果酱视频

ST. LOUIS 鈥� Three months after a 果酱视频 public safety official said the city planned to review how off-duty police officers are used by private companies to patrol some neighborhoods, city officials said they had identified a consultant to do the work but were still looking for a way to pay for it.

The pledge to review police moonlighting came in September, after ProPublica revealed how the use of private police forces in 果酱视频 exacerbates disparities in how the city is protected. Deputy Public Safety Director Heather Taylor, responding to ProPublica鈥檚 findings, said the city would hire a consultant to study the issue.

Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said more recently that she intends to make changes to the private policing system to eliminate the disparities.

鈥淭he well-heeled few, or those who pay extra taxes, shouldn鈥檛 get extra protection,鈥� Jones said in a this month. 鈥淲e all pay taxes in order to make sure that we get equal protection from our police department.鈥�

The police department could be set for an overhaul with Jones鈥� appointment last week of its first chief from outside the agency in its 214-year history. Robert Tracy, the chief in Wilmington, Delaware, will start Jan. 9.

Tracy could not be reached; Jones and Taylor did not respond to requests for comment. But Monte Chambers, a program manager for the Public Safety Department, said the city planned to hire a consultant who is already working on another project for the city to review other policing issues, including the city鈥檚 private policing system.

The review would begin 鈥渙nce I have found a funding source,鈥� Chambers said in an email last week.

Chambers did not respond to additional questions seeking details about the review.

While the publicly funded 果酱视频 Metropolitan Police Department struggles to deploy officers in visible roles across the city, ProPublica found that about 200 of them work part time for the city鈥檚 biggest private policing firm in some of the wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods.

Unlike in other places where officers moonlight in security roles, 果酱视频 officers wear their city police uniforms and can investigate crimes, stop pedestrians or vehicles and make arrests while working for private policing companies.

The investigation found that city employees working as private police officers were sometimes offered monetary rewards for working on specific cases and that 果酱视频鈥� largest policing firm, The City鈥檚 Finest, employs many of the police department鈥檚 highest ranking officers, including four of the six district commanders.

Some of those commanders sometimes work on trivial matters for their private clients while the police department struggles to deploy officers to parts of the city grappling with violent crime.

Jones, elected in 2021, has criticized policing in 果酱视频 as 鈥渋nefficient and ineffective鈥� and, in the radio interview, lamented that private policing makes the city stand out for its disparities. She has talked about restructuring the department and shifting funding to programs that try to prevent crime, such as mental health services and job training initiatives.

Megan Green, who in November was elected president of the city鈥檚 Board of Aldermen and is the city鈥檚 second-highest-ranking official, said private policing was an issue that the new chief 鈥渘eeds to take up pretty quickly.鈥� She also said the Board of Aldermen should examine the source of funding for private policing: the neighborhood taxing districts that raise millions of dollars a year.

Many affluent city neighborhoods have created taxing districts, the latest formed this summer in south-side Holly Hills. The districts are authorized by state law, but they periodically need to be renewed by property owners and the city. Green said the board could try to determine if 鈥渢here are some taxing districts that need to be dissolved.鈥�

鈥淚 think that the special taxing districts definitely create inequities in our city,鈥� Green said. She said the city should 鈥渂e more strategic about where special taxing districts are created. We historically have not had a lot of strategies around that as a city, which I think has created even greater inequities.鈥�

The Board of Alderman鈥檚 Public Safety Committee had planned to talk about private policing during a meeting last week, but officials from the city鈥檚 Public Safety Department did not show up and the discussion wasn鈥檛 held.

Eliminating private policing could potentially roil the city. Luke Reynolds, chair of a taxing district in the city鈥檚 Soulard neighborhood that raises about $300,000 a year for private policing, said that if city police officers were barred from working for the private company that patrols his area, the neighborhood would look at other ways to enhance public safety.

鈥淚 have no idea what that would look like,鈥� he said.

鈥淚 have said all along that I don鈥檛 necessarily think the system is really necessarily fair. But then again, there is a lot of inequity in the world, unfortunately,鈥� said Reynolds, who owns a bar in Soulard. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to try to make our neighborhood as safe as we can within the system that exists.鈥�

Don Bellon, who owns a wrecking and salvage business and serves on a board that hires private police in the Grove entertainment district near the city鈥檚 central corridor, said paying for policing was necessary 鈥渂ecause the city can鈥檛 provide it.鈥�

But he said he was frustrated with a lack of accountability for private officers. At a recent Grove board meeting, he questioned what the private officers were doing on a night when several crimes were committed.

鈥淭here鈥檚 really no oversight on them,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e freelancing. They just decide where to go.鈥�

Charles 鈥淩ob鈥� Betts, who owns The City鈥檚 Finest, did not respond to a request for comment. Betts has called his company 鈥渆ssentially an extension of the police department鈥� for neighborhoods who want to hire more police. And he has defended giving officers rewards for working on specific cases as not unlike an officer being recognized for good police work at a luncheon.

In reporting on policing in 果酱视频 this year, ProPublica showed that police and neighborhood advocates have sought court orders to banish individuals from large sections of the city and officers have enforced those mandates through arrests 鈥� a practice legal experts said few cities have taken to such extremes. Representatives for the mayor did not respond to requests for comment.

In a partnership with APM Reports this year, ProPublica also found 果酱视频 had massaged its murder totals in a way that may have violated FBI crime reporting guidelines and created false optimism about police performance. The city quietly lowered its murder counts for 2020 and 2021 by classifying more than three dozen killings as justifiable homicides 鈥� deaths not included in the city鈥檚 murder count. Neither the department nor representatives for Jones responded to requests for comment for the story.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. , a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.