The Metropolitan Police Department of the City of St. Louis is the primary law enforcement agency for the U.S. city of St. Louis.
Jeffrey Roorda is an American politician. He was a Democratic member of the Missouri House of Representatives, serving from 2005 to 2010 and again from 2013 to 2015. Roorda ran for the Missouri Senate in District 22 in 2014, but he was defeated by Paul Wieland, a Republican from Imperial. A former police officer, he is also the executive director and business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association (SLPOA). SLPOA is Lodge #68 of the Fraternal Order of Police, covering the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD).
On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.
Robert P. McCulloch is an American former prosecutor who was the American Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County, Missouri, a post he held from 1991 until 2019. A Democrat, he historically had bipartisan support as a prosecutor and won re-election in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014, often unopposed, but by wide margins when he had an opponent. McCulloch held the highest paid position within St. Louis County government with an annual salary of $160,000. In 2018, he lost his bid for re-election in the Democratic primary to reformist challenger Wesley Bell by a 13.24% margin.
The Ferguson unrest were a series of protests and riots which began in Ferguson, Missouri on August 10, 2014, the day after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by FPD officer Darren Wilson. The unrest sparked a vigorous debate in the United States about the relationship between law enforcement officers and African Americans, the militarization of police, and the use-of-force law in Missouri and nationwide. Continuing activism expanded the issues by including modern-day debtors prisons, for-profit policing, and school segregation.
On November 22, 2014, Tamir E. Rice, a 12-year-old African American boy, was killed in Cleveland, Ohio, by Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old white police officer. Rice was carrying a replica toy gun; Loehmann shot him almost immediately upon arriving on the scene. Two officers, Loehmann and 46-year-old Frank Garmback, were responding to a police dispatch call regarding a male who had a gun. A caller reported that a male was pointing "a pistol" at random people at the Cudell Recreation Center, a park in the City of Cleveland's Public Works Department. At the beginning of the call and again in the middle, he says of the pistol "it's probably fake." Toward the end of the two-minute call the caller states that "he is probably a juvenile", but the dispatcher did not relay either of these statements to Loehmann and Garmback.
"Hands up, don't shoot", sometimes shortened to "hands up", is a slogan and gesture that originated after the August 9, 2014, shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, United States and then adopted at protests against police brutality in the U.S.A. The slogan implies one has their hands in the air, a common sign of submission, and is therefore not a threat to an approaching police officer. Witness reports from the Brown shooting are conflicted as to what Brown was doing with his hands when he was shot. One witness claimed Brown had his hands in the air before being killed, which was the basis for the slogan.
The killing of John Crawford III occurred on August 5, 2014. Crawford was a 22-year-old African-American man shot and killed by a police officer in a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, near Dayton, while he was holding a BB gun that was for sale in the store. The shooting was captured on surveillance video and led to protests from groups including the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement.
On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by two Baton Rouge Police Department officers, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The officers, who were attempting to control Sterling's arms, shot Sterling to death, which was preceded by Salamoni threatening Sterling with his gun before Sterling was restrained, yelling that he would "shoot [Sterling] in the fucking head" if he moved. Police alleged that Sterling had reached for the loaded handgun in his pants pocket. Police were responding to a report that Sterling was selling CDs and that he had used a gun to threaten a man outside a convenience store. The owner of the store where the shooting occurred said that Sterling was "not the one causing trouble" during the situation that led to the police being called. The shooting was recorded by multiple bystanders.
Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot on September 20, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina, by Brentley Vinson, an African-American city police officer. It sparked both peaceful and violent protests led by Black Lives Matter in Charlotte.
On July 11, 2016, Randy Lozoya and John Tennis, two Sacramento police officers, attempted to run over, and later shot and killed Joseph Mann, a 51-year-old mentally ill and homeless African-American man armed with a knife.
On August 19, 2015, a Moorish man named Mansur Ball-Bey was shot and killed by a St. Louis police officer who was executing a search warrant at a house where Ball-Bey was present. Rumors surrounded the killing of Ball-Bey as to whether he was unarmed when shot by police, and crowds gathered in the street to express anger at the killing. The demonstrators, in response to harassment and violence by STL Metro police officers, engaged in acts of civil unrest well into the night. The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office conducted a subsequent investigation and determined that the evidence did not support criminal charges against the two officers involved.
Anthony Lamar Smith was a 24-year-old African American man from St. Louis, Missouri, who was shot and killed by then St. Louis Police officer Jason Stockley following a car chase on December 20, 2011. On September 15, 2017, Stockley was found not guilty of first-degree murder, and protests erupted in St. Louis.
Beginning on the afternoon of September 15, 2017, a series of protests took place in St. Louis, Missouri, following the acquittal of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley in the shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man. Over 160 people were arrested during the first three days of demonstrations, with largely peaceful protests. There has been significant criticism around the police and governmental response to protests, resulting in lawsuits from the ACLU.
Wesley Bell is an American attorney, former public defender, former municipal prosecutor and judge, former municipal prosecutor and former city council member for Ferguson, Missouri. Currently, Bell holds the office of Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County, Missouri. In a major upset, he soundly defeated long-time yet controversial county prosecutor Bob McCulloch in the August 2018 Democratic primary election. Bell became the first black county prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County history when he took office in January 2019.
On June 2, 2020, David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired police captain, was fatally shot after interrupting the burglary of a pawn shop in The Ville, St. Louis. The incident occurred on the same night as riots in St. Louis, Missouri over the murder of George Floyd. Stephan Cannon, who was 24 years old at the time of the incident, was convicted of his murder on July 20, 2022.
Dolal Idd was a 23-year-old Somali-American man who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Minneapolis police officers at approximately 6:15 p.m. CST on December 30, 2020, after he shot at them from inside the car he was driving. The fatal encounter happened in the U.S. state of Minnesota during a police sting operation.
Law enforcement authorities fatally shot Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a 32-year-old black American man, in the Uptown area of Minneapolis at 2:08 p.m. CDT on June 3, 2021. Smith was being pursued by a U.S. Marshals Service task force that apprehends wanted fugitives. The arrest operation had the participation of undercover agents from several local police agencies in Minnesota. The officers did not use body cameras or dashcams when apprehending Smith, and there is no known video evidence of the June 3 shooting. Controversy over the lack of law enforcement footage of the arrest operation led to local police agencies ceasing aid to the Marshals Service's fugitive task force, and to changes to body and dash camera policies by the Marshals and other federal law enforcement agencies.
