Stockley legal issues marked by Jean Buchanan

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SUNDAY • 09.17.2017 • $3.00 • FINAL EDITION

PROTESTS SPREAD

MOSTLY PEACEFUL DAY MARRED BY VANDALISM IN LOOP Arrests made; Krewson calls for calm

Hundreds march Saturday along Delmar Boulevard in University City. Protesters gathered in locations across the region for a second day in the wake of Friday’s not-guilty verdict in the trial of former St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley.

FROM STAFF REPORTS

UNIVERSITY CITY • For the

second consecutive night, peaceful daytime protests descended into late-night violence with broken windows and thrown rocks, water bottles and garbage can lids following Friday’s acquittal of former police Officer Jason Stockley. Shortly before 11 p.m. at Leland Avenue and Delmar Boulevard, a small group of protesters threw chunks of concrete at police and broke windows at numerous Delmar Loop businesses. A chair was thrown through the window of a Starbucks. One protester was seen hitting a police SUV with a hammer. Police made multiple arrests, including a protester whom officers carried away by his arms and legs. As the chaos escalated, scores of police officers in riot gear pushed forward against the demonstrators just after 11 p.m. — about two hours after daytime

LAURIE SKRIVAN Post-Dispatch

A woman is seen throwing a trash can at the storefront window of Snarf’s in the 6300 block of Delmar Boulevard as protests turned violent Saturday night in the Loop. The window did not break, but police saw the attempted vandalism and arrested the woman immediately after.

See PROTESTS • Page A11

Verdict not a surprise for legal experts BY JOEL CURRIER AND ROBERT PATRICK St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • The acquittal of former St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley on a first-degree murder charge is not unusual, based both on the history of police shootings and the law that governs police use of force, legal experts said. What is unusual was that Stockley was ever charged with first-degree murder. In his 30-page ruling Friday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson said prosecutors’ claims that Stockley executed Anthony Lamar Smith and then planted a gun were not supported by the evidence. Prosecutors, he said, failed to prove a murder case and failed to disprove that Stockley acted in self-defense, as required for conviction. Stockley shot Smith on Dec. 20, 2011, after a high-speed chase that began when Stockley

DAVID CARSON Post-Dispatch

St. Louis police take a person into custody during a tense standoff with protesters along Delmar Boulevard. A mostly peaceful day of protests across the St. Louis area ended with agitators breaking windows and throwing trash cans in the Delmar Loop.

See VERDICT • Page A12

U2, Sheeran and other cancellations • A8

DAVID CARSON Post-Dispatch

Protesters converge on suburban malls • A8 Editorial: Violence defies logic • A22

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STOCKLEY VERDICT

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M 2 • SUNDAY • 09.17.2017

RECENT POLICE SHOOTING CASES SEPTEMBER 2016 Terence Crutcher, who was unarmed and seen holding his hands above his head, was shot and killed by Tulsa police Officer Betty Shelby (below). In May, a jury acquitted her.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUGUST 2016 Sylville Smith was shot and killed by Milwaukee police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown (below). In June, a jury found the officer not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ST. LOUIS POLICE

Then-St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley is seen in an image from a police dash cam video returning to his vehicle and reaching into a duffel bag after fatally shooting Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011.

Few cops go to trial for shooting deaths; even fewer are convicted

ASSOCIATED PRESS

JULY 2016 VERDICT • FROM A1

and his partner, Brian Bianchi, tried to arrest Smith for a suspected drug deal. After Bianchi and Stockley rammed the back of Smith’s car at West Florissant and Acme avenues, both officers got out and approached Smith’s driver’s side door. After 15 seconds, Stockley fired his 9mm pistol five times at Smith. Prosecutors had called it an “execution,” pointing to what they claimed was the fifth, “kill shot” a n d S to c k l ey ’s “prophetic words” to h i s pa r t n e r Stockley during the police chase that he or they were “going to kill this (expletive), don’t you know it.” They also said Stockley’s DNA on the revolver found in Smith’s car showed that he planted the gun to justify the killing. But Stockley, now 36, testified at the trial that he perceived an imminent, deadly threat to himself and others. He said Smith was reaching for something in the car, and he thought it was the gun that both he and his partner saw when they first tried to stop Smith. After the shooting, Stockley said he touched the gun only to unload it. Bianchi told internal affairs investigators that he saw Smith with a silver handgun before the chase, and Smith appeared to be reaching for something when Stockley fired, after the crash. Bianchi’s lawyer, Jim Towey, said Friday that he did not know what motivated former Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce to charge Stockley. But he speculated she may have given in to public pressure after the release of police and bystander videos. (Joyce charged Stockley three weeks after Smith’s family held a news conference demanding criminal charges.) Joyce “had the perfect opportunity to say that two federal agencies looked at it — the U.S. attorney’s office and the Department of Justice — and say that ‘I agree with the decisions that have been made, and I’m not going to prosecute,’” Towey said. Joyce knew she wasn’t going to be in office by the time Stockley’s case came to trial, however, Towey said, leaving a “hot potato” in the hands of her successor Kim Gardner who “had no choice but to run with it.” Joyce said in a text message to the Post-Dispatch on Friday that she was “confident that the citizens understand why this case was pros-

ecuted.” Lawyer Albert Watkins, who represented Smith’s fiancée in a civil suit that was settled for $900,000, said of the verdict Friday, “Personally, I’m appalled. Professionally, I understand the judge’s decision. It’s a huge legal burden, and it’s that way by design.” Other lawyers had a similar take. But the verdict was immediately blasted by protesters and activists. The case has become a rallying cry for activists seeking to highlight injustice and police violence.

DEADLY FORCE Washington University law professor Peter Joy, who read the decision after it was released Friday morning, said the legal burden is “intentionally high” in prosecuting police for on-duty shootings. “I think it reflects a decision state legislators have made that in order to promote public safety and the safety of police officers” in stressful situations, where decisions have to be made quickly, “There’s this level of (legal) protection that they’re given.” Joy said that once Wilson “reached the conclusion that it wasn’t first-degree murder, the next thing he considered was is there a valid self-defense” argument. He concluded there was, Joy said, “and self-defense would negate any of the other possible charges in the case,” like second-degree murder or manslaughter. Anders Walker, a St. Louis University law professor, said in an interview last month that, “Traditionally, it’s not unusual for officers to be acquitted or not even charged. I think it’s only since 2014 that we as a state, and maybe a nation, have become interested in this issue of lethal force,” referring to the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Available data on police killings show few officers go to trial for shooting deaths, and they’re rarely convicted. Stockley was the first police officer to stand trial for murder in St. Louis since 2001, when a jury acquitted then Officer Robert Dodson in the 1999 beating death of a burglary suspect on the roof of a pawnshop. Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University criminologist who has gathered data on deadly police shootings across the country since 2005, said on-duty police officers kill about 1,000 people a year in the United States. Over the past 12 years, he said, 83 officers have been charged in fatal shootings. None of them was convicted by a judge in a bench trial. One in three cases resulted in a guilty plea or the officer being found guilty by a jury. Stinson says juries are usually sympathetic to law enforcement. “People are very reluctant to second-guess police officers who have to make split-second life-or-death decisions,” Stinson said. “It’s got to be one of the most over-the-top, egregious cases in order to get a conviction against a police officer.” Joel Currier • 314-621-5804 @joelcurrier on Twitter JCurrier@post-dispatch.com

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Philando Castile was fatally shot by St. Anthony, Minn., police Officer Jeronimo Yanez (below) during a traffic stop. The aftermath of the shooting was streamed live on Facebook. Last month, a jury acquitted Yanez of manslaughter and reckless discharge of a gun.

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JULY 2015 Samuel DeBose was shot to death during a traffic stop by University of Cincinnati Officer Ray Tensing (below). In June, a judge declared a mistrial after a jury, for a second time in the DeBose case, could not reach a verdict on a murder charge.

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Anthony Lamar Smith and his daughter in a family photo.

A 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision said an officer’s decision to use force must be judged on the totality of circumstances and a standard of “objective reasonableness” from the perspective of a “reasonable officer” rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” The reasonableness standard in deadly force laws required Wilson to rule based on Stockley’s frame of mind in deciding if he reasonably feared for his life or others when firing and whether another officer in the same situation would have believed force was necessary. Local defense attorney Joel Schwartz pointed to one line in the ruling, where Wilson wrote, “No one promised a rose garden, and this surely is not one.” “That tells you the whole story right there. He possibly didn’t like what he had to do but he’s beholden to following the law. The state couldn’t firmly convince him of the defendant’s guilt,” Schwartz said. There were “all sorts of possibilities” about a planted weapon or other things, Schwartz said, “but all of those are conjecture and none of them are proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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APRIL 2015 Walter Scott was fatally shot by North Charleston, S.C., police Officer Michael Slager (below). Scott was running from Slager when the officer shot him. In December, a mistrial was declared when a jury could not reach a verdict on a murder charge.

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TUESDAY • 09.19.2017 • $1.50

FEELING THE FALLOUT DAMAGES PILE UP; POLICE TACTICS UNDER SCRUTINY

DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com

About 1,000 protesters stand outside the St. Louis city jail Monday, a day after police arrested more than 120 people. It was the fourth day of protesting in St. Louis.

Day of marches ends outside St. Louis jail

Protest chants, tone adopted by police, officials

FROM STAFF REPORTS

BY JEREMY KOHLER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Protesters took to

the streets again Monday, even at one point enduring a deluge to denounce last week’s acquittal of a former police officer in the fatal shooting of a drug suspect, as well as the police tactics used to end a similar protest the night before. About 1,000 people converged at the city jail known as the Justice Center downtown Monday night to demonstrate against what they claimed was the continued incarceration of about 50 protesters from Sunday. That claim couldn’t be confirmed Monday night. Police closed Tucker Boulevard in front of the jail as the See STOCKLEY • Page A4

Gov. Eric Greitens is eager to show he’s not like a former governor whom he accused of tolerating looting and arson in Ferguson. So much so that his Facebook post Sunday about vandalism in the Delmar Loop dropped any claim to formality. “Our officers caught ’em, cuffed ’em, and threw ’em in jail,” it said. “They’re gonna wake up and face felony charges.” On Sunday night, as police officers marched downtown, a Post-Dispatch photographer heard them chant a refrain most often heard at Ferguson protests: “Whose streets? Our streets.”

Messenger: Chief wanted; chanting required • A2 Protesters question tactics used by city police • A5 Local high school students walk out of class • A7 Police union seeks donations for officers • A7 Editorial: Protesters need to outline their plans • A10 Opinion: A sober reminder of work to be done • A11

See LANGUAGE • Page A4

Ex-school board member accuses Greitens of strong-arm tactics gie Vandeven when the board meets Tuesday. According to the one-page letter obtained by the Post-DisJEFFERSON CITY • A Springpatch on Monday, the first-year field businesswoman says she governor withdrew Gelner’s late was booted off the state school July appointment to the board board by Gov. Eric Greitens Gelner on Friday because she would because she wouldn’t agree with his request to oust the state’s top not commit to removing the commissioner. schools official. Gelner, who is involved with SpringIn a letter to her former colleagues on the Missouri State Board of Education, field-based programs that serve chilMelissa Gelner said an aide to the Re- dren, had been among four new publican governor asked that she vote to remove Education Commissioner Mar- See SCHOOLS • Page A3 BY KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Timeline of the Stockley verdict • stltoday.com FULL COVERAGE PAGES A4-A7 • STLTODAY.COM

Economic toll from protests is felt now, will have aftershocks BY LISA BROWN AND JACOB BARKER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A weekend of protests following the not-guilty verdict in the murder trial of former police Officer Jason Stockley has delivered what some activists promised: disruption to the metropolitan area’s economy. For people who counted on big concerts downtown or small-business owners who banked on a weekend of sales, the loss is fairly easy to quantify. A smaller paycheck. An unexpected repair bill. Fewer customers. The longer-term effect on the region — one that was convulsed just three years ago by Ferguson protests — is unclear. Does the unrest make the seemingly quixotic bid to land Amazon’s second headquarters seem ridiculous now? Will the Washington Avenue entertainment district, which has had to wrestle with the perception that crime is on the rise, face an even bigger challenge in the wake of the vandalism that took place Sunday night? Will out-of-town parents who send their kids See ECONOMY • Page A6

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A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 2 • Tuesday • 09.19.2017

‘NOT ABOUT PEACE’

Nonviolent action should still disturb, organizer says

CHRIS LEE • clee@post-dispatch.com

Protesters on Monday chant “Free our people!” on the steps of the Justice Center in St. Louis. Several dozen people were arrested the previous night after multiple businesses had their windows broken downtown. The vandalism and arrests Sunday followed a mostly peaceful day of demonstrations. STOCKLEY • FROM A1

protesters chanted slogans, beat drums and withstood a rainstorm that left many drenched. Images from the previous night’s protest that ended with dozens of people in jail were projected on a wall of the jail, with those gathered alleging that the show of force used by police had been unnecessary. “Police are people, like us,” said Kristine Hendrix, who was among the protesters. “There’s good, there’s bad, there’s ugly. And so they do things, and they’ve been given permission by our president, by our governor, by our mayor through her silence, to keep attacking protesters in this way.” The peaceful event came to an end after a few hours with no signs that the violent clashes that erupted the three previous nights would be repeated. Police said they made 123 arrests Sunday, most of them after protesters began marching on downtown streets. Most of the arrests were for “failure to disperse.” Among those facing that charge is St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk, who was arrested as police swept into the intersection of Washington Avenue and Tucker Boulevard late Sunday. That sweep came after some of

the protesters broke windows and toppled planters downtown. “Many of the demonstrators were peaceful, however after dark, the agitators outnumbered the peaceful demonstrators and the unruly crowd became a mob,” police said in a statement. It said multiple businesses also sustained property damage and one officer suffered a “serious injury.” A judge on Friday found former St. Louis patrolman Jason Stockley not guilty in the fatal shooting of drug suspect Anthony Lamar Smith. On Monday about 100 people began the fourth day of protests by marching in silence on Market Street in downtown St. Louis. Police officers began blocking Market at 14th and 17th streets shortly before 8 a.m. The protesters stopped briefly at 14th Street and held their hands in the air. The crowd moved to the steps of City Hall, where protesters broke their silence and shouted familiar chants. After stopping there, the protesters took their chants to the front of the Municipal Courts building, before moving north on Tucker Boulevard. Leading some demonstrators in chants was state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., D-St. Louis, who has participated in protests since St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy

Wilson’s not-guilty ruling Friday in Stockley’s bench trial. “It’s not about peace,” Franks said in an interview with reporters before the protest began. “Peace is not an option, but we have to realize that there’s a difference between peaceful and nonviolence. Nonviolence is an option. The point of an action is to disturb. The point of an action is to make folks uncomfortable.” Franks, who owns an insurance office on Cherokee Street, expressed sympathy for the businesses that sustained damage during protests. “Of course, I wouldn’t want anybody damaging my property,” he said. “You’ve got to understand that the reason why we’re out here is for black lives. The reason we’re out here is because we’re dying, so when we stop dying, when we stop being affected disproportionately by the system, then we’ll take a break. But until then, we’ll be here.” Fred Scott, 65, of St. Louis, a retired post office worker, was involved in 2014 protests in Ferguson and said he is protesting again for his four sons because it is his “civic duty.” “I’m tired of the fact that there’s no justice,” Scott said. “Evidence doesn’t make any difference.” Scott said he doesn’t support

the violent protests that had erupted the past few evenings. “They’re not on the same agenda we are,” he said. The Monday morning protest dispersed shortly before 9. At Kirkwood High School, some students staged a demonstration by walking into the football stadium Monday morning. Also Monday morning, about 250 University City High School students, clergy, police and activists gathered for speeches and poems outside the school. Some students were selling T-shirts to support University City businesses and others affected during weekend protests. Stockley was acquitted Friday of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the shooting 2011 death of Smith, 24, of St. Louis, following a police chase. After Friday’s verdict, a daily pattern seemed to emerge in which protesters during the day engaged in organized, generally peaceful demonstrations that ended before nightfall, followed by late-night violence, vandalism and clashes with police by what appear to be different groups of people than the ones who gathered during the day. On Friday night, the clashes were in the Central West End. On Saturday, they were in the

Delmar Loop business district in University City, and on Sunday, they were downtown. Protesters were expected to target the Loop again on Monday night. A crowd of a few hundred gathered on a parking lot there, but then organizers called off that demonstration and told those gathered to regroup at the jail. Michael McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, said in an interview Monday that the Stockley verdict created “a lot of disgust” among African-Americans, and that he was worried the controversy would undo any progress the area had made since the 2014 unrest in Ferguson. “This area does not need the negative attention that we have been getting both regionally and nationally,” he said, “and the city, the county and the state certainly can’t afford the cost” of paying for the police overtime. He added: “By no means do we support tearing down the very people we’re trying to help, who are the ones who are losing pay and work hours by these businesses being shut down.” Joe Holleman, Nassim Benchaabane, Ashley Jost, Kevin McDermott and Joel Currier, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.

Protests are often marked by verbal confrontations LANGUAGE • FROM A1

Later, after St. Louis police made more than 100 arrests downtown on Sunday night, Acting Chief Lawrence O’Toole’s words seemed meme-ready: “Police owned tonight.” Michael Brown’s death in 2014 sparked months of protests over the treatment of African-Americans in the criminal justice system. The language of many community conversations since then has reflected nuance and understanding, such as in the Ferguson Commission report. In fact, a story in the St. Louis American the day before the notguilty verdict was announced in the Jason Stockley murder case, O’Toole urged people who might have been dreading another round of unrest not to forget that protesters were trying to “shine the light on the injustices they see and feel.” But after three days of protests, and some vandalism and attacks on police officers, the language of the establishment has mirrored the angry language of the protest movement. Blame the Twitterization of political discourse, which has infected the words people use in 2017, said Mitchell McKinney, professor of political communication at the University of Missouri, who researches political rhetoric and civic engagement. Protests are frequently marked

LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

Meldon Moffitt, of Ferguson, squares off with police in riot gear in the Delmar Loop on Saturday while protesting the not-guilty verdict of Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer.

by taunting and insults toward police, even by those considered to be peacefully exercising their rights to free speech. A PostDispatch reporter captured a brief video of a man standing at the skirmish line on Delmar Boulevard on Saturday night, nose to police shield, shouting at an unseen officer: “You and me go one on one, man on man, if you got the guts, the nuts, the heart, the dignity.” To some, such verbal confrontations are akin to violence. To others, they are a means of communicating despair and outrage about inequality.

Officials using similar words “does not seem like a tactic that is intended to keep the peace,” McKinney said. “It seems like government officials realize they have this megaphone of social media, and for it to be useful, for it to catch on, to be spread widely, there is a certain language that should be used,” he said. One example is Greitens’ statement on Facebook, which “doesn’t sound like an official press release from the governor’s office.” He added, “We now expect our leaders to be advocates of one side and denigrate the other side.

From the president on down, that’s what we see all too often. Whether it’s a Facebook post or a 140-character tweet, it’s easier to make a pithy attack than to formulate a nuanced message that is intended to acknowledge multiple perspectives.” A nuanced message “probably runs the risk of alienating your base. You know what they want to hear, and you don’t want to upset them.” Police co-opting a Ferguson protest chant was an example of a group reclaiming words they felt oppressed them, said John Baugh, a linguist at Washington University in St. Louis. He said the police use of the chant was “a way to reclaim their authority.” “Clearly, their usage of that expression was out of exasperation and reflecting the fact that the options they had available to challenge what the protesters were doing was limited.” Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, sent a letter Monday night to Mayor Lyda Krewson, calling the chant “provocative and unprofessional.” “Residents of the St. Louis region ... have a legitimate right to question how their police department uses force against them,” the letter said. “Many people see the chanting of ‘Whose Streets?’ as an attempt to intimidate protesters and raise

tensions at the demonstration.” Some officers also were upset by the chant. Sgt. Heather Taylor, president of the Ethical Society of Police, an association of 252 city police officers, mostly African-Americans, said in a statement that the “chant goes against the very code of ethics we swore to abide by. Whether we agree with demonstrators, protests or acts of violence, it is our job to do our job free of personal bias.” She said the sentiment behind it was common in the department and reflected deep differences within. Before the verdict, the ethical society released a statement calling for Stockley’s conviction. That day, another sergeant posted a news story about the society’s call to his Facebook page. The wife of Stockley’s supervisor chimed in with the comment: “Let the racist (expletive) BLEED OUT. Hell is waiting for her.” The wife said in a brief interview that Taylor was “a racist person and the harsh words that are going back and forth are of her doing” because the ethical society did not back Stockley. Taylor’s response: “If you can’t voice your opinion without a layer of anger or hate, we’ll never get anything done.” Jeremy Kohler • 314-340-8337 @jeremykohler on Twitter jkohler@post-dispatch.com

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SATURDAY • 09.23.2017 • $1.50

CITY RESOLUTION ANGERS POLICE

GOP’s health bill all but dead

Aldermen issue remembrance of Anthony Lamar Smith as mayor pledges to support strengthening the Civilian Oversight Board BY CELESTE BOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • As the city continued to grapple with protests over the acquittal of former police officer Jason Stockley, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on Friday unanimously approved a resolution remembering the man he fatally shot in 2011. Also Friday, Mayor Lyda Krewson pledged to support strengthening the city’s Civilian Oversight Board, which investigates complaints against police. Both the resolution in remembrance of Anthony Lamar Smith and the mayor’s statement sparked outrage from St. Louis police officers, who contend city leaders are bowing to political pressure from the

CELESTE BOTT • cbott@post-dispatch.com

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson hugs Annie Smith, the mother of Anthony Lamar Smith, after the Board of Aldermen passed a resolution Friday regarding her son.

McCain again deals the blow

ongoing unrest. “(Smith’s) death has sparked a universal cry for justice and accountability throughout the City of St. Louis,” reads the resolution, which bears the names of all 28 aldermen. It mentions Smith’s interests in sports and the arts, as well as his dream of becoming a professional clothing designer. After the resolution was read and approved, Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed and Krewson hugged Smith’s mother, Annie Smith. Alderman John Collins-Muhammad, who introduced the resolution, said the board acted in part to help ease Annie

McCain

BY ERICA WERNER AND ALAN FRAM Associated Press

WASHINGTON • Sen. John McCain declared his opposition Friday to the GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” dealing a likely death blow to the legislation and, perhaps, to the Republican Party’s years of vows to kill the program. It was the second time in three months the 81-year-old McCain emerged as the destroyer of his party’s signature promise to voters. “I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried,” McCain said of the bill, cowritten by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, his best friend in the Senate, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. “Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will affect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it.” McCain, who is battling brain cancer in the twilight of his notable career, said he could not “in good conscience” vote for the legislation.

See SMITH • Page A6

See HEALTH • Page A4

Obama-era guidelines on campus assault are replaced DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com

Protesters march Friday along Main Street in St. Charles. The St. Louis area has seen daily protests since former police Officer Jason Stockley was declared not guilty in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. Story on Page A6

BY MARIA DANILOVA Associated Press

describe allegations of abusive police. On Friday, Mayor Lyda Krewson asked the director of public safety to investigate how an undercover officer became bloodied during his arrest Sunday when he was mistaken for a suspect believed to be carrying chemicals. “The allegations are disturbing,” Krewson’s spokesman Koran Addo wrote in a statement. The incident began when two uniformed officers near the protest ordered the man to show his hands, sources said. When he refused, they knocked him down and hit him at least three times and zip tied his hands behind his back. When he stood up, his mouth was bloodied, the sources said. Commanders the next day told the of-

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday scrapped Barack Obama-era guidance on investigating campus sexual assault, replacing it with new instructions that allow universities to require higher standards of evidence when handling complaints. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said that the former president’s policy had been unfairly skewed against those accused of assault and had “weaponized” the Education Department to “work against schools and against students.” The change is the latest in Trump’s broader effort to roll back Obama policies. Women’s rights groups and elected officials, including Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., slammed Friday’s decision, saying it will discourage students from reporting assault. “Secretary DeVos has taken the progress we’ve made protecting survivors and making our campuses safer, and thrown that progress into

See ARRESTS • Page A7

See ASSAULT • Page A4

ACCOUNTS FROM ARRESTS BY JEREMY KOHLER, CHRISTINE BYERS AND ERIN HEFFERNAN St. Louis Post-Dispatch

One was an Air Force lieutenant who came out of his downtown apartment to witness the commotion in his neighborhood. Another was a Chicago-based photojournalist for Getty Images assigned to cover the latest bout of unrest in St. Louis. And still another was a St. Louis police officer working undercover at the protest. They were among more than 120 people forcibly arrested downtown on Sunday by St. Louis police cracking down on protests. The arrests came at least two hours after vandals had broken some windows and flower pots a few blocks away. The police were congratulated by their acting police chief, who said they “owned tonight,” and got praise from Gov. Eric

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Greitens for their tactics. But as more details emerged about heavy-handed police tactics, criticism mounted. A lawyer for the Post-Dispatch condemned the “inappropriate and disturbing” arrest of one of its journalists. A lawsuit on Friday alleged that the police violated people’s civil rights. And two top city officials on different days used the word “disturbing” to

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LOCAL

09.23.2017 • Saturday • M 1

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A7

‘WAY OVERBOARD’

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Residents and business employees on Washington Avenue talk with a St. Louis police officer clearing the area on Sunday. More than 120 people were arrested.

RODNEY FORD Rodney Ford, 28, of Denver, said he had driven to St. Louis on Friday for a family wedding on Saturday. He and his fiancée, Tabetha Esry, 29, came downtown to protest on Sunday night. “We thought we could have a lawful assembly,” he said. “We thought that’s what this was. But that right was stripped away from us.” He said he had heard there was vandalism downtown but “didn’t see people yelling toward the police when I was there.” Ford said after lines of police officers closed in on him, he and his fiancée put up their hands and knelt. The officers sprayed them with chemicals, and zip tied them. He said Esry suffered a bruise to her thigh from being stepped on by an officer’s boots and was dragged off aggressively. Ford had a new 9mm pistol on him that cost $600 at Bass Pro Shop. He said he had never fired it. He said police took the weapon and told him it was going to ballistics. “They just disarmed a civilian,” he said. “Now I have no right to protect myself. My firearm has been stolen. When I went to retrieve my phone at the (area station), they had no information about my gun.” — Jeremy Kohler

MARVIN MALONE Marvin Malone, 27, was in the crowd to document the protests as a freelance photographer. He was at the corner of Olive Street and Ninth Street on Sunday night when he decided he wanted to go home. He and his girlfriend walked to Tucker Boulevard to cross, but a police officer stopped them. She directed Malone and his girlfriend, who was also taking photographs of the demonstration, to walk to Tucker and Washington Avenue. They were under the impression they’d been directed to that intersection because it was a clear avenue to exit. “That’s when police started kettling,” Malone said. “As they told people to disperse, they wouldn’t let people leave. We were there for about 30 minutes, and then the police gave the final warning to disperse, but wouldn’t let people leave. That’s when the police started rushing and macing.” First, the police arrested Malone’s girlfriend, he said, at which point he “told them to go to hell and arrest me, as well.” The police used zip ties to handcuff those in the kettle crowd. “They put them on extremely tight, and I don’t have the best blood circulation because of thirddegree burn scars, so my hands were completely numb.” Malone and his girlfriend spent the next day in jail, with no way to contact family, friends or employers, he said. — Janelle O’Dea

MARK GULLET JR. Mark Gullet Jr., 24, was at the demonstration as a freelance videographer. His wife is in the same business, and the two want to do a film on St. Louis crime. They set out on Sunday to get b-roll, or background footage, of the demonstrations for the new film. Gullet got downtown around 11 p.m., “after all the vandalism had happened.” He arrived on Washington Avenue, where he saw groups of people and police standing around. “I was not a part of any vandalism. I was on the sidelines with other media. Out of nowhere, we hear marching and batons hitting shields,” Gullet said. Gullet and the people standing around him were boxed in, “with nowhere to go,” and minutes later the police were given the order to make arrests. Gullet obeyed when he was ordered to the ground, he said, but was still coated in pepper spray. He shut his eyes but felt the sting of the spray in his mouth and on his skin. The effects lasted for hours after the arrests, Gullet said, and made for an especially uncomfortable environment once he was packed into a holding cell with roughly three dozen others. “It was nothing but coughing and sneezing, because of the pepper spray,” he said. —Janelle O’Dea

ARRESTS • FROM A1

ficers they had arrested one of their own. Police arrested another officer on Sunday – an Air Force lieutenant who lives with his wife in an apartment on Washington Avenue. Lt. Alex Nelson, 27, who works in cyberoperations at Scott Air Force Base, was walking around his neighborhood with his wife when they became trapped between quickly closing police lines. He said he was kicked in the face, blinded by pepper spray and dragged away. “It’s our street,” he said. “I hear the police say it was their street, but it’s literally my street. I have coffee on that street, and I own property on that street. We were not active protesters. We were looking into the neighborhood to observe events that were unfolding. “I’m very sad how they treated me and my wife through the escalation of violence they used on me. It was incredibly unnecessary. I’ve had training on how to arrest and be arrested, and I capitulated to every demand that was made of me, even before I was on the ground. We were told to move back, and we moved back. We were told to move this way, we moved this way. We obeyed every command that we heard. We were never given an order to disperse. Not once.” He said while waiting to be loaded into a police vehicle, he said he was an officer in the military. He said the police officer replied, “Shut up. Stop. I don’t care.”

CAUGHT IN THE SWEEP One of the most-repeated complaints of those swept up in the mass arrest was that they had nowhere to go. William Waldron, 38, who was in town from New York to build the stage for the U2 concert, which was canceled, said he was leaving a bar on Tucker Boulevard and had no idea police had given any order to disperse. He said he tried to get back into the bar but was shoved back by a police shield. “They threw me on the ground and told me I was being arrested,” he said. “The guys inside were trying to come out and tell them I was a part of their crew, and police told them if they opened up the door they were going to arrest them.” “In one way, I felt like they were doing what they felt they needed to do,” he said. But he felt the police went “way overboard.” A documentary filmmaker from Kansas City, visiting with his wife, said he was knocked unconscious during the sweep. Drew Burbridge, 32, said he never heard orders to disperse until officers started to advance, banging their batons and chanting, “Move back.” “I turned my camera off and asked if there was anywhere I could go, but I was denied the right to leave,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a part of this.” Officers ordered him to turn

his camera off and get down on the ground, and he complied. “The only thing I cared about then was putting my arms around my wife,” he said. “I just, I just kept saying: ‘It’s going to be OK.’” Burbridge said officers then grabbed him by both his arms and dragged him away. “I just said: ‘I am a member of the media, I am not protesting, I am not resisting,’” Burbridge said. An officer then sprayed him in his face with a chemical, his head was forced into the ground and an officer ripped his camera from his neck. Burbridge claims his hands were then bound by zip ties before two officers started kicking him in the back, neck, arm and legs while he lay restrained on the ground. He said he was knocked unconscious on the pavement for about 10 to 30 seconds. After he came to, Burbridge said an officer lifted his head by his hair and pepper sprayed him in the face again. Another journalist was caught in the sweep. Scott Olson, 57, of Chicago, was on assignment for Getty Images. He said he had covered several protests in his career but had been arrested only one time: by a Missouri state trooper in Ferguson in August 2014. (He was not prosecuted.) Olson said he shot many photos of vandals causing damage downtown. The area had quieted down considerably, and he was getting ready to leave for the night when a friend tipped him off that police were planning to clear the streets and that he might want to stick around. As the “kettle” closed in, he shot photos until an officer ordered him to get to the ground and drop his cameras. He got to his knees and gently placed his $15,000 equipment on the street. As he was led away, he asked, “What about my camera?” An officer responded, “(expletive) your camera,” he said. But another officer grabbed it and placed it around his neck. Dillan Newbold, a medical school student at Washington University working on a doctorate in neuroscience, said he also was videotaping the protest when he got caught in the kettle. Newbold said he never heard an instruction to disperse but soon officers converged, and one told him to stop filming. Newbold said he turned off the camera on his phone and was immediately sprayed with a chemical irritant. Newbold said he was restrained with zip ties that were so tight that he lost all feeling in his hands and his fingers began to turn purple. He said his hands still burn, and there are still areas that have not regained feeling. “It felt like the officers were treating it like some kind of sport,” Newbold said. Blythe Bernhard and Janelle O’Dea of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this article. Jeremy Kohler • 314-340-8337 @jeremykohler on Twitter jkohler@post-dispatch.com

MORGAN LATHAM Morgan Latham, 19, has bruises she said are from a police officer pulling her under her arms and getting shot with pepper pellets before she was arrested. “Honestly, it felt like a drive-by shooting,” said Latham, a student at St. Louis Community College in Florissant. Latham said she heard police using racial slurs. “I don’t think it was them being racist, I think it was them wanting people to know they didn’t have any power,” she said. —Blythe Bernhard

MARCUS ANDERSON Marcus Anderson, 22, was out with a friend downtown when they decided to walk with the protesters. They stopped at the corner of Tucker Boulevard and Olive Street to take photographs of the demonstration. “Then this truck came up and started shooting mace and rubber bullets,” Anderson said. Then, the police tackled him. “They tried to say I was resisting arrest, but I wasn’t,” he said. “They threatened to tase me, break my arm and beat me. They put their knees in my back and neck. They said they were tired of me, and tired of my people looting. But I wasn’t looting, and nobody I was with was looting. They were just putting me in this category.” Anderson was arrested and jailed overnight. He had a laptop in his bag when he got arrested. When he got home from the ordeal, the laptop was cracked and had loose pieces that were not loose prior to the arrest, he said. —Janelle O’Dea

MARIO ORTEGA Mario Ortega, 36, had just arrived in St. Louis from an out-of-town trip and met a friend downtown around 10 on Sunday night. They saw the protests happening, and decided to ask protesters in the streets about future protests. “We want to make change happen here in St. Louis,” Ortega said. He’s lived in the area for about seven years. He originally came to Washington University as a student and stayed to work. He’s now a post-doctoral researcher in neuroscience. Ortega’s educational background helped him realize what kind of damage was inflicted by tootight zip ties used to restrain him and his friend when they were kettled and arrested. “They were really, really tight, to the point that we still have nerve damage,” Ortega said. “I went to the doctor for that.” He received medication and will have to return for a follow-up, he said. Ortega didn’t get the impression that the same level of tightness was used for every arrestee. “It seemed like if they didn’t like you for some reason, you got it really tight,” he said. “My left hand went purple and both of his hands went purple.” — Janelle O’Dea

FAREED ALSTON Fareed Alston of East St. Louis was filming the protests for his company City-Productions and Publishing when he was arrested. “It was like imminent danger, a wall of police circling around us,” Alston said. “They told us to get on the ground and everyone complied. Even as we did that they started pepper spraying us and kicking us to the ground with their foot and taking people’s phones.” Alston, 28, said as he was being taken to the police van he saw officers giving high fives, taking selfies and smoking cigars. “I feel like the police were much more aggressive and tactical,” he said. “When I look at the footage it’s almost like I’m filming a royal formation or a military drill.” — Blythe Bernhard

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

SATURDAY • 09.30.2017 • $1.50

POLICE HONOR DELAYED

Price resigns over air travel

• Aldermanic measure praises officers’ work during protests • No vote is held; demonstrators gather outside City Hall

Trump spoke out against costly flights by secretary

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has resigned. BY RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR AND JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press

WA S H I N GTO N • President Donald Trump’s health secretary resigned Friday, after his costly travel triggered investigations that overshadowed the administration’s agenda and angered his boss. Tom Price’s regrets and partial repayment couldn’t save his job. The Health and Human Services secretary became the first member of the president’s Cabinet to be pushed out in a turbulent young administration that has seen several high-ranking White House aides ousted. A former GOP congressman from the Atlanta suburbs, Price served just eight months. Publicly, Trump had said he was “not happy” with Price for repeatedly using private charter aircraft for official trips on the taxpayer’s dime, when cheaper commercial flights would have done in many cases.

PHOTOS BY LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

St. Louis Alderman Joseph Vaccaro speaks at the Board of Aldermen meeting Friday. Vaccaro introduced a resolution recognizing police for their efforts to keep the city safe during protests following the acquittal of former police Officer Jason Stockley. BY CELESTE BOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • A week after approving a contro-

versial resolution remembering the St. Louis man fatally shot by former police Officer Jason Stockley, the Board of Aldermen on Friday considered another resolution praising city police as they respond to protests following Stockley’s acquittal. The resolution, sponsored by Aldermen Joseph Vaccaro of the 23rd Ward and John Coatar of the 7th Ward, commends “the men and women of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for their steadfast dedication to safeguarding the well-being” of city residents. As protesters against the Stockley verdict stood outside City Hall, the board declined to vote on the measure. Instead, a motion was made to refer it to a committee. Organizers of Friday morning’s protest, which began at 16th and Market streets and paused

See BOARD • Page A4

See PRICE • Page A6 St. Louis Alderman John Collins-Muhammad (left) talks with St. Louis Alderman Joseph Vaccaro outside City Hall chambers Friday. The board made a motion to refer to a committee a resolution praising St. Louis police officers.

PUERTO RICO

San Juan mayor slams response to island disaster

Stockley case transcripts reveal inaccuracies INVESTIGATOR’S DISCREPANCIES

BY CHRISTINE BYERS AND JOEL CURRIER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Interpretation of evidence changed after indictment RATIONALE FOR MURDER CHARGE

Former circuit attorney stays mum on reason for prosecution

ST. LOUIS • The lead internal affairs investigator in the Jason Stockley case made misleading and sometimes inaccurate statements to a grand jury that indicted the former officer for murder, according to court transcripts recently obtained by the Post-Dispatch.

A grand jury indicted Stockley in August 2016, after hearing testimony from former city police internal affairs investigator Kirk Deeken and others. The indictment raised the hopes of those who say many police shootings aren’t justified — and dashed them when a judge found Stockley not guilty

WASHINGTON POST

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO •

But Reed just felt lucky to be coming home. He was one of only two men in his unit to survive the war. On Friday afternoon, the 93-year-old who grew up on a farm in a small central Missouri town, was awarded the Legion of Honour medal, France’s highest

The gulf between what President Donald Trump’s administration is saying about hurricane recovery efforts and what people in Puerto Rico are seeing on the ground came into sharp view Friday, as the mayor of the territory’s capital city made an exasperated plea for help that seemed to capture the collective despair of the island’s residents. The administration has defended its handling of the disaster, which has swelled into a humanitarian crisis amid widespread shortages of water and electricity, while local officials and residents alike have continued to plead for basic necessities.

See HONOR • Page A3

See PUERTO RICO • Page A6

See STOCKLEY • Page A4

Missouri vet, 93, receives France’s highest honor for his service in WWII BY ERIN HEFFERNAN St. Louis Post-Dispatch

AFFTON • When Harry Reed returned PHOTO BY JERRY NAUNHEIM JR.

World War II veteran Harry Reed of Eldon, Mo., receives the French Legion of Honor on Friday.

TODAY

from World War II, he brought home a Nazi pistol, a piece of shrapnel lodged in his finger and, from the Battle of the Bulge, a case of frostbite so bad that it still keeps him up at night 72 years later.

U.S. embassy pulls staff out of Cuba

Fly away Tom

52°/75° SUNNY

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LOCAL

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 2 • Saturday • 09.30.2017

ACLU files second lawsuit over treatment of protesters Police violated their rights, it claims BY ROBERT PATRICK St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • The ACLU filed its second federal lawsuit in a week claiming police violated the rights of people protesting a fatal police shooting in St. Louis. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of a St. Louis resident and two St. Louis County residents against St. Louis police, six unidentified officers and St. Clair County. It says that the three were protesting the death of Mansur Ball-Bey on Aug. 19, 2015. Sarah Molina and Christina Vogel, both St. Louis County residents, fled from a peaceful, nonviolent protest after police began using tear gas, the suit says. Vogel is also the daughter of a former St. Louis police officer. They

heard police say “disperse,” but the remainder of any warnings or commands were unintelligible, the suit says, and police didn’t warn that they were going to use chemicals, they say. Police in a SWAT truck, under joint command of St. Louis police and the St. Clair County Sheriff’s office, shot tear gas and smoke canisters directly at Molina and Vogel 30 minutes later and three blocks away, when they were standing on the sidewalk and in the yard of Molina’s house, the suit says. They claim police recognized the pair from the protest. Peter Groce, of St. Louis, was biking home when he spotted the SWAT truck driving on the grass in Fountain Park and told police they should be in the street, the suit says. The officers retaliated with a tear gas canister that hit Groce’s hip and pepper spray that hit his arm and shoulder, the lawsuit says.

All suffered physical and emotional damages, the suit says. Both Molina and Vogel skipped protests out of fear of police, it says. Then-St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said at the time that police cleared protesters after bricks, water bottles and other objects were thrown at officers. Dotson said he also heard gunshots. During the protests later that night, a tree, a car and a vacant house were set on fire, and a store was broken into. The suit follows one filed by the ACLU last week over recent protests. That lawsuit claims that police used “unlawful and unconstitutional” actions during a “kettling” on Sept. 17 in which more than 100 people were arrested in downtown St. Louis. Another lawsuit was filed that same day by the MacArthur Justice Center on behalf of a St. Louis resident, Nick Apperson,

saying that police improperly jailed and prosecutors improperly charged Apperson for activity that is protected by the First Amendment. Two documentary filmmakers have also sued over the mass arrest on Sept. 17. In a statement released by the ACLU, Molina draws a line from the 2015 event to those recent protests. “What we saw (in recent protests) — mass arrests and gassing of entire neighborhoods — didn’t occur in a vacuum. Enough is enough,” said Molina in an ACLU statement announcing the suit. “We need to push back and say, ‘This is not OK.’ We need to push back against police interference with our Constitutional rights.” St. Louis police referred a reporter to St. Louis City Counselor Julian Bush, who declined to comment on the suit. Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU, said in the statement that, “This lawsuit reveals

a consistent pattern of St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers repeatedly ignoring the First Amendment rights of the people they took an oath to protect and serve. Officers should never retaliate against people for nonviolently assembling or publicly grieving the loss of a member of the community.” Officers shot Ball-Bey, 18, while executing a search warrant at a home in the 1200 block of Walton Avenue. Officials have said that BallBey, who worked at Fed-Ex, pointed a handgun at officers Ronald Vaughan and Kyle Chandler before they opened fire. That account was disputed by family lawyers. Last year, then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said there was not sufficient evidence to support a charge against the officers. Robert Patrick • 314-621-5154 @rxpatrick on Twitter RPatrick@post-dispatch.com

Grand jury, trial testimony don’t jibe in Stockley case STOCKLEY • FROM A1

LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

Wendy Sarno of Webster Groves introduces herself to state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. during a protest Friday at 16th and Market streets. “Thank you for all that you do,” she said. “It is so necessary for us white people to show up and support the black community in their fight for justice.”

Debate sends resolution praising police to committee BOARD • FROM A1

in front of City Hall, said they wanted to send a message to city officials who may suspect the protests throughout the region are dwindling. “I just want the city to know, we’re just getting started,” said activist Tory Russell to cheers from the crowd. “Y’all ready for that?” Among the demonstrators’ demands is the resignation of Acting St. Louis Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole. Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. said activists and front-line protesters will come to the table to talk about that and other demands on their own time. “One thing we have to get set straight first is black folks will stop being disproportionately affected by this system,” he said. “We’ll set the tone and we’ll set the time, and we’ll set the place when it’s time to come to that table. Until then, they have to get used to everything that’s going on. Every single one of them that thinks we’re tired, we’re not.” Their efforts were acknowledged by the board last week, when aldermen approved a resolution remembering Anthony Lamar Smith, the St. Louis man shot by Stockley in 2011. “(Smith’s) death has sparked a universal cry for justice and accountability throughout the City of St. Louis,” read the initial resolution for Smith, which at the time included the names of all city aldermen. This month, Stockley, who is white, was acquitted of first-degree murder for shooting Smith, who was black. Stockley argued he did so in self-defense, following a suspected drug deal and a car chase. Prosecutors maintain Stockley carried out the premeditated murder of Smith and planted a gun to justify the killing. The verdict has led to a series of protests throughout St. Louis. Alderman John Collins-Muhammad of the 21st Ward, who introduced that resolution, said the board was acting in part to help ease the grief of Smith’s mother, Annie Smith. But the move angered police, who said city officials were paying tribute to a man who tried to kill a cop, as well as some St. Louisans who felt they were wrong to honor Smith in light of his criminal record. On Facebook, 12th Ward Alderman Larry Arnowitz wrote that he had been out of town during the vote and would ask for his name to be removed from the ordinance. Then Friday, Vaccaro introduced the resolution recognizing police for their efforts to keep the city safe during recent protests. “There are two sides to every story,” he said on the floor of the board’s chambers, clutching a photo of an officer killed in the line of duty. Explaining that he had children working in law enforcement, “I’m here on behalf of the parents, grandparents and children worried about their moms and dads.” In the gallery sat small business owners who said they came to show solidarity with Stockley verdict protesters. Eliza Corriell, who owns the Crow’s Nest

in Maplewood, said she and other business owners signed a letter supporting the protests are questioning if they have more to fear from police than a handful of vandals. “Vandalism isn’t good. Nobody wants a broken window. But nobody’s dead because of a broken window,” she said. A vote was later taken to send Vaccaro’s resolution to a public safety committee. Vaccaro told the Post-Dispatch this week that he also was looking into having his name removed from the Anthony Lamar Smith resolution, saying he was out of the room during the discussion and motion to pass the measure “en banc.” A spokeswoman for Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed said those motions affix the names of all aldermen present at the meeting to courtesy resolutions, and anyone could have objected to the motion or made a point of order if they had misgivings. Arnowitz’s name being added was a clerical error, she said, and it has since been removed. “The way they did it was just really not right,” Vaccaro maintains. “If I’d known they would have made that motion, I would have stayed in the room.” Following the backlash, other aldermen released statements explaining why they supported the measure for Smith. Alderman Tom Oldenburg, who represents the 16th Ward, said that the resolution wasn’t intended to criticize Stockley, city police or the verdict in Stockley’s case. “Paying respects after someone’s death is always about seeing the good in that person,” he said in a statement. “Resolution 139 does not honor Mr. Smith’s prior criminal actions, nor does it seek to insult members of law enforcement.” Alderwoman Carol Howard of the 14th Ward released a statement last week saying she had intended to object to the resolution but was not recognized by Reed. But upon reflection, she said, supporting the measure was in “the better interest of all,” adding that she wanted to provide comfort to Anthony Lamar Smith’s mother, Annie Smith, who was in the chamber that day. “As I reflect on the past week, I know that as a community we need to come together,” she said. Many board resolutions typically are approved without dissent and therefore list the names of all aldermen. Alderman Scott Ogilvie of the 24th Ward said on Twitter that years ago he asked that his name not be included on any resolution he didn’t sponsor. “Each alderman should make their own decisions on this,” he tweeted. The protests continued Friday night, where a small group inside Busch Stadium unfurled a banner at the Cardinals-Brewers game with a rendition of the Cardinals’ mascot and the words: “Stop Killing Us.” In a clash with a larger group of demonstrators later near the ballpark, police shocked one with a Taser stun gun, pepper sprayed others and reported two arrests. Celeste Bott • 314-340-8119 @celestebott on Twitter cbott@post-dispatch.com

following a bench trial. The acquittal on Sept. 15 by St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson ignited protests across the region nearly every day since. Stockley’s attorney, Neil Bruntrager, believes Deeken’s testimony was crucial. “Without Deeken’s testimony, I believe they never would have got an indictment,” Bruntrager said. The indictment gave the case “integrity that it didn’t deserve. (Prosecutors) gave people an expectation that there was something here when, in fact, there wasn’t.” Deeken, now a police lieutenant, declined an interview without clearance from the police department, which did not make him available. Deeken also testified in a sworn deposition in May that he knew of no new evidence given to former Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce as she had claimed when she charged Stockley last year with murdering drug suspect Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011. Deeken said police had provided Joyce’s office with nothing new in the case since federal agencies finished reviewing it and declined to charge the officer, in 2012. Joyce has not responded to several requests for comment for this story. After Stockley was charged in May 2016, prosecutors, as with any criminal case, had the option of airing evidence in a preliminary hearing before a judge or before a grand jury, a secret proceeding. The majority of cases in St. Louis go to a grand jury, where only prosecutors present evidence, without cross examination or defense witnesses. “You have in the prosecutor a position of trust when you have a grand jury,” Bruntrager said. “And when you put a witness like Deeken on, you are saying to them, ‘This is believable,’ and they take your lead and they ultimately got an indictment, and I think that’s a violation of the public trust.”

DEEKEN’S DISCREPANCIES Deeken testified for the grand jury July 5, 2016. He was one of at least nine witnesses, including eight police officers, called to testify. The grand jury indicted Stockley Aug. 8, 2016. Ten months after Deeken’s grand jury testimony, his interpretation of some evidence changed on several key points under questioning from prosecutors and defense lawyers in sworn depositions. At Stockley’s trial, discrepancies and inaccuracies in Deeken’s grand jury testimony weren’t revealed because the defense opted not to cross-examine him. They include: ‘KILL SHOT’ • Deeken repeatedly told grand jurors that Stockley executed Smith with a fifth shot, at close range, about 22 seconds after he’d fired four other shots. Prosecutors relied on Deeken’s theory at trial in August, calling Stockley’s fifth bullet a “kill shot” and describing a puff of gun smoke that was seen on the police SUV’s dash camera as proof that the fifth shot had been fired later. But a cellphone video clip taken by a nearby business owner showed Officer Elijah Simpson was there when the fifth shot was fired. Simpson testified before the grand jury and at trial that he neither saw nor heard any additional shots. Judge Wilson concluded the puff of smoke was “in reality exhaled breath in cold air.” DNA • Only Stockley’s DNA was found on a silver .38-caliber Taurus revolver that he said he found inside Smith’s car. According to police reports, the gun was reported stolen after a car breakin in April 2008 in the south St. Louis County police precinct. Deeken told the grand jury that a DNA expert told him that Stockley’s DNA on the gun came from blood, suggesting that it was there before the shooting. That helped bolster the prosecution’s claims that the gun had been planted. But during his deposition in May,

Deeken couldn’t remember why he told the grand jury Stockley’s blood was on the gun. At trial, the same DNA expert denied telling Deeken that Stockley’s blood was on the gun, saying that the city’s crime lab can only confirm the presence of DNA but not its biological source. THE REVOLVER • Deeken told grand jurors that authorities seized a .38 Taurus revolver from Stockley when he was arrested in Houston — the same type of gun he was accused of planting in Smith’s car. Stockley testified that he actually had a .357 Magnum when U.S. Marshals arrested him in Houston. DEPARTMENT VIOLATION • Deeken told grand jurors that Stockley admitted he had unloaded Smith’s gun. Stockley violated department policy just by handling the gun, Deeken said. In his deposition, Deeken acknowledged that at the time of the shooting in 2011 the police department had no policy forbidding officers from handling weapons used against them. ONSTAR AUDIO • Deeken told grand jurors that he believed he heard Smith say, “Don’t shoot,” or “Please don’t shoot,” and “No, no, no!” on car audio and police video recordings. But he revised that during his deposition, saying the “Don’t shoot” audio was of such poor quality that he and his commanders believed it should not even be used as evidence, and an officer was actually saying, “Go, go, go!” after the shooting had occurred. The OnStar audio was not presented at trial. MATCHING MEMOS • Deeken told grand jurors that Stockley’s first-hand account of the shooting was “almost identical” to that of his partner, Brian Bianchi, implying that they had coordinated their stories. In his deposition, however, he said that it was not unusual, nor improper, for officers to compare notes before submitting their reports, and at the time, the department had a checklist of facts officers were required to include in their memos. Prosecutors never raised issues with the memos at trial.

NEW EVIDENCE? Joyce, the circuit attorney at the time of the shooting, claimed that the Internal Affairs Division presented her with new evidence, enabling her to charge Stockley with murder years after her own office and federal prosecutors had declined to charge him. Joyce, who decided not to run for reelection in 2016, still has never identified the new evidence. Her successor Kim Gardner said she could not say what it was. Since the verdict Sept. 15, Joyce has made just one public comment in a text message to a Post-Dispatch reporter on that day: “I’m confident that the citizens understand why this case was prosecuted.” In a May 2016 article in the Riverfront Times, Joyce said Internal Affairs had contacted her office two months earlier with new evidence developed by city investigators and the FBI. But in his deposition, Deeken testified that he was unaware of any new evidence. Deeken said his colonel called him into his office in April 2016 and said, “Hey, the Circuit Attorney’s Office is picking up this case. And they need you to compile evidence, compile whatever you got.” “I’m like, ‘I already gave them everything I had back in 2012 …,’” Deeken said in the deposition. After a couple more meetings with local prosecutors in 2016, Deeken recalled, “the next thing I know, I’m on a flight to Houston,” where he and other officers arrested Stockley. Christine Byers • 314-340-8087 @christinedbyers on Twitter cbyers@post-dispatch.com

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HIS LATEST ATTACK: ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED INGRATES’

TRUMP LASHES OUT AGAIN Is Washington adjusting to Trump and his spontaneity?

President bristles anew at criticism of effort in Puerto Rico

BY CHUCK RAASCH • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY JILL COLVIN • Associated Press

WASHINGTON • In late August, when President

JERSEY CITY, N.J. • President Donald Trump on Sunday scoffed at “politically motivated ingrates” who had questioned his administration’s commitment to rebuilding Puerto Rico after a pulverizing hurricane and said the federal government had done “a great job with the almost impossible situation.” Trump’s latest tweets sought to defend Washington’s attentiveness to recovery efforts on a U.S. territory in dire straits almost two weeks after Hurricane Maria struck. The president spent Saturday ensconced in his New Jersey golf club and on Sunday attended an international golf competition near New York City.

Donald Trump traveled to Missouri and called for Sen. Claire McCaskill’s ouster next year if she did not support his tax reform ideas, McCaskill said she did not consider that a political attack. At least not compared to other attacks by the tweeter in chief. McCaskill, a Democrat, had been invited to go along on the Republican president’s trip, but couldn’t because of scheduling conflicts, McCaskill said in an interview. And so she did not put much stock in Trump’s conditional exhortation for Missourians to vote her out of office when she faces re-election in 2018.

See TRUMP • Page A7

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Donald Trump walks over to participate Sunday in presenting the Presidents Cup to the United States team at the Jersey City Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J., after the United States team defeated the International team.

See PUERTO RICO • Page A7

Police sergeant plays dual role Lightning rod • Rossomanno, who often directs handling of protests, draws taunts Tough tactics • His private firm works to ‘instill ... a combat/warrior mindset’

NIXON’S TAKE ON 8 YEARS

“I’m just really proud that rather than just, like, having a thing happen and us just backing away — and saying, ‘Oh, not here, no problems’ — we kind of embraced the challenge.” Nixon on Ferguson BY JACK SUNTRUP St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON COUNTY • Jay

march in his SUV, sometimes ordering protesters through a bullhorn to disperse or move on. Protesters frequently target him with taunts and names. In his private role, Rossomanno represents the epitome of warrior-style policing. His company is named for the U.S. Marine code for rifleman. His online bio says he had been

Nixon is still cautious. He says things such as “I can’t say it that way” while plotting out how to answer a question. Though he gives thorough answers, he can also stop midthought and veer off in another direction. But Nixon, 61, is now the former governor of Missouri. Since he left office in January, his entourage has vanished. So has the spotlight. He now is a partner at Clayton law firm Dowd Bennett, keeping a low profile. But on a late-summer afternoon, he steered his black

See SERGEANT • Page A6

See NIXON • Page A9

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

St. Louis police Sgt. Brian Rossomanno tells protesters over his bullhorn on Thursday that they are an illegal assembly as people in the crowd yell at him. The protesters were blocking Washington Avenue at Tucker Boulevard in downtown St. Louis. BY JEREMY KOHLER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • The Facebook post featured a candid photo of two uniformed St. Louis police officers keeping watch from behind the hood of an SUV. “They love us. They hate us. Depends on their particular situation at the time. But they know where the line is … when we’re allowed to draw it.”

The Aug. 14 post seemed to talk directly to protesters by including the hashtag #protestseason and another hashtag calling out a protester-given nickname for one of the officers — #riotking. And it conveyed a complaint that policymakers do not always let the police be as aggressive as they want to be. It wasn’t a post by the St. Louis police department. It was from 0311 Tactical Solutions

LLC, a private tactical training and security firm managed by one of the officers in the picture, St. Louis police Sgt. Brian Rossomanno. He’s a 20-year veteran of the department and a supervisor in its civil disobedience unit. In his police department role, Rossomanno, 45, is frequently at the center of attention at protests. He’s typically the supervisor in charge, following the

In its 10th year, trafficking hotline still ‘a light at the end of the tunnel’ BY DAVID CRARY • Associated Press

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The tipster’s account was grim. A woman had suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung at the hands of a man who for nine years had been forcing her into prostitution. That confidential call was received in late January by the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which relayed the tip to an anti-trafficking task force operating in Virginia’s Hampton Roads area. Within days, investigators located and interviewed the woman, and arrested the man, Naeem Lateef Odums. He was indicted on sex trafficking charges in March, pleaded guilty in June and will be sentenced in November to at least 15 years in prison. “The hotline is extremely effective,” said Michael Lamonea, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent who assists the task

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Simpson freed from prison He heads for Las Vegas after early-morning release INSIDE • A13

MOST CALLS PER CAPITA Top seven U.S. cities in number of calls per capita through 2016: 1. Washington, D.C. 2. Atlanta 3. Orlando, Fla. 4. Miami 5. Las Vegas 6. Sacramento, Calif. 7. St. Louis

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COMMUNITY FIRST “I wanted to come out and help my community,” said Earl Spinks, who hugs Cassandra Thompson along the 5100 block of Maffitt Avenue on Sunday. Spinks, who has been active in the recent protests, walked with activists in St. Louis neighborhoods registering voters and sharing information about jobs and other resources available to the community. Thompson recently lost her job after 11 years of service and happily took a brochure about job resources.

Officer wounds gunman carrying sword Police were responding to a caller who did not specify the nature of the call BY ASHLEY JOST St. Louis Post-Dispatch

LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

Website listed, then deleted city police, SWAT team SERGEANT • FROM A1

a Marine security guard at the presidential retreat at Camp David and the Marine Barracks in Washington. Rossomanno’s tactical company employs several SWAT officers from across the area, for an array of services. His firm provides military tactical training to law enforcement, military, private security, institutions and individuals. Its clients are nationwide. Since early 2016, according to its Facebook posts, the company has provided a “quick reaction force” of SWAT officers for St. Louis Cardinals games. Earlier this year, after a terrorist attack at a concert in England, the firm was hired to conduct a safety assessment of The Muny. Rossomanno has been highly visible recently across the region since the Sept. 15 acquittal on murder charges of exSt. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley — even showing up to keep his eye on protests outside the city. At least twice last week during protests downtown, Post-Dispatch journalists observed him ordering protesters to disperse from streets because their assembly had become unlawful. In an email, the police department called Rossomanno its most qualified team coordinator, “who plays an integral role in civil disobedience training.” Rossomanno declined to be interviewed for this story. In an email on Friday, he said that 0311 Tactical did not bid on contracts from the St. Louis police because it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Later that day, his company’s website was edited to delete the St. Louis police department and its SWAT team as clients.

FREQUENT PRESENCE Protesters tend to single out Rossomanno over social media and on the street for his connection to 0311 Tactical and the very thing they decry — an unflinching and combat-ready policing style. One example of this was on Tuesday on Clark Avenue outside the Cardinals-Cubs game, as protesters lingered between the north side of the stadium and Ballpark Village. Over his loudspeaker, Rossomanno ordered the protesters off the street four times because it was “private property.” Many protesters were incredulous that he could kick them off a public street where even fans without tickets could feel free to mill around. (A review of city ordinances shows the city permits the Cardinals to close that stretch of Clark on game days.) The police department said Rossomanno was working for the police department — not the Cardinals — that night. The

DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com

Protester Dhoruba Shakur (left) and State Rep. Bruce Franks talk with St. Louis police Sgt. Brian Rossomanno last month as protesters filed a complaint over an incident involving plainclothes officers.

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

State Rep. Mike Keller shoots a “prostitute,” played by St. Louis police Officer Erin Becherer (who had just “stabbed” Keller) during police training scenarios in 2014, as trainer and St. Louis police Sgt. Brian Rossomanno watches. He is part-owner of 0311 Tactical Solutions.

“He’s a little too quick with mace sometimes. But I’ve seen him be friendly with protesters. I think it depends on the situation. I’ve also seen him go off.”

a combat/warrior mindset complete with the skills necessary to provide our citizenry with a level of security they can (trust.)” And it has written that every police department in the country needs to recognize that riot control training is in its future.

Heather DeMian, a well-known live streamer, on St. Louis police Sgt. Brian Rossomanno

Is Rossomanno’s dual role in St. Louis a conflict? David Klinger, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said not necessarily. “It all depends on if the doctrines that they are teaching in their classes are consistent with the doctrines that American police have vis-à-vis the constitutional protections of protesters,” he said. “If he is giving a fourth dispersal order, it sounds like there is a more than appropriate patience to ensure that people understand the order, to ensure the avenues of egress are identified and so forth.” Rossomanno’s company has used social media to criticize leaders of Black Lives Matter as “morally bankrupt” and having their “cross hairs on us.” When a woman gave the company a one-star review on Facebook, the company responded that a “one star review from a ‘pro-

Cardinals did not respond. On Thursday, as a crowd blocked Tucker Boulevard and Washington Avenue, Rossomanno drove his SUV up to the crowd. Protesters surrounded his vehicle and started yelling at him. He ordered them to disperse, but they didn’t move until a line of police moved in with riot gear. Heather DeMian, a wellknown live streamer, said she thought Rossomanno “threatens chemical munitions a little too fast. He’s a little too quick with mace sometimes. But I’ve seen him be friendly with protesters. I think it depends on the situation. I’ve also seen him go off.” Rossomanno’s group has described itself as hoping to “instill in our first line of defense

ON THE GROUND

tester’ like you is equal to a six star review from a normal person.” The group has also said online that its staff members were involved with the police response to protests earlier this month. On Sept. 17, the police used a technique called kettling to box in and arrest more than 100 people at a busy downtown intersection. The police department denied on Friday that it had used a kettle and did not answer the question of who had planned it. It said officers from the city police, St. Louis County Police Department and the Missouri Highway Patrol were working downtown that night. “The geographical layout of the area, and not a technique/ tactic, dictated how tactics were deployed,” a statement from the department said. The arrests in the kettle took place 40 minutes after police had issued an order several blocks away for the crowd to disperse. A Post-Dispatch reporter was among those arrested, and a lawyer for the newspaper condemned the “inappropriate and highly disturbing” arrest. The newspaper revealed days later that an Air Force lieutenant, an undercover St. Louis police officer, a medical student and two other journalists were among those arrested with what they described as brutal force. That night, interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole said that his officers had “owned tonight.” The next morning, the Facebook page for 0311 Tactical shared a news story about O’Toole’s comments. “And our entire staff is on the ground helping to make it happen,” the post said. The post has since been taken down. The police department said that although Rossomanno had been working the night of the kettle, his company had had no role in the arrests. David Carson and J.B. Forbes of the PostDispatch contributed to this report. Jeremy Kohler • 314-340-8337 @jeremykohler on Twitter jkohler@post-dispatch.com

Police officers answering a call early Sunday morning shot and critically injured a man holding a handgun and a sword who refused to drop his weapons, police said. St. Louis County Police answered a call at 6:37 a.m. from the 7700 block of Harlan Avenue. The home is near the historic Oakland House, southwest of the River Des Peres and northeast of the intersection of Heege and Mackenzie roads. Sgt. Shawn McGuire, a police spokesman, said the caller did not specify a particular need and did not answer calls back from dispatchers. Three police officers responded to the call, and got no answer when they knocked on the door. One of the officers looked through a window, where he saw a man approaching the door with a handgun in one hand and a sword in the other. He shouted a warning to the other two officers, McGuire said. The man opened the door and let a dog out as the officers stepped back, McGuire said. The dog, described as a pit bull, did not go near the officers and was not injured. The officers tried to get the man to talk to them, but the effort failed. The man stepped onto the porch, still holding both weapons. Officers directed him to drop them and he ignored the commands. McGuire said one officer shot the man, striking him several times. “Obviously when somebody walks out of their front porch with a sword and a handgun, that puts officers in a tough spot,” McGuire said. The injured man was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery and remained in critical and unstable condition, McGuire said. McGuire did not have information about where the man, in his late 30s, was struck by gunfire. Police recovered the gun and the sword; no officers were injured. The officer who shot the man has been with the police department for eight years, McGuire said. The incident is under investigation by the department’s Bureau of Crimes Against Persons. McGuire said he did not know if the man who was shot is the same person who made the initial call to police. The anniversary of the death of Officer Blake Snyder also is nearing, McGuire said, which is on the minds of other officers in the department. Snyder was gunned down while answering a call in south St. Louis County on Oct. 6, 2016. “When I wake up to a phone call that we had an officerinvolved shooting again, that was already in our minds leading up to the one-year anniversary,” McGuire said. “Like I said, we do a difficult job.” McGuire said the man was apparently at the home alone, with two dogs. Both dogs were safe. Ashley Jost • 314-340-8169 @ajost on Twitter ajost@post-dispatch.com

KEEP UP WITH CRIME Use our St. Louis Crime Tracker to compare neighborhoods, look at incident maps and check per-capita crime rates based on population. stltoday.com/crimetracker

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TUESDAY • 11.21.2017 • $1.50

FBI, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LAUNCH INVESTIGATION

POLICE CONDUCT IN PROTESTS EXAMINED

BY ROBERT PATRICK St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • The FBI and federal prosecutors are

In this photo taken by a downtown resident, St. Louis police are seen on Sept. 17 using a technique called “kettling,” in which exits are blocked in and people are arrested en masse.

investigating police conduct during protests after September’s acquittal of the St. Louis officer for a fatal 2011 shooting. The investigation centers on “allegations of potential civil rights violations by law enforcement officers in the St. Louis area on Sept. 15, 2017, and in the weeks that followed,” said Jeffrey B. Jensen, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. “The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence and ensure that the investigation is conducted in a fair, thorough and impartial manner. As this is an ongoing investigation, we are not able to comment further at this time,” he said. He also declined to comment on what specifically prompted the investigation.

See CONDUCT • Page A4

‘WE HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO DO’

U.S. sues to block AT&T deal for Time Warner BY TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer

Williams. “I ain’t got time to die.” It was a fitting opening to honor the life of a woman who became a face of the 1965 civil rights marches in Selma, Ala., and continued to work tirelessly on social justice issues into her 90s — including leading a prayer vigil for peace in Ferguson in 2015. Ebo died Nov. 11 at a retirement

NEW YORK • The Justice Department is suing AT&T to stop its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner, setting the stage for an epic legal battle with the telecom giant. It could also create a new headache for President Donald Trump, whose public statements have raised suspicions that he might have interfered with the department’s decision, potentially undermining its legal case. The Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, has said the president did not tell him what to do. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday she wasn’t aware of any specific action related to the case taken by the White House. In a press release, Delrahim said that a combined AT&TTime Warner would “greatly harm American consumers” by raising television bills and hampering innovation, particularly in online television service. The Justice Department said AT&T would be able to charge rival distributors such as cable companies “hundreds of millions of dollars more per year” for Time Warner’s programming — payments that would ultimately

See EBO • Page A4

See AT&T • Page A4

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Ray Boshara makes the sign of the cross as he prays before the casket of Sr. Mary Antona Ebo during her funeral Monday at St. Alphonsus “Rock” Church in St. Louis. Watching are students from Loyola Academy, a school that Ebo would visit to talk about her work in the civil rights movement. Boshara got to know Ebo as a member of the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ Peace and Justice Commission.

Sister Mary Antona Ebo

Hundreds gather to remember a ‘Sister of Selma’

BY ERIN HEFFERNAN St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • An a cappella song filled the high ceilings of St. Alphonsus “Rock” Church on Monday afternoon as hundreds gathered to celebrate the life of one exceptional nun: Sister Mary Antona Ebo. “Been so busy working for the Kingdom,” sang the Rev. Manuel

Newsman Charlie Rose latest to face harassment claims Misconduct allegations also grow against Sen. Franken ASSOCIATED PRESS

Charlie Rose is the latest public figure to be felled by sexual misconduct allegations, with PBS halting distribution of his interview show and CBS News suspending him Monday following a Washington Post report with the accusations of eight women. The women, who all worked for Rose or tried to work for him,

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accused the veteran newsman of groping them, walking naked in front of them and telling one that he dreamed about her swimming nude. Rose is just the latest prominent member of the media and political establishments shaken by new or resurfaced allegations about sexual misconduct, See ROSE • Page A8

Rose TV host

Franken Senator

Thrush Reporter

Moore Candidate

Manson cultivated evil image

BY CHUCK RAASCH St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WASHINGTON • Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri is part of an ad-hoc group of senators addressing sexual harassment, and they’ve already helped push through a resolution requiring mandatory training for senators and staff. Aside from Blunt, a Republican, the group includes Sens.

Ski resort’s days may be numbered North Korea back on terrorism list

Mizzou’s Porter visits specialist

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North Korea again labeled ‘sponsor of terrorism’ BY TRACY WILKINSON AND NOAH BIERMAN Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump put North Korea back on a U.S. list of “state sponsors of terrorism” Monday, a largely symbolic move that administration officials said will increase pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. Trump said the designation will be followed Tuesday by new sanctions against Pyongyang and that other penalties will be announced in coming weeks. North Korea “must end its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile development and cease all support for international terrorism — which it is not doing,” Trump said at the start of a Cabinet meeting. Administration officials cited the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia last February as an act of terrorism. President George Bush first put North

Korea on the State Department’s list in 1988, and his son President George W. Bush removed it 20 years later in a failed bid to persuade Pyongyang to stop its nuclear program. The Obama and Trump administrations both slapped economic sanctions on North Korea and, increasingly, on governments that do business with it. But Pyongyang has continued to conduct both ballistic missile and nuclear weapons tests, stepping up the program significantly in the last year. It’s not clear why new sanctions would change that dynamic. Most of the punishments Trump can impose under the statesponsor legislation already are in place, or would involve suspending aid programs that don’t exist. But administration officials said the designation carries symbolic weight and will add pressure on countries that still do business with North Korea. China is Pyongyang’s largest trading partner. “We are continuing to turn the pressure

up,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said at the White House. “It may disrupt and dissuade some third parties from undertaking activities with North Korea.” Tillerson said he still hopes diplomacy can resolve the impasse, but said he believed the “campaign of pressure” was helping, citing reports of oil shortages in the secretive state. “I don’t want to suggest to you that the designation is suddenly going to put a whole new layer of sanctions on them,” Tillerson said. He said it would close loopholes in previous penalties. Officials said the Treasury Department could impose heftier fines on companies working with North Korea that also use U.S. banks. Treasury has imposed $12 billion in fines on European banks that do business in Iran, for example. The Treasury Department also could add new entities or individuals to its sanctions list or use authority from an executive order to deny entities that do business in North Korea the ability to operate in the

United States. North Korea joins only three other countries on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Sudan and Syria. Discussions to put North Korea back on the list began last year under the Obama administration. Richard Nephew, a sanctions expert, said the goal now is to increase pressure on those who do business with North Korea, such as Chinese banks or Russian oil companies. Adding North Korea to the terrorism list would otherwise have no impact. “I don’t think (the list) changes their views regarding nuclear weapons (and) missiles one iota, nor their readiness to use targeted assassinations,” he said. Bruce Klingner, a former CIA deputy division chief for Korea now at the Heritage Foundation, said the state-sponsor designation was a “powerful label” that helps build a moral case to persuade even companies doing legitimate business with North Korea to go elsewhere.

Nun who marched in 1965 protest laid to rest Monday The nuns were featured in a PBS documentary “Sisters of Selma: Bearing Witness to Change,” and Ebo was also included in the “Voices of Civil Rights” project, a collection of accounts from the civil rights era through the Library of Congress.

EBO • FROM A1

home in Bridgeton. She was 93. Her family and friends described the small but driven nun Monday as a deeply religious, feisty woman with a “wicked sense of humor.” Ebo broke the mold all her life: She become the first African-American graduate of her Catholic high school and was among the first African-Americans to join her order of nuns, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary. She was the first African-American nun to be the director of a U.S. hospital. And, most famously, Ebo made front pages across the country as she walked in her full black-and-white nun’s habit in the 1965 Selma protests with a group that came to be known as the “Sisters of Selma.” During a march on March 10, 1965, Ebo was thrust to the microphones before the crowd and cameras. “I am here because I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic,” she said. “And because I want to bear witness.” A photo of Ebo at the protests in Selma sat on her casket Monday, along with a framed picture of her family, a Bible, a rosary and a cross. “She was a role model to me, my family and so many people,” said Ebo’s cousin, Yvonne Bratton. “There haven’t been many like her.”

AN UNLIKELY CONVERT Few would have predicted Ebo would have ended up as a Catholic nun. She was born the granddaughter of a Baptist minister in Bloomington, Ill., on April 10, 1924. She was known then as Betty Lou. Ebo’s mother died when Ebo was 4 years old. Ebo and two of her siblings went to live in the McLean County Home for Colored Children in Bloomington. That’s where she found Catholicism through a young boy she nicknamed “Bish,” who was also living in the home, Ebo told the Post-Dispatch in 2006. One day, Bish and Ebo sneaked into an empty Catholic church where the boy explained the Catholic belief that “Jesus was in the bread” during each Mass. Ebo said she was captivated by the description of the ritual and decided then and there that she wanted to become

‘NEVER STOPPED CHALLENGING’

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Rebecca Torry (left) raises her hand in prayer during the funeral Monday for Sr. Mary Antona Ebo at St. Alphonsus “Rock” Church in St. Louis. Torry got to know Ebo during her work in the National Black Sisters Conference. Ebo died Nov. 11 at age 93.

Catholic. She converted when she was 18. She became an expert at recalling Scripture and always carried around a small copy of the New Testament, said Sister Jeanne Derer, who met Ebo about 57 years ago. “Tony (Ebo’s nickname among her community of nuns) was always an exceptional woman,” said Derer. “She was always dedicated, but I think for her, Selma was truly the transforming moment in her life.”

THE CALL TO SELMA Ebo was working at St. Mary’s Infirmary, then a Roman Catholic hospital for African-Americans in St. Louis, when news of the brutality in Selma reached her. On March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers and police beat and tear-gassed 600 civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery. The attack would come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” Ebo spoke about her decision to go to the protests in a 2005 interview with the Post-Dispatch. “If I didn’t have this habit on, if I wasn’t working, I’d be in Selma,” she remembered

telling her co-workers in the infirmary. Ebo’s supervisor soon asked whether she would be part of a 50-member delegation to join the protests. “God called my bluff,” she said. Ebo agreed to board what she called a “rickety plane” to Alabama. Before she was scheduled to leave, James Reeb, a white minister taking part in the marches, was brutally attacked after leaving a restaurant. He died two days later. “If they would beat a white minister to death on the streets of Selma, what are they going to do when I show up?” Ebo told the Post-Dispatch in 2015. After they arrived, Ebo and a group of nuns was pushed to the front of the march. “The reason for that was to impress,” Ebo said in an interview with the Missouri History Museum. “Actually, it was shock therapy for them, because nobody expected sisters to be heading up that march.” Pictures of the nuns joined in solidarity with the protesters made front page news across the country and are still among the iconic images of the protests.

Police, ACLU are ordered by judge to mediation CONDUCT • FROM A1

The move follows at least three calls for an investigation into police behavior during the protests after the acquittal of former St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley, and a federal judge’s preliminary ruling last week that restricted police use of chemical agents and dispersal orders. In an unusual move for that stage of the case, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ordered the police and the ACLU to mediation after issuing her preliminary ruling. Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU, which is handling the lawsuit that prompted Perry’s order, said in a statement Monday that “While it is important that the federal government investigates the systemic violation of civil rights by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the city of St. Louis should proactively engage with the community now to develop a collaborative policing model that protects constitutional rights and promotes public safety.” In a statement, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said, “Chief (Lawrence) O’Toole and I believe that an independent, third-party review makes sense” and they were pleased with the news from the U.S. attorney. The mayor’s office declined to comment on questions about when the investigation began and what prompted it, but said it and police would cooperate.

I n m e d i a i n te r v i e w s , O’Toole has defended police and said dozens of officers have been injured during protests. Acting U.S. Attorney Carrie Costantin responded to Krewson and O’Toole in an Oct. 4 letter that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division would be the agency to handle an investigation into whether there was a police “pattern or practice” of depriving people of their constitutional rights. The local U.S. Attorney’s office would investigate if there were “specific, credible evidence alleging a deprivation of rights by a law enforcement officer,” her letter says. A Justice Department “pattern and practice” investigation into Ferguson police after the death of Michael Brown led to a highly critical 2015 report, but the department also said this year that it was moving away from those types of investigations. Jensen was sworn in two days after Costantin’s letter. Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, asked Jensen for an investigation late last month, and Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, asked for one after Perry’s ruling. Clay called St. Louis “the poster child for the need of federal intervention to address decades of bad police relations that reinforce the decline and erode the trust of police-community relations.” On Monday, Clay said in an statement that he was “very

gratified” that Jensen and the Justice Department “responded so quickly.” Perry’s order limits certain conduct of St. Louis police during protests, including some of the activities that generated the most complaints. It says police can’t declare an “unlawful assembly” against those “engaged in expressive activity, unless the persons are acting in concert to pose an imminent threat to use force or violence or to violate a criminal law with force or violence.” Police can’t use pepper spray or a dispersal order to punish protesters, she wrote. They can’t use chemical agents against protesters without probable cause to make an arrest and without providing “clear and unambiguous warnings” and an opportunity to heed those warnings. And they cannot order protesters to disperse without giving them specifics about where to go, how long to stay away and the consequences for ignoring the order. In three days of testimony in U.S. District Court last month, protesters and others said that they were beaten and peppersprayed by police. Some were caught up in a controversial Sept. 17 police “kettle” and mass arrest. Police witnesses denied those claims. Jensen’s statements were first reported by the St. Louis American. Robert Patrick • 314-621-5154 @rxpatrick on Twitter RPatrick@post-dispatch.com

But Ebo’s work didn’t stop in Selma. “The one thing I didn’t want to do was to become a sweet little old nun that was passing out holy cards and telling people, ‘I’ll pray for you,’” she said in an interview with the Missouri History Museum. Instead, she spent her career dedicated to working in health care and advocating for social justice issues. In her 71 years with the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, she ran hospital administration in three different states, earned two master’s degrees and was certified as a chaplain through the National Association of Catholic Chaplains. She was also a founding member of the National Black Sisters Conference in 1968 and remained active with the organization for most of her life. “She never stopped challenging us to be better,” said Sister Anita Baird, vice president with the conference. “She was always fighting for whatever issues were current. She’d call you up and want to talk about what was going on at the time all the way through Ferguson and today.” Speakers at Ebo’s funeral described the nun as a mentor for many in her family as well as in religious life. “She kept plenty of us in the seminary when we were ready to go home,” said the Rev. Williams during his homily. Williams shared a story of speaking with Ebo at the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma. She was surrounded by people who remembered her role in the march. “I said, ‘Sister, how does it feel to be in this place, in this moment, 50 years later knowing that all that you did … helped to make this country more humane, more just and more free?” Williams said. She looked at him, shook her head and responded: “We have so much more to do.” Erin Heffernan • 314-340-8145 @erinheff on Twitter eheffernan@post-dispatch.com

Federal objections to deal surprise many on Wall Street AT&T • FROM A1

get passed down to consumers through their cable bills. In an emailed statement Monday, AT&T general counsel David McAtee said the lawsuit is a “radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent” and that the company is confident that it will prevail in court. AT&T runs the country’s second largest wireless network and is the biggest provider of traditional satellite and cable TV services. Time Warner owns HBO, CNN, TBS and other networks, as well as the Warner Bros. movie studio. The government’s objections to the deal surprised many on Wall Street. AT&T and Time Warner are not direct competitors, and “vertical” mergers between such companies have typically had an easier time winning government approval than deals that combine two rivals. The last time the U.S. government won a court victory in a vertical merger antitrust case was in 1972, when the Supreme Court said Ford’s takeover of a spark-plug business violated antitrust law. Many had expected government approval of the deal because Obama-era antitrust officials approved a similar deal — Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal — in 2011, after imposing restrictions on Comcast’s behavior that were meant to protect consumers.

As a candidate, however, Trump vowed to block the pending AT&T-Time Warner deal because it would concentrate too much “power in the hands of too few.” As president, Trump has often blasted CNN for its coverage of him and his administration, disparaging it and its reporters as “fake news.” At a press conference, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson addressed speculation over whether the government’s lawsuit was “all about CNN,” saying, “Frankly, I don’t know.” But Stephenson said AT&T would not agree to anything that would result in its losing control of CNN. A person familiar with the matter, who could not go on the record, previously told the Associated Press that the Justice Department wanted the combined company to sell either Turner — the parent of CNN, TBS and other networks — or DirecTV to satisfy its antitrust concerns. AT&T has argued that buying Time Warner would let it package and deliver video more cheaply, over the internet, rather than in expensive cable bundles. Consumer advocates and some Democratic politicians applauded the lawsuit as a blow against media consolidation. Consumers Union, an advocacy group that opposes the deal, said there were “legitimate reasons” to block the deal to protect consumers, but called reports of political pressure “concerning.”