The American endorses Nasheed for president of the Board of Aldermen
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St. LouiS AmericAn The
CAC Audited JAN. 31 – FEB. 6, 2019
Vol. 90 No. 45 COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Seeking to undo cash bail system ArchCity claims violations of 14th Amendment rights By Chris King Of The St. Louis American ArchCity Defenders and co-counsel filed a suit in federal court on Monday, January 28 that seeks to undo St. Louis’ current system of pretrial detention, which they claim “violates plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection and due process through a policy or practice that jails individuals based on their poverty.” The suit, which they hope to have certified as a class action, names most major players in the city’s criminal justice system as defendants: the city itself, sheriff, commissioner of corrections, and five judges of the 22nd Judicial Circuit. The named plaintiffs are three black men and one white man, all currently being held by the city in the Workhouse because they could not afford to post cash bond. Included as co-counsel for the plaintiffs are
Blake Strode, executive director, ArchCity Defenders, outlined a federal suit his firm filed with co-counsel challenging St. Louis and the 22nd Judicial Circuit’s system of pretrial detention on Monday, January 28 at the Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being. Listening were co-counsel Seth Wayne of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, co-counsel Thomas Harvey of the Advancement Project National Office and Montague Simmons of the Close the Workhouse Campaign.
n “This is illegal, unjust and the city – and the nation – needs to be put on notice that lives are at stake.” – Blake Strode, executive director of ArchCity Defenders
the Advancement Project National Office, Civil Rights Corps, and Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. Though the suit calls for the named plaintiffs’ immediate release on grounds that their detention is unconstitutional, it goes much further in asking the federal court to
See BAIL, A7
Photo by Wiley Price
Better Together releases plan for citycounty merger Collecting signatures for statewide ballot petition to effect change in 2020 By Jason Rosenbaum Of St. Louis Public Radio
Photo by Wiley Price
MLK on display Dunbar Elementary School 6th graders K’mani Dean, 12, and Brandon Nash 11 look at work done by the class for a Martin Luther King Jr. display in the hallway of the school on Tuesday, January 29.
Surveillance and secrets Privacy advocate says city’s Real Time Crime Center is ‘like a spy agency’ By Rebecca Rivas For The St. Louis American Part two of a series based on a six-month joint-investigation by The St. Louis American and Type Investigations. Winston Calvert, then St. Louis’ city counselor, heard the American Civil Liberties
Union of Missouri’s concerns about public privacy and the city’s new surveillance capacity in its Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), and set up a meeting with city officials and the ACLU in April 2015. Present were the city’s Director of Operations
See SECRETS, A6
A group known as Better Together is recommending an end to the “Great Divorce” between St. Louis and St. Louis County — a move that would dramatically change how the region’s residents are represented and how they receive services. Better Together is proposing an ambitious plan that would be decided through a statewide vote. Proponents contend it will scrape away layers of local government that has been holding the St. Louis region back. Opponents believe the plan will create an unwieldy and large centralized government that could be implemented against the will of city and county residents. Better Together, which formed in 2013 to study the possibility of a city-county merger, released its recommended proposal on Monday, January
See MERGER, A7
On May 23, the RTCC’s commander Lt. Brent Feig gave a 30-minute tour to about a dozen members of the local media. Feig touted their success in achieving the center’s goals – use of the high-definition video for quick facial recognition and quick capture of criminals and providing more “situational awareness” for officers on the street.