ST. LOUIS (AP) — Some of Missouri’s top leaders tried unsuccessfully to pressure Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson to resign after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, interviews with several elected officials and newly released records show.
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III told The Associated Press on Friday that top state officials had several meetings where they applied pressure on the city to force Jackson to resign. Missouri House Speaker John Diehl and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill confirmed they both attended a fall meeting to discuss whether Jackson should be forced out.
Also, records provided to AP under an open records request include a Nov. 10 email from St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar to an assistant that describes an apparent meeting of state and local officials. It references the potential timing of Jackson’s “separation” and identifies a potential successor.
Brown, 18 and unarmed, was shot by officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, and the shooting of a black suspect by a white officer led to significant unrest in St. Louis County.
Jackson’s leadership drew wide criticism from the outset, both for the aggressive police response to protesters and for his agency’s erratic and infrequent releases of key information. He refused to publicly identify Wilson as the shooter for nearly a week after Brown’s death, then simultaneously released the name with store security video that police said showed Brown stealing a box of cigars and shoving a clerk a short time before his death.
The unrest in St. Louis County escalated after the Nov. 24 announcement that a grand jury declined to indict Wilson, who later resigned.
Knowles on Friday refused to name any of the officials who urged Jackson’s removal.
“I was at a lot of meetings where that was brought up,” Knowles said. “There were different people advocating for the chief to be fired or quit or whatever. I want to make it clear: We never considered that.”
A message left with Jackson was not returned.
McCaskill confirmed in a written statement that she attended such a meeting — one of many involving community leaders, elected officials and members of law enforcement, the statement said.
“And a variety of issues were discussed to help ease tension in the St. Louis region, and address systemic issues highlighted in Ferguson-issues including personnel changes at the Ferguson police department,” the statement said.
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and his chief of staff, Jeff Rainford, attended several such meetings, Rainford said.
Diehl said he participated in two meetings — one in Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster’s office in St. Louis — in which officials discussed efforts to try to get both Jackson and Wilson to resign. Diehl said the meetings occurred around the time of the Nov. 4 elections and he disagreed with the attempts to seek their resignations, because the grand jury process was ongoing.
“A substantial part of the conversation centered around trying to get Darren Wilson to resign prior to the decision of the grand jury and to get Chief Jackson to resign, and I didn’t have any interest in participating in that,” Diehl, a Republican from the St. Louis suburb of Town and Country, said.
Diehl said Jackson’s resignation would have left “a leadership vacuum” on the police force and “I didn’t think it was proper for someone in my position to get involved.”
The email from Belmar has the subject line, “Ferguson Chief Jackson Meeting,” and the text is written in note form. At one point it indicates that a St. Louis County police lieutenant colonel named Doyle “will become the ranking officer of the FPD.” Doyle’s first name isn’t given, but Troy Doyle is a lieutenant colonel for the county.
The email lists several names of apparent attendees: McCaskill, Koster, Slay, Rainford, Diehl, Doyle, then-St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley and U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay.
Spokespeople for Clay and Koster declined comment, and messages seeking comment from Dooley and St. Louis County police were not returned.
The email also made reference to a request to Gov. Jay Nixon to place the National Guard in front of Ferguson police headquarters on the date of the grand jury announcement. “Apparently the guard will not move to the FPD per the governor,” the email said.
Knowles and others were critical of the decision not to have the Guard in place at the time of the announcement, after a dozen area businesses were destroyed in fires during protests.
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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The police chief did seem particularly competent, so this is hardly surprising.
The majority population of Ferguson, do what you have to, to get your city back. It will take time, but the only way to change things is to throw ALL the bums out!
The police chief and the DA stood their ground…
Most always bad news for minorities
Yes but in the case of Ferguson being Black puts you in the majority. So lets talk about that. Ferguson is about 2/3 Black. Yet it has a White Mayor, White Police Chief and 5 out of 6 of its City Council members are White. Its police force is over 90 % White.
But the Mayor ran unopposed in his last election. So WTF? Can we blame it on the Blacks in Ferguson just not bothering to vote? Probably as only 12.3 % of eligible voters in Ferguson actually voted in the last election. In the last few elections numbers under 10 % have been common. Ferguson’s elections for Mayor and City Council take place in April and they will have an election in 2015. But in the 90 days after the shooting only 128 new voter registrations took place.
So imagine this scenario: After the shooting of this young man there is no looting or incendiary protest. Instead the Black Community’s leaders get folks to register to vote. They promise that in the next election Blacks are going to vote as a block and at full strength even if the have to carry them to the polls on their shoulders. What do you think that DA and Mayor would have done had there been a real political threat to them? Throw Officer Wilson under the bus is a reasonable assumption.
I believe that kid was murdered by an angry cop. The cop’s anger was not motivated by Brown’s law breaking ( he was jay walking ) but in Brown’s refusal to cow tow to him. In fact I am certain that is the case. But given what I said above it’s hard to feel sorry for the Black Community of Ferguson. All they have to do is get off their asses and they could run the joint from top to bottom. Had they stopped the unproductive protest for the pursuit of political power this thing would have gone down quite differently.
Feel better now?