Police representatives are confident a bill offering more protections for officers accused of wrong doing will be passed by legislators.
The proposed legislation also includes restrictions on local governments reducing law enforcement budgets and stiffer penalties for protesters blocking streets.
While representatives of St. Louis police officers welcome some of the provisions, including those relating to what is being called the law enforcement of rights, activists and elected representatives believe those penalizing protesters are in direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Dueker
Jane Deuker, attorney and lobbyist for the St. Louis Police Officers' Association, said those provisions on protests were not informed by discussions with the organization but written into SB 26 by lawmakers.
But Deuker added the association did "1000 percent" support those giving "due process protections" already available to all other employees.
SB 26, which passed the Senate and is set for a third reading in the House, states that all suspended law enforcement officers "shall be entitled to a full due process hearing as provided in the act."
Any decision following a hearing shall be in writing and include findings of fact while the act "provides that law enforcement officers shall have the opportunity to provide a written responses to any adverse materials in their personnel file. Law enforcement officers shall have the right to compensation for any economic loss incurred during an investigation if the officer is found to have committed no misconduct."
Dueker said the officers' association is hopeful that the legislation is near the finishing lines.
"It has to go back to conference, but it has a good chance, at least those provisions relating to the bill of rights," she said.
Another provision creates the offense of unlawful traffic interference if, with the intention to impede vehicular traffic, the person walks, stands, sits, kneels, lays, or places an object in a manner that blocks passage by a vehicle on any public street or highway.
The police officers' association was not involved in drafting those provisions relating to protests, Deuker said.
Democrat lawmakers U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and State Rep. Rasheen Aldridge, in an opinion piece in the Missouri Times, wrote that the bill "would silence the voices of those rising in defense of Black lives by enacting criminal penalties on the right to protest.
"Not only that, but it is particularly targeted at protests that we led in St. Louis this past summer," the pair said.
Lawmakers also want to make it difficult for local governments to cut law enforcement budgets, giving any taxpayer the right to sue if the budget in decrease by more than 12 percent relative to the funding for other departments over a five year period.
Police officers are concerned about proposed budget cuts in St. Louis, with the board that oversees the city budget voting to cut 98 currently vacant positions.
Mayor Tishaura Jones backed the plan, which calls for redirecting $4 million to other services, including affordable housing and to victims to crime.
“Today you saw a proposed budget amendment that reflects more of my priorities, and to address the root causes of crime and support victims of crime, as well as those who have been underserved and underrepresented,” Jones said, according to the St. Louis Public Radio.
Deuker said the association is concerned about the proposed cuts at a time when the departmennt already is dependent on overtime and already cannot provide the needed level of service.
A separate bill that would ban in almost all circumstances the use of "chokeholds" simiilar to the one that led to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is also progressing through the legislature, with the House passing the measure in a voice vote. It has passed the Senate.
The STLPOA supports the bill, which its representatives describes as putting into law what is already practiced in the city of St. Louis.