An Intro to GRAM and SLMPD Policies & Procedures

In September of 2017 two St. Louis activists were surprised to find themselves seated on the same jury in a criminal trial. The activists reported to jury duty at a courthouse that was barricaded off due to another trial involving the 2011 police killing of Anthony Lamar Smith. In a city that has the highest annual average of police shootings per 100,000 residents (and 27 of the last of 31 killed from Jan 2013 were black), the murder trial had captivated the city’s attention. The tension was increasing with each passing week as Judge Timothy Wilson continued to deliberate on the verdict of the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith (a black man) by former St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) officer Jason Stockley (a white officer). The Ethical Society of Police (ESOP) and the National Coalition of Law Enforcement Officers released a statement and video calling on Judge Wilson to convict Stockley of murder. Their argument detailed a number of alarming findings and multiple violations of SLMPD policy. These included specific policies that, if followed, might have produced further incontestable evidence that Stockley was guilty of murder. Meanwhile, in the courtroom where the activists were seated, the jury listened to the lead homicide detective testify to the procedures she followed in obtaining the witnesses’ identification of the defendant. Her testimony indicated that not only had she violated departmental policy with regard to witness identification, but she also coerced the witnesses into make statements that they could not testify to under oath. Upon cross examination she became defensive and glib in her testimony of violating departmental policy, claiming that the Special Orders were merely “guidelines” and not policy.

This officer’s testimony and Stockley’s actions before and after the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith illustrate clear violations of police department policy. Many others are known to have occurred outside of these cases which include but are not limited to the repeated use of boilerplate search warrants and more recently the police tactic of kettling and the use of chemical weapons as a means of punishment for protesting (violation of Missouri Statute as well as Section XIII of the SLMPD Special Order 1-01). These incidents and others are indicative, at a minimum, of a subculture within the police department that views the proper execution of police department policy as unnecessary and inconsequential. The degree that this subculture permeates the SLMPD was evident in the Motion to Suppress Evidence in the State of Missouri vs Aaron White. During this trial, Judge Hogan told Officer Ellis Brown that his testimony on the issuance of the search warrant on Aaron White, “implicates practices and procedures within the entire Saint Louis Police department” and that she believed that the “entire St. Louis Police Department would like him to have an opportunity to consult with an attorney.” Despite officer testimony of departmental policy violations, in courtrooms staffed by paid professionals of the city and state, there is no indication that the officers are held accountable.

The policies of a police department are not going to protect the public from the egregious actions of corrupt officers who break the law or from officers who use deadly or excessive force based on overt or implicit racial biases against an individual. An exception to the above would be a department that creates and rewards policies of de-escalation instead of escalation. However, when upheld, the policies are an important step in protecting our innocence, our lives, and our constitutional rights – our freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, our fourth amendment rights barring illegal and unjustified searches, and our fifth amendment to name a few. In short, if followed, law enforcement policies offer a degree of accountability that protect us from miscarriages of justice and an overextension of governmental power.

Statistical evidence is often useful for gaining insight into the necessity of good departmental policy and officer compliance. With respect to eyewitness identification policies in Missouri, Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project states:

“Every wrongful conviction in Missouri that was reversed by DNA evidence involved eyewitness misidentification. In all nine of these cases, eyewitnesses mistakenly identified — and courts convicted — innocent people. Some of these innocent men spent years and even decades in jail while the real perpetrators remained free.”

While the national average for wrongful convictions by eyewitness misidentification is 71%, in Missouri it is 100%. Clearly these results indicate the current practices in Missouri are subpar compared to the rest of the nation. There are known policy changes that have been shown to reduce eyewitness misidentification. However, the Missouri legislature has repeatedly failed to pass legislation that would strengthen law enforcement policies across the state. Legislators who balk at reform claim prosecutors argue passionately against such legislative changes. It is hard to conceive that their arguments are more persuasive than the wrongfully convicted who have spent years behind bars, removed from their families and society, while the actual perpetrators remain free.

The Missouri Legislature’s failure to enact reform offers one example of why police policies and culture have been unjustly slow to change across the country. Within the past 100 years, reforms have occurred to comply with legislation, significant judicial decisions and “best practices”. The history of police interrogations illustrates the gradual but significant movement away from inhumane procedures and practices in the United States. Prior to the mid 1930s, police interrogations could escalate to the “third degree” (i.e. torture) until it was effectively outlawed with the ruling of Brown v. Mississippi (1936), a case in which the police beat and whipped three black men and attempted to hang one of them until they “confessed”. The culture of interrogation gradually changed until the 1960s when what is currently the predominant method of interrogation, the Reid Technique, was developed. And although the Fifth Amendment had been around for over 150 years, it wasn’t until the Supreme Court ruling of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) that protection against self-incrimination was applied to police questioning; Miranda Rights then become part of the interrogation policies of every department.

In the last three decades the Reid technique has come under increased scrutiny. The interrogation technique is based on confrontation, permits officers to lie to suspects, and produces a high number of false confessions. Other methods, such as the PEACE (Planning and preparation, Engage and explain, obtain an Account, Closure, and Evaluation) and the HIG method (High-value detainee Interrogation Group) are less confrontational, discourage or prohibit lying by officers, and produce fewer false confessions. In England, where the PEACE method has been used with great success, police are no longer permitted to lie to suspects under interrogation. Many leading voices in police and interrogation reform in the United States believe that the days in which officers are permitted to lie to the public, witnesses, and suspects are numbered.

Police department practices and policies can also change as a consequence of cultural shifts, civil unrest, and societal demands. This was the case with the SLMPD’s recognition of transgender rights. In March of 2017, the SLMPD issued Special Order 1-08 whose purpose was “To provide information concerning employee interactions with transgender and gender nonconforming individuals.” However, the SLMPD Manuals and Special Orders have lacked any significant changes to the policies regarding racial biases, whether implicit or overt, since the Ferguson Uprising. Although officers are required to attend POST classes on racial diversity, according to some officers these classes are not rigorous enough to combat the effect of the overt cultural, political, and media biases our society instills within us from birth. The resistance to changing the policies and practices of police departments across the state of Missouri continues despite the problematic findings of multiple civic groups that have studied the effects of racial biases in policing and the courtroom. The Vehicle Stops Report (VSR), issued annually (as required by law) by the Missouri Attorney General for the last 17 years, has continued to show racial disparities in policing. Despite the effort of a coalition of civic groups across Missouri, various state bills that would strengthen the data collection in the VSR and offer possible remedies to racial profiling have failed to pass the Missouri Legislature.

One would also expect to see significant changes to the Use of Force policies of the SLMPD during this time. Along with near continuous protests against police brutality and excessive force, demands have been made of the city government to re-envision public safety, shifting from the arrest and incarcerate model of policing to one of problem solving and community based policing. The demand for change from organizations across the St. Louis region has been relentless, yet significant movement toward community policing and needed revisions in the “use of force” policies have not been prioritized in the last 5 years. There isn’t one reference to de-escalation in the Police Manuals or Special Orders of the SLMPD (except with reference to the effect that body worn cameras might have on the public). There are references to the “use of force” and the “use of non-lethal force,” but not tactics to de-escalate situations to avoid the need for deadly force or to de-escalate a situation to where no force is required. Many believe that training alone is not sufficient to effect needed changes in officer behavior; the creation of de-escalation policy and rewarding officers for effective de-escalation of situations is also necessary.

Grassroots Accountability Movement (gram) hopes that publishing the Manuals and Special Orders that make up the policies of the SLMPD will prompt individuals, organizations, coalitions, Alders of Saint Louis, and other elected officials to study the policies of the department, to compare them to other police departments, and create meaningful changes to the SLMPD practices and culture.

gram is working on a number of accountability projects and obtained the Manuals and Special Orders of the SLMPD for those purposes. The original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was made December 1st, 2017, prior to the Public Forum where the six finalists for the SLMPD Police Chief were announced. The panel included the Interim Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole who was asked “Given the broken community relationship between the community and police, what are your plans to rebuild this bridge and start to heal the divide?”. O’Toole responded with a vow to increase transparency through the department’s website, publishing orders and policies, as well as “all our reports regarding discipline.” If O’Toole was interested in showing his dedication to accountability, transparency, and building trust with the community,  he could have released these early in his tenure as interim Police Chief (the gravity of his missteps was so great that this alone would not have made a difference in the perception of his tenure as interim police chief). Doing so would have demonstrated his commitment to these principles. The platitude “actions speak louder than words” has more than a grain of truth to it. It is gram’s hope that the newly appointed Police Chief John Hayden will publish the departmental policies on the police website and release all the department’s “reports regarding discipline”.

Although publication of these Manuals and Special Orders that make up the policies of the SLMPD does not in itself create change, it is yet one more place from which demands for change can be made.