Missouri Police Officers Often Stay Licensed After Serious Misconduct

Two St. Louis law enforcement officials hit a handcuffed man and shocked him with a Taser, resulting in a $600,000 settlement. A deputy in southwest Missouri was convicted of assaulting one other deputy’s spouse. An officer in southeast Missouri who kicked a person on the bottom and wrote a deceptive report was fired.

They saved their Missouri police licenses and are nonetheless working as officers, regardless of being introduced earlier than a state self-discipline board.

Misconduct is meant to be reported to the Missouri Division of Public Security, however generally it takes years for that to occur — if it’s ever accomplished. Police division officers aren’t required to report misconduct inside a sure period of time and face no penalties for failing to take action. Missouri isn’t a state that mechanically revokes a police license when an officer is convicted of a severe crime.

The Marshall Challenge – St. Louis reviewed over 600 misconduct allegations vetted by two companies earlier than going earlier than a state fee. The overview unveiled a course of that may take years to handle an issue and routinely permits officers who’ve dedicated severe wrongdoing to maintain their jobs.

The findings increase questions on how efficient the state is at rooting out cops who’ve violated their duties. Many even proceed to work whereas underneath investigation.

Police accountability advocates say Missouri’s system undermines public security and belief.

“The stakes are simply too excessive relating to legislation enforcement and the ability that they maintain over individuals’s lives,” stated Lauren Bonds, govt director of the Nationwide Police Accountability Challenge.

Missouri’s police licensing system has free rules enforced by an internet of companies. State legislation additionally prevents Division of Public Security officers from disclosing the place officers labored prior to now. The so-called muni shuffle, when an officer strikes round to completely different municipalities, could be an indicator that they’ve run into hassle of their profession.

Z Gorley, a spokesperson for the authorized advocacy group ArchCity Defenders, stated they had been involved not solely in regards to the potential for officers to modify departments, but additionally about transparency.

The Missouri Division of Public Security is accountable for issuing the police licenses required to work as a sworn officer. Its Peace Officer Requirements and Coaching program investigates studies of misconduct. The division’s spokesperson, Mike O’Connell, stated anybody can submit a grievance, although most come from police departments. When division officers study of an incident via information studies, they will additionally open a case.

If officers decide an officer ought to face self-discipline, they then ship the case to the Missouri legal professional common’s workplace. Officers there can file a grievance with the Administrative Listening to Fee, which decides if self-discipline is warranted. Whether it is, the deputy director can droop or revoke a license, or place it on probation, O’Connell stated.

Missouri Division of Public Security Director Mark James and officers with the Administrative Listening to Fee declined an interview. The Missouri legal professional common’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The Marshall Challenge – St. Louis analyzed 627 instances dealt with by the Administrative Listening to Fee courting again to 2014. The evaluation recognized info, together with the character of the allegation, the approximate size of time between the incident and the start of formal proceedings, and the end result. It took a median of no less than 539 days for a grievance to be filed. One officer pleaded responsible to driving whereas intoxicated in 2008, however his case was delivered to the fee in 2022. That officer’s license is on probation.

In half of the instances involving a dying, it took over a yr to get a case filed. A grievance was filed three and a half years after former Missouri State Trooper Anthony Piercy handcuffed a person to a ship, who was then ejected and drowned. Conversely, when former St. Louis Police Officer Nathaniel Hendren fatally shot one other officer whereas taking part in a sport, a case was filed 5 days later.

The fee also can sluggish the method. A case filed in November 2021 stays unresolved. Generally that provides officers the possibility to get a brand new job earlier than they’re penalized.

Of the 627 instances that reached the fee, 73 concerned allegations of sexual misconduct. Of these, 33 concerned kids. A grievance filed final yr alleged a former St. Louis police officer compelled a 7-year-old woman to have oral intercourse. Baby welfare providers substantiated the accusation. An evidentiary listening to on his license is scheduled for Oct. 7. He has since gotten a job with a distinct division.

Out of the 627 complaints, 135 officers surrendered their licenses and 150 had them revoked. The remaining had been unresolved, on probation, suspended or expired. In some instances, officers convicted of crimes together with fraud and armed financial institution theft had been allowed to maintain their license till it expired.

Even after an officer has been criminally charged, instances fail to succeed in the fee. A obtrusive instance is that of Eric DeValkenaere, a former Kansas Metropolis detective who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a 2019 capturing. When his jail sentence was commuted in December 2024, he was nonetheless licensed. A division spreadsheet dated June 30 exhibits DeValkenaere has now surrendered it. A number of officers who’ve appeared in information tales due to prison prices haven’t confronted formal actions on their licenses.

O’Connell stated the Missouri Division of Public Security can not management delays in reporting incidents to the state company or the tempo at which instances transfer with the legal professional common’s workplace and the fee. Felony instances additionally take priority over licensing. The division has taken steps to strengthen the system, he stated, together with implementing a program that alerts division officers when an officer is arrested. It doesn’t embrace officers who attended legislation enforcement coaching earlier than 2018.

Requiring police officers to report misconduct inside a sure period of time is a straightforward, common sense resolution, stated Megan Crane, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Heart, a nonprofit civil rights agency.

Carlton Mayers II, an legal professional and policing reform professional, recommended instituting computerized decertification for some convictions and permitting the Missouri Division of Public Security to behave independently from the legal professional common’s workplace and the Administrative Listening to Fee.

Different states have strengthened their police licensing oversight constructions. In Illinois, officers convicted of felonies and sure misdemeanors mechanically lose their license. Following the 2024 deadly capturing of Sonya Massey, Illinois additionally signed a measure requiring extra thorough background checks that embrace an officer’s efficiency data and inner investigations. Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New Hampshire have additionally handed laws lately. In neighboring Kansas, the general public has entry to a police officer’s employment historical past, and the state’s Fee on Peace Officers’ Requirements and Coaching has direct authority to revoke a license.

O’Connell stated the Missouri Division of Public Security has elevated its investigators from one to 4, and lately has “extra aggressively sought voluntary peace officer license surrenders,” which resolves instances extra shortly than going via the Administrative Listening to Fee.