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New oversight plan means closer scrutiny of St. Louis police
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FILE - LaShell Eikerenkoetter chants, on a megaphone protesting the recent acquittal of a white former police officer, Jason Stockley, in the killing of a black man, Anthony Lamar Smith, on Friday, Sept. 22, 2017 in St. Charles, Mo. On Aug. 3, Mayor Tishaura Jones signed into law an ordinance establishing a Division of Civilian Oversight. But three police officer associations are suing to stop the measure that they claim hinders due process for officers and conflicts with state law. - photo by David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Eight years after Michael Brown’s death pushed the St. Louis region front and center into the national debate over police accountability, the city’s elected officials and its police associations are at odds over a new oversight plan. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, a progressive Democrat elected last year in part on her pledge to hold police more accountable, this month signed into law a bill creating a Division of Civilian Oversight, an independent agency to investigate allegations of police misconduct and use of force incidents. Jones, who is Black, said at a news conference before the Aug. 3 bill signing that Black St. Louisans are more than four times more likely to be subjected to force by police than whites.