The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department 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, Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the city of Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old friend Dorian Johnson. Wilson said that an altercation ensued when Brown attacked Wilson in his police vehicle for control of Wilson's gun until it was fired. Johnson said that Wilson initiated a confrontation by grabbing Brown by the neck through his car window, threatening him and then shooting at him. At this point, both Wilson and Johnson state that Brown and Johnson fled, with Wilson pursuing Brown shortly thereafter. Wilson stated that Brown stopped and charged him after a short pursuit. Johnson contradicted this account, stating that Brown turned around with his hands raised after Wilson shot at his back. According to Johnson, Wilson then shot Brown multiple times until Brown fell to the ground. In the entire altercation, Wilson fired a total of twelve bullets, including twice during the struggle in the car; the last was probably the fatal shot. Brown was struck six times, all in the front of his body.
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 in Ferguson, Missouri, involved protests and riots beginning on August 10, 2014, the day after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police 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. Continued activism expanded the issues to include 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 after 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 this information was not relayed to officers Loehmann and Garmback on the initial dispatch.
"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. 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. Most witnesses claimed he physically charged at the officer. One witness initially claimed Brown had his hands in the air before recanting his account. Despite the ambiguity of Brown's hand positions during shooting, the slogan was adopted at protests against police brutality in the U.S. A United States Department of Justice investigation found the 'hands up' claim was inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence, and the witness testimony surrounding the Brown shooting.
The shooting 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 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The officers, who were attempting to control Sterling's arms, shot Sterling while Sterling allegedly reached for the loaded handgun in his pants pocket. Police were responding to a report that a man in a red shirt 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 had started carrying a gun a few days prior to the event as other CD vendors had been robbed recently. He also 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 eventually turned violent as the day wore on, and civil unrest lasted 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 a St. Louis area 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.
In the early hours of 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 protests in St. Louis, Missouri over the murder of George Floyd. However, the protests were several miles away and had disbanded a few hours earlier near the Metropolitan Police Headquarters downtown when police violently clashed with protestors.
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, 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.
