ST. LOUIS — An organization that advocates on behalf of minority officers in St. Louis and elsewhere released a report Tuesday outlining a series of concerns with police operations, including what it says is unequal treatment in the hiring and promotion of officers.
The report by the Ethical Society of Police includes several examples meant to illustrate the unequal treatment of Black officers in the department, explaining that 73% of the recruits who went through training in June were white despite African American applicants outnumbering white ones.
The 60-page report also says the majority of the officers in specialized units are white, and that the number of Black officers in the department has fallen by 4% since 2016.
Black officers “are being hired and then they are leaving,” ESOP President Heather Taylor said. “We’re not keeping them. We have a problem.”
Mayoral spokesman Jacob Long said Tuesday that Mayor Lyda Krewson had not had enough time to look over the report and so was unable to comment.
A similar report was released in 2016, Taylor said, explaining that she wants the police department to do a better job of adhering to civil service rules that are applied to city employees, a change that she said would encourage better hiring and disciplinary practices, resulting in an improved work environment for officers.
Civil service law “protects everyone,” Taylor said. “It does a better job of having checks and balances in place. … We can’t keep throwing money at the problem. We can’t keep paying lawsuits and doubling the city’s budget for lawsuits.”
The report references several high-profile incidents that resulted in lawsuits by minority officers against the city, including when a Black undercover officer was injured by officers while working a protest in 2017.
The Ethical Society provided 25 suggestions for improving department operations, including following civil service law, creating a clear path for promotions and forming a diversity council.
Other suggestions include:
• Requiring body cameras for all officers, and the suspension of an officer if a camera is turned off while handling a case. An officer would be fired if a camera is turned off during an incident in which someone dies.
• Finding a “balance” between qualified immunity that’s provided to officers and addressing “unjust actions” by police that result in death.
• Making all police disciplinary records public.
• Requiring that all in-custody deaths and police shootings be reviewed by a grand jury. EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been updated to correct the percentage of white recruits who went through training in June.