ST. LOUIS – One of the nation’s largest black police organizations is throwing its support behind a St. Louis law enforcement watchdog group that’s accused the city’s police department of fostering systematic racism.
The 9,000-member National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers released a statement praising the St. Louis Ethical Society of Police for calling out instances of alleged racism in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, including blacks being passed over for promotions or being assaulted by white officers, ABC News reported.
Moreover, the Ethical Society of Police also voiced support for embattled St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who filed a lawsuit this month against the city and its police union alleging a coordinated, racist conspiracy to drive her from office.
RELATED:
- St. Louis prosecutor sues city, police union, alleging racist ‘conspiracy’ to force her from office
- St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner Claims Police Held Her For 15 Minutes During Stop; Video Shows She Lied
- St. Louis Public Safety Director: ‘Black Killing Black Is Problem…’
“The institution of policing has been inherently biased against people of color and low income, and was specifically designed to be that way,” the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers said in a statement released Tuesday. “This in no way should be interpreted as saying that all law enforcement officers are racist, but must be accepted as an acknowledgment and understanding that there are amongst us those who utilize the power and might of their position to perpetuate racial profiling, police misconduct, excessive use of force, and unethical, unprofessional behavior where it concerns communities of color.”
City officials and the St. Louis Police Officers Association called Gardner’s lawsuit “meritless.”
“Gardner essentially claims that her critics have conspired together to prevent her from doing her job as a prosecutor. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Jeff Roorda, the business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association who was named as a defendant in Gardner’s lawsuit, said in response. “My police officers and I want her to do her job.”
Heather Taylor, president of the St. Louis Ethical Society of Police, said that while her members have not always agreed with Gardner’s policies and decisions, the prosecutor has raised points in her lawsuit that her organization has been dealing with for years.
“That lawsuit is legitimate,” Taylor said. “There is a climate in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and a culture that breeds and is accepting of racism, discrimination, corruption.”
Moreover, Taylor cited several examples of apparent racism in the police department, including a racial discrimination lawsuit brought by an African American police captain that was settled in June for $1.1 million, according to ABC.
She also cited the case of Detective Luther Hall, an African American officer, who in 2017 was roughed up by three white police officers who mistook him for a protester during a demonstration in St. Louis over the acquittal of a white police officer on murder charges stemming from the shooting of a 24-year-old black man.
As a result of the incident, all three officers pleaded guilty to federal charges of deprivation of rights under color of law.
