Every Day Numbers for the 14th District
CHILDREN & FAMILY SERVICES
Division of Child Support Enforcement
(314) 264-7700
Jewish Family and Children's Services
(314) 993-1000
NAACP - St. Louis County Branch
(314) 389-1552
St. Louis County Human Services
(314) 615-4453
Youth Emergency Services
(314) 727-6294
CONSUMER PROTECTION
Consumer Credit Counseling Services
(314) 647-9004
Consumer
Credit Reports
1-877-322-8228
Missouri Consumer Protection Hotline
1-800-392-8222
Missouri Dept. of Insurance Consumer Information
1-800-726-7390
CRISIS HOTLINES
The Women's Safe House
(314) 772-4535
Youth Emergency Service Hotline
(314) 727-6294
St. Louis Housing Resource Center
(Homeless Hotline)
(314) 802-5444
Life Crisis Services, Inc. (for Adults)
(24-Hour)
(314) 647-4357
Elderly Abuse Hotline
1-800-392-0210
Child Abuse & Neglect Hotline
(24-Hours)
1-800-392-3738
Alcohol Drug Interventions & Drug Treatment Referrals
1-888-762-3750
Trevor Lifeline
(For at-risk LGBT youth: 24-Hours)
1-866-488-7386
HEALTH-RELATED SERVICES
Alzheimer's Association
1-800-272-3900
Birth & Death Records
(314) 615-1720
HIGHER EDUCATION
Missouri School for the Blind
(314) 776-4320
Paraquad, Inc.
(314) 289-4200
HOUSING
Beyond Housing
(314) 533-0600
Housing Authority -
St. Louis County
(314) 428-3200
Home Improvement Grants (North County)
(314) 615-8232
PREGNANCY COUNSELING
Abortion Alternatives
(314) 962-5300
Planned Parenthood & Reproductive Health Services of St. Louis
(314) 531-7526
SENIOR CITIZEN SERVICES
Missouri Rx Program
1-800-375-1406
Long-Term Care Information - Ombudsman
(314) 918-8222
Older Adult Community Action Program
(314) 993-5181
Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (Elderly Law Unit)
(314) 534-4200
TOUR THE CAPITAL CITY
State Capitol Tours
(573) 751-2854
TRANSPORTATION
Call-A-Ride
(314) 652-3617
VETERANS BENEFITS
American Red Cross Blood Services
(314) 658-2000
Missouri Veterans Commission
(573) 751-3779
St. Louis County Office of Veterans' Services
(314) 552-9890
VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATIONS
Big Brothers
Big Sisters
(314) 361-5900
Foster Grandparents
(314) 961-8000
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Newsletter
April 2, 2015
Friends & Neighbors,
If you would like to learn more about the issues addressed in this newsletter or would like to discuss any matter involving state government, please contact my Capitol office.
Thank you,
Maria Chappelle-Nadal
14th District
(573) 751-4106
The past few weeks have been tumultuous times. Faced with a report from the Department of Justice that illustrated a history of racial abuse and corruption, we have seen upheavals and strife in the aftermath. Some of this was necessary, such as the ousting of the officials who allowed these crimes to happen under their watch. Other episodes were tragic and disheartening, such as the recent outbreak of violence in the wake of efforts to reform. When our American institutions of law and order betray us, the concept of justice itself is thrown into question. What we need now is a reference – Mahatma Gandhi once spoke of an authority that supercedes all others, the “court of conscience”. While our courts may often stray from the ideals of their makers, it is our knowledge of right and wrong – from within our own hearts – that has final jurisdiction. This week I have been working on reforms guided by conscience, below are some my efforts.
On March 11, I met with the press and civil rights activists to speak about my recent initiative on racial justice. My dismay at the horrific findings contained in the Department of Justice Report on Ferguson has moved me to create reform. While my efforts are focused upon the multitude of wrongdoings shown to have definitely occurred, I also aim to shine a light on those abuses that remain hidden. One section of the report, for example, noted the lack of usable records for pedestrian stops. This turned out to be an important figure to leave out, as later interviews supported that African Americans were stopped on the street with far greater frequency, and often for no reason.
I have been working closely with the American Civil Liberties Union on designing policy to remove the influence of racial discrimination from police practices and tactics. The legislation I am sponsoring, the Fair and Impartial Policing Act (Senate Bill 559), will combat bias-based policing by improving accountability through several means:
- This bill requires law enforcement agencies to document data from pedestrian stops, which, as many reports and studies have shown, represent the most frequent occurrences of police exercising racial bias.
- Clearly written policies on racial bias in policing must be adopted by each agency, as well as mandated training on the subject.
- Police agencies must submit all demographic data from arrests and stops to the Attorney General’s Office. Should a pattern of bias be discovered, that agency will be subject to review by the Police Officers Standards and Training Commission.
- Additional measures mandate records of actual reasons for searches conducted by officers, as well as requiring that the person to be searched gives voluntary consent. This will address the numerous instances in which unauthorized searches escalate into harmful confrontation.
- Another part of this bill applies to regaining trust – measures are included for constructing partnerships between law enforcement and community groups.
These provisions are necessary safeguards, put in place to prevent the arbitrary and illegal policies of the past few years from ever again throwing the state of Missouri into chaos. I was joined in my remarks by representatives from the ACLU, as well as supporters with the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Coalition.
Six Ferguson Officials Ousted – Chief Jackson Follows Suit, Mayor Knowles Last Holdout |
The final judgment rendered by the Department of Justice has resulted in a series of resignations/firings, which included two police officers, one court clerk, and three Ferguson city officials. The latter three were Judge Ronald Brockmeyer, City Manager John Shaw, and most recently, Police Chief Thomas Jackson. While there had already been wide public outcry against Jackson’s allowance of racist culture to flourish under his watch, this report cost him the last shred of credibility he had – the pressure brought down in the aftermath has forced him to step down. I welcome this turn of events; Ferguson can only be cured by venting the poisoned atmosphere of corruption that surrounds its leadership. The only solution is to clean house from top to bottom – it is not enough to simply remove a few offending officers, the whole system needs to be turned over. While I am happy that the city of Fergusion is making some effort in this regard, I am still waiting for the last holdouts to be addressed, as they have no place in the future of Ferguson.
Special Report: Discriminatory Policies of Ferguson PD Exposed, Department of Justice Report Elaborates |
On Wednesday, March 4, the Department of Justice released a report detailing the history of abuses perpetrated by the Ferguson Police Department and court system over the past years, ranging from procedural misconduct to deliberate violations of Constitutional rights. In many cases, this document confirmed what we already knew about patterns of discrimination and lack of integrity in the department. What these latest revelations do is give us a sense of scope: We now have insight into the extent of these issues, and how long this has been happening.
Some of the more disturbing entries depicted an atmosphere of intimidation. Citizens would be regularly exposed to verbal and physical abuse from police, and any objection to said treatment, regardless of legitimacy, would be met with brutal suppression. Several entries concerned officers’ demands of citizens to show identification, without any reasonable cause:
- In one case, the victim first asserted his rights, but eventually reached for his ID after being repeatedly ordered to do so. He was then tackled to the ground for “attempted assault.”
- One man sitting in his car denied an officer’s demand for an unauthorized search of his vehicle, and had a gun pointed to his head. (This man was charged with False Declaration for stating his name was “Mike,” instead of Michael, and the arrest later cost him his job as a federal contractor)
- Another man sitting at a bus stop was ordered to come over to an officer’s vehicle. When the man asked why, he was verbally abused, and again told to give his ID. After checking for warrants, (finding none) the officer told the man to “get the hell out of his face.”
These actions were not only questionable procedure, they directly infringed on Constitutional rights. The routinely-used “Stop-and-identify” policy from these stories, for example, plainly violates the Fourth Amendment. What’s more, these abuses were apparently committed knowingly. One officer admitted to regularly exceeding his authority by charging people with “Failure to Comply” when they refused to show identification upon his demand – even though this was their right.
- This behavior occurred so frequently that it was incorporated into office jargon. The DOJ probe revealed regular use of terms within the agency such as “terry-stops,” or “ped-stops”, to indicate the stop was made without any objective reasoning for suspicion.
- Officers would often use state resources in ways that distorted their intended purpose. The Statewide Law Enforcement Database, for instance, is a system meant to track offenders who cannot immediately be located, and the “wanted” entries submitted by officers are supposed to be based on probable cause.
- Ferguson PD often used this database as a way to circumvent probable cause – as one senior officer was quoted, “I will put out a wanted if I do not have enough probable cause to arrest you.”
- In another case, a detective was told by a prosecutor in an e-mail that there was not enough evidence from his investigation to justify a warrant, to which the detective responded that he would put out a “wanted” entry – essentially because they lacked probable cause.
- The First Amendment violations that were highlighted during the protests were shown to have been going on for some time. The report found that officers would often justify enforcement decisions based on what people say, and how they say it.
- Disturbingly, police would routinely prevent people from recording their activities. The report uncovered several instances in which officers had confiscated phones and other recording devices.
Disregard for procedure was not only used as a shortcut for arrests, Ferguson police demonstrated arbitrary practices for ticketing as well. Officers would often issue multiple redundant citations for one single offense, which of course resulted in much higher charges. As determined by the report, victims of that abuse were usually guilty of being the wrong color – Blacks were overwhelmingly represented among those charged with ambiguous offenses such as “walking in the street,” or “disturbing the peace” This pattern extended to the roads, numbers given by the report showed huge disparities between the percentages of Black residents in Ferguson and the frequency with which they were stopped by officers.
- An officer charged a man for “Peace Disturbance” for loud music coming from his car, even though such a charge requires a complaint from a third party, and no such person had raised one.
- During these stops, Blacks were twice as likely to be searched – even though the data shows that contraband was found more often in searches of white drivers.
- “Offenders” would then have to navigate the court system, which was notorious for failing to provide adequate information about mandatory appearances, as well as issuing arrest warrants for minor infractions. (96% of arrests from outstanding warrants were of Black citizens).
- It is important to note here that over half of the active municipal charges in Ferguson require a court appearance. These include violations such as “Dog Creating Nuisance”, “Equipment Violations”, “No Passing Zone”, “Housing – Overgrown Vegetation”, and “Failure to Remove Leaf Debris”.
The report found that Black citizens were also treated much more severely by police – 90% of all situations in which police resorted to physical force involved a Black citizen. Worse, still, there had been 14 documented cases in which police dogs were used to attack suspects, and every one of them had been Black.
- The amount of force used seemed to have little to do with the needs of the situation – police used tasers against at least two women who did not pose a physical threat, and one young man who was already being subdued by a police dog.
The report did not just give a series of disparate events, it explained a culture – further probes uncovered a slew of racist emails from the municipal accounts of police and court officials containing jokes of hateful and demeaning nature. These included President Obama being compared to a chimpanzee, and crude Black stereotypes involving child support and unemployment. One excerpt compared abortions from Black mothers to crime control, and another featured a picture of topless tribal women labeled as “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”
In the face of this information, what reasoning, aside from prejudice and corruption, could have guided these policies? These incidents must be understood in their context: We see arbitrary ticketing practices and stacking of multiple redundant citations, and then must consider the reality that these charges amount to the second largest source of revenue for the City of Ferguson. We observe the tendency towards racial bias in police stops, arrests, and escalation of force – and are faced with evidence that self-described servants of the public felt completely at home exchanging racist comments with the aid of taxpayer money. This underlines the kind of casual prejudice that could only thrive in the complete absence of oversight. It also frames these past transgressions as what they are: Symptoms of not just dysfunction, but real, palpable hatred – concealed for years, if not decades, with the blessing of an institution.
While some officials of the City of Ferguson have publicly stated their intent to reform, the truth is that people are still struggling with the legal consequences of these policies. Records created from illegal stops and arrests have cost the citizens of Ferguson their livelihoods – as court payments and additional offenses multiply, opportunities for employment and education move further out of reach. Unless measures are taken to correct these illegitimate sentences, the people of Ferguson will not be able to recover. In any concept of justice, there is no defense for continuing to hold citizens accountable for arrests that were never constitutional in the first place. For these reasons, I have called for the expunging of all records from racially-motivated police stops in Ferguson.
 |
She’s Speaking Up for the Voiceless in Ferguson (The Root)
Diehl Proposes Changes to Handling Missouri Traffic Fines (Associated Press)
THE JACO REPORT: Still fragmented by design (The St. Louis American)
What's next for the Ferguson police department (St. Louis Public Radio)
Write-in candidate upset with Maria Chappelle-Nadal's actions (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Take Jail Off the Table (The St. Louis American)
Change Systems or People? Beyond Ferguson Debates Way Forward (Peoria Public Radio)
CNN's Carol Costello talks to MO State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal about Ferguson
State Senator: 'There is no credibility' when it comes to Ferguson (MSNBC)
Manhunt for Ferguson Police Shooter Sparks More Outrage (ABC News)
Why did the Ferguson Police chief resign now (CNN)
Ferguson Police Chief to step down after release of scathing DOJ report (MSNBC)
Chappelle-Nadal, ACLU push new law enforcement regulations (Missouri Times)
Ferguson, Mo., police chief resigns (USA Today)
St Louis American “Ferguson Police Chief Resigns (The St. Louis American)
Can the Ferguson Police Department Be Fixed? (Newsweek)
Two state Senators want Ferguson PD Disbanded (KHQA)
Ferguson police chief to net nearly $100,000 upon resignation (Mashable)
DOJ report recharges outrage in Ferguson (Hexa News)
Community discussion on Ferguson brings call for more police accountability
“Thank you for all that you do” – Ron W.
“Maria…it is great to see how you conduct yourself in these tumultuous times. I am proud to know you.” – Ralph B.
“I am very impressed by your character, comprehension and integrity. Thank you for sponsoring legislation meaningful to Missouri citizens.” – Linda Y.
“I want to thank you for not forgetting my birthday. It meant so much.” – Patricia J.
“Senator, I want to express my heartfelt thanks for introducing SB 559. You know the importance of these policy changes for MO’s immigrant and refugee residents. Thank you for your ongoing leadership.” – Vanessa C.
Keynote Address at Concordia College
On March 12, I visited Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota for a celebration of Women’s History Month. In my keynote address, I spoke on past struggles in Ferguson and beyond, in a presentation entitled: Waking Up, Finding Your Voice, Lifting the Veil. It was a wonderful experience to meet with all the engaged students, as well as my hosts at the Office of Intercultural Affairs and Women and Gender Studies.
Chinese New Year
It’s that time of year – I recently celebrated Chinese New Year with some great friends, the best part was meeting little Ethan!
Meet the next generation of leaders – students from Flynn Park Elementary in University City came to visit our office at the Capitol recently!