members from southwestern Missouri who had expressed concern about the pressure they were under to act on Vandeven. The outcome of the legal fight could send the board into further chaos, particularly if any of Greitens’ nominees are rejected by the Senate. The board’s decision drew immediate criticism from public school leaders across the state who called it a political invasion into education. “We are extremely disappointed with the decision by the State Board today,” Missouri School Boards’ Association Executive Director Melissa Randol said in a statement. “The State Board today effectively has made the commissioner of education a political appointee of the governor. This is a sad day for Missouri’s public schools and the students they serve.” “The governor’s top-down approach runs contrary to the spirit of our constitution, turning students, teachers, and our local schools into political props. The confusion and chaos the governor has created does nothing to help students achieve,” Missouri National Education Association President Charles Smith said in a statement.
Vandeven took the helm of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in January 2015. She helped oversee the improvement and eventual accreditation upgrades for two local districts, St. Louis and Riverview Gardens, that had long struggled in academics and finances. The state education department also debuted Missouri’s first rating system for teaching colleges and universities under Vandeven’s leadership. Vandeven was also credited for helping lead the development of a new Missouri school accountability system, one that would take into account more than just school outcomes, but also aspects such as district and board leadership and school climate. Greitens has not said who he wants in the top post. But, in August, he spent $1,500 of his campaign money to fly in an Atlanta charter school expert for a visit to mid-Missouri. The board has not outlined how it will fill Vandeven’s vacancy, but Shields said there would probably be a national search. Shields said Greitens needed to outline his position on education reform if he wanted to succeed. “Communication is the key to this thing,” Shields said. “If you don’t do that, you won’t move education forward.” Kristen Taketa @Kristen_Taketa on Twitter ktaketa@post-dispatch.com
M 1 MONDAY • 12.11.2017 • A2
Belmar commended officers on day they were disciplined TONY MESSENGER St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In April 2016, Maj. Steve Devore sent an email to his boss he titled the “I did nothing” report. At the time, Devore was working for the Metro Public Safety Department, which is responsible for safety on the MetroLink transit system. In his email to Chief Richard Zott, Devore noted that several county police officers had no activity for the month. No arrests. No calls for service. Nothing. “Here is the nothing report for the county units,” Devore wrote. “The marks to the right of the names is a total no activity for the month.” Since 2014, Devore had been compiling monthly reports for the three law enforcement agencies that police the region’s transit lines — St. Louis County Police Department, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department. The retired Army officer — who spent his service in the military police — had been comparing daily duty rosters with dispatch records and other public documents to track the performance of the officers paid by taxpayers in several jurisdictions to keep transit riders safe. Most of those reports in 2016 found that of the three agencies providing law enforcement coverage, the officers who work for St. Louis County did the least amount of work. In July, for instance, Devore’s handwritten checkmarks on a MetroLink daily police roster showed a total of 198 “days” of no activity for the month, with 170 of them belonging to county police officers. On any given day of the month, several officers working for the county reported no official activity, at least that Metro could track. Those reports and anecdotal complaints of riders’ rarely seeing police on trains or platforms led Devore to start examining photo and video records from substations on the system to figure out what county police officers were doing.
SURVEILLANCE VIDEO
A St. Louis County Police officer appears to be placing a sheet of paper in front of a security camera at the North Hanley security office at the MetroLink station.
Devore found county police officers covering up cameras, loitering in offices with the lights off, and calling in for service at one location when they were really at another. His findings were key to a series of columns I wrote on the topic in July that led St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar to order an internal investigation into the performance of his officers. That investigation led to 11 reprimands of officers this month. But it also led to something else. On the same day that Belmar reported the results of the investigation to the St. Louis County Police Board, he also issued a commendation to the entire MetroLink Unit for its “unprecedented” performance in 2016. That’s right. While his left hand was slapping the wrist of a few unnamed officers by filing a report the county refuses to make public, his right hand was patting those same officers on the back for a job well done. In the commendation, Belmar offers some statistics that make Devore scratch his head. “In total,” Belmar writes, “officers assigned to MetroLink made over 700 full custody arrests, issued over 2,000 summonses and wrote over 750 police reports.” Those numbers don’t match with Devore’s analysis and MetroLink records. A spreadsheet Devore sent to Zott earlier this year showed that county of-
ficers made 240 arrests in 2016. Emails between Metro public safety officials and county Capt. Scott Melies, who is in charge of the county’s MetroLink unit, frequently disputed the conflicting record keeping between the two departments. “We have noticed in this report and in past reports some of the incidents listed do not show up in any Metro dispatch CAD entries,” Zott wrote Melies in February 2016. “Our assumption is that you are reporting your MetroLink officers’ activities as well as precinct activities on your reports to Metro.” By the end of 2016, Zott and Melies were no longer talking about lining up reports. That’s because late in the year, the county stopped using Metro’s radio frequency and refused to send over daily duty logs. Since then it has become impossible for Metro — the agency ultimately responsible for safety on the transit system — to keep track of what county officers are doing. “They made it impossible to track,” Devore says. That’s still the case in 2017. Such secrecy is becoming a hallmark of the St. Louis County Police Department. Belmar refused to make himself available for an interview to discuss either the investigation into the actions of his officers who work on MetroLink, or his seemingly contradictory commendation of those same officers. The county refused two open records requests to see a copy of the investigation. Police Board Chairman Roland Corvington, who previously called the MetroLink investigation “thorough,” declined to comment on the commendation to the entire unit. Devore no longer works for Metro, but the former military police commander says the commendation issued by Belmar tells him all he needs to know about how seriously the county police department took its internal investigation. “That investigation should have been conducted by an outside agency,” he says. And the commendation? Devore minces no words: “I think it’s appalling.”
100 NEEDIEST CASES: HELPING THOUSANDS
REBUILDING A FAMILY
Case profiles by Ashley Jost, Celeste Bott and Joel Currier of the Post-Dispatch.
PEOPLE First night of ‘Last Jedi’ is stellar There were cheers, gasps, droid photo opportunities, casino games and more than a few standing ovations at the jam-packed world premièr Saturday night in Los Angeles of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which many are already praising online. Rian Johnson, the writer and director of the eighth installment of the franchise, dedicated the night to the late Carrie Fisher, who died after filming had completed. Happy Birthday, Jane • Jane Fonda used her 80th birthday celebration to raise $1.3 million for her foundation. The two-time Oscar-winner held the “Eight Decades of Jane” fundraiser Saturday night at an upscale hotel in Atlanta. Her foundation, Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential, focuses on teen pregnancy prevention and adolescent health. James Taylor and Carole King performed several songs including “So Far Away” and “You’ve Got a Friend.”
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS Actress Rita Moreno is 86. Singer Brenda Lee is 73. Actress Teri Garr is 70. Singer Jermaine Jackson is 63. Actress-comedian Mo’Nique is 50. Rapper-actor Mos Def is 44. Actress Xosha Roquemore is 33. Actress Karla Souza is 31. Actress-singer Hailee Steinfeld is 21. From news services
BOX OFFICE Estimated weekend ticket sales in millions at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to ComScore. 1. “Coco” $18.3 2. “Justice League” $9.6 3. “Wonder” $8.5 4. “The Disaster Artist” $6.4 5. “Thor: Ragnarok” $6.3 6. “Daddy’s Home 2” $6.0 7. “Murder on the Orient Express” $5.1 8. “The Star” $3.7 9. “Lady Bird” $3.5 10. “Just Getting Started” $3.2
POWERBALL Saturday: 25-36-37-55-60 Powerball: 06 Power play: 5 Wednesday’s estimated jackpot: $229 million MEGA MILLIONS Tuesday’s estimated jackpot: $191 million
MISSOURI LOTTERIES LOTTO Saturday: 17-24-25-28-36-38 Wednesday’s estimated jackpot: $6.5 million SHOW ME CASH Sunday: 01-24-27-32-33 Monday’s estimated jackpot: $106,000 PICK-3 Sunday Midday: 360 Evening: 496 PICK-4 Sunday Midday: 6022 Evening: 4938
CASE 77 • This single, elderly mother wants
is paralyzed from the neck down. Her 9-yearold son’s father was recently killed in a shooting. Her disability checks do not cover rent, utilities, food or transportation costs. She needs help to support her son this holiday season including gift certificates, money for utilities and other household items.
Catch the holiday lights at Six Flags in our pictures. stltoday.com/multimedia
MULTISTATE GAMES
legal custody of her children, Ms. K is hoping to rebuild a life for her 1- and 4-year-old boys and 2-year-old girl. In 2015, Ms. K, 29, was hospitalized after her husband beat her. While she was in the hospital, her children were taken away because no one was available to pick them up from day care. Her husband is now in prison. Ms. K, who is HIV positive, needs beds and mattresses for her two youngest children, as well as clothing, diapers, furniture for her living and dining rooms, and toys for all three children.
CASE 78 • Ms. W, 29, is a single mother who
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LOTTERY
CASE 76 • Several months after regaining
to make the holidays special for her 50-yearson, who has autism, mental retardation, diabetes and hypertension. She takes care of him with limited funds and despite her own health issues, such as legal blindness, degenerative bone disease and arthritis. Because she requires 24-hour oxygen for heart and lung disease, she has a skyrocketing electric bill. She makes monthly payments of what she can afford, and there won’t be money left over for Christmas. The family asks for any help in paying for utility bills, dental care, coats and clothes.
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ILLINOIS LOTTERIES KAYLI HARTMANN • De Soto Senior High School
THREE WAYS TO GIVE
TO HELP
• Donors can adopt any of the cases — not just the 100 profiled at STLtoday.com/neediest. The program supplies donors with a list of a family’s needs. All gifts go directly to the family, through a social worker. • New this year, those who want to participate in the campaign can set up a fundraising page and share it through social media. It’s similar to other online crowd sourcing efforts like GoFundMe, but 100 percent of donations go to the families in the 100 Neediest Cases campaign and the funds are tax deductible. • The program also accepts monetary gifts. Every dollar will go directly to a needy family, and every family will receive something.
Visit 100neediestcases.org Or call 314-421-6060 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. Or mail a check or money order (no cash) payable to: 100 Neediest Cases P.O. Box 955925 St. Louis, Mo. 63195-5925
HOW IT WORKS For generations, the 100 Neediest Cases campaign has helped thousands of disadvantaged families during the holidays. This year, the program will benefit more than 10,000 needy households — selected by social service agencies that partner with the United Way. The Post-Dispatch is showcasing 100 cases. But all the families will share the cash donations.
INSIDE
LUCKY DAY LOTTO Sunday Midday: 01-18-30-32-33 Evening: 09-15-22-31-33 LOTTO Saturday: 01-21-23-24-32-51 Extra shot: 20 Estimated jackpot: $16 million PICK-3 Sunday Midday: 253 FB: 0 Evening: 467 FB: 5 PICK-4 Sunday Midday: 1063 FB: 1 Evening: 3973 FB: 9
CORRECTIONS • St. Elizabeth, Mother of John the Baptist is a parish in St. Louis’ Penrose neighborhood. An incorrect location was given in the Spotlight story on area Catholic parish names in Sunday’s STL Life section. • Republican Doug Libla is a state senator from Poplar Bluff, Mo. An editorial Sunday incorrectly reported his title.
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