St. Louis police are watching you with 630 cameras, two unmanned aircraft systems (a.k.a. drones), 379 license plate readers and more. These eyes in the sky are documented in the city’s first annual surveillance technology report.

The report, compiled by St. Louis Metropolitan Police Commissioner Robert Tracy, details the use of surveillance technology in the city. In a release about the report, Mayor Tishaura Jones credited the technology for a reduction in homicides.

“In 2023, St. Louis had 21 percent fewer homicides and a 22 percent decrease in part one crime,” her office says. “The Mayor’s public safety approach centers prevention, intervention and enforcement. Surveillance technology can be a vital tool for law enforcement to get to the scene of the crime quickly and as an investigative tool to bring justice to victims of crime.”

The report has a brief overview of what each tool does and how it can potentially be used, as well as what it costs the city to implement. 

It specifies how many requests or hits each tech tool had, noting that it received 225,276 requests for footage from surveillance cameras in the city in 2023, nearly 100,000 of them from outside agencies. The cameras were especially useful to the intelligence division, the report says: “Intelligence Division installed approximately 10 covert cameras that were used in criminal investigations and Environmental Investigations Unit issued 470 Summons, resulting in 563 charges.”

And, in a one-year period, the department’s License Plate Readers received 47,667 license plate hits for felony crimes.

But what the report doesn’t say is how often these technologies have made mistakes or were used improperly, and it doesn’t specify how many cases were successfully prosecuted as a result of the evidence they provided.

It also mentions a highly controversial recognition service — St. Louis Mugshot Comparison Technology — provided through the city’s REJIS subscription. This technology has come under fire for its inability to accurately identify Black faces. 

The American Civil Liberties Union is actively pushing back against use of the technology, saying it results in wrongful arrests.

The report did not disclose how exactly the mugshot recognition tool is being used by the city, saying: “Communications with the Saint Louis Fusion Center and the software liaison (Det. Shane Placeway – Maryland Heights Police Department) reviewed that the system does not log the accuracy nor presents that to the end user. The system does not want to provide any information that may suggest one candidate over another. In addition, the system does not save user logins and is not able to determine the total amount of activity used by the SLMPD.”

Only one citizen complaint was made about the surveillance technologies listed in the report from January 1, 2023, to January 1, 2024, the report says. This complaint concerned SLMPD’s use of surveillance cameras. 

Civil rights and privacy advocates have criticized the city’s use of ShotSpotter and have pushed for the passage of surveillance oversight in recent months before the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. 

To head off a separate board bill creating more oversight for police surveillance technology, Jones issued an executive order with Tracy regarding surveillance transparency. Aldermen argue this didn’t go far enough and later passed the oversight bill, referred to as CCOPS.

Jones credits her executive order as the reason for the report released today. Her media advisory on the report does not acknowledge the more stringent accountability passed by the Board of Aldermen, which she refused to sign — Board Bill 185.

“The Executive Order requires the department to describe how the technology is used, if the technology uses artificial intelligence, how many units of the technology the City uses, how its effectiveness is measured, how the technology is funded, how it is requested, if there have been complaints against the police for the use of specific technology, and which partnerships exist to use the technology,” Jones said in a statement. 

While the report compiled by Tracy fulfills the requirements of the executive order, it remains unclear how accurate the surveillance tools truly are.

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In January, the City of St. Louis sent a very unusual notice to one of the biggest law firms headquartered within it: a Statement of Tax Delinquency.The notice was sent to Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, one of the few white-shoe law firms remaining in downtown St. Louis. Most of its competitors have decamped to Clayton, where the lawyers aren’t subject to the city’s 1 percent earnings tax. Now the city was saying Bryan Cave owed $370,000 in past-due taxes, interest and penalties.The firm paid the sum under protest. And then, last week, it filed a lawsuit over the city’s demands.In its suit, Bryan Cave alleges the the city’s Collector of Revenue changed the equation it uses to calculate the earnings tax for law firms with no notice or explanation. And that, its suit says, makes its collection of the $370,000 “unconstitutional, illegal, unenforceable and otherwise unlawful.” It’s demanding a refund.The lawsuit is only the latest problem facing the city’s earnings tax, a 1 percent surcharge assessed on the incomes of anyone who lives or works in the city. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones cited threats to the earnings tax as among the reasons she ordered a hiring freeze for non-essential city workers last month. The tax faces the prospect of abolition from conservative lawmakers in Jefferson City, along with legal threats from workers who say that while their offices are in St. Louis, they’re actually working from their couches in Chesterfield (or Boise, Idaho). Lawyers have also sought class-action status for workers seeking to recoup the money they paid for the pleasure of working in the city even at a time that they were stuck working from home during the pandemic, although those efforts have thus far ended in frustration.The Bryan Cave suit is a bit more complicated. Filed by Bryan Cave attorney Mark Leadlove, it says the city arbitrarily changed the way it handles law firm revenue last November, and that led to an outsized bill for the firm.As Bryan Cave notes in its filing, it now has offices in 31 cities. For the past 10 years, with the city’s blessing, it’s filed composite earnings tax returns on behalf of itself and its partners. Since each partner gets a unique share of the firm’s net profit, the firm historically listed each person’s total, and then taxed it at one of two rates: 14.3704 percent for non-city residents and 100 percent for city residents.That changed with no notice last fall, the lawsuit says. “On November 17, 2023, the City notified the Firm that it had adjusted its 2022 Earnings Tax Return by changing the allocation percentage of nonresident Partners who were ‘assigned’ to the St. Louis office from 14.370 percent to 100 percent,” the suit says. After several communications, the firm now understands that the city considers partnership income like any normal salary.  And that, the firm says, is unprecedented — and wrongly suggested the partners had earned their income solely within the city “even though such partners perform legal services in other Firm offices, at client locations and at their residences outside the City.” Now the firm is asking for a refund and a declaratory judgment in its favor.In a statement, the office of Gregory F.X. Daly, the city’s collector of revenue, said this: “The Collector of Revenue’s Office is required to collect earnings taxes as stated by law. It is common for the office to work with businesses and individuals to resolve potential differences of opinions over earnings taxes, real estate taxes, and other fees and taxes the office is required to collect. “The issue with Bryan Cave resulted after the office conducted an audit of the firm’s earnings tax filings, as we do with many individuals and businesses on a regular basis. Given the pending litigation, we can’t discuss the details of this matter. We will continue to work to resolve this issue as required.”Some conservative critics of the city applauded the suit — and predicted dire consequences.Bryan Cave is suing the City over improperly imposed earnings taxes and is seeking a refund of taxes paid under protest. This is a very big deal and a VERY, VERY bad development for St. Louis City government. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qShRpdO1zN— Gregg Keller (@RGreggKeller) May 14, 2024
“Trust me,” wrote political operative Gregg Keller on X, “other large employers will follow Bryan Cave’s lead. They really have to if they are to look their shareholders in the eye next time they report quarterly results.” And while it’s not clear — yet — whether Keller is correct (the facts of the case only apply to law firms), it’s hard to argue that it won’t be an expensive case to fight. After all, Bryan Cave has some serious expertise on matters of tax law — and every incentive to try to win this one.Editor’s note: This story was updated soon after publication to include a statement from the city’s collector of revenue. Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News |  Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed




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Police have identified the 19-year-old woman killed over the weekend on a MetroLink platform.

Police say that Jordan Gunn was on the platform near Forest Park and the Missouri History Museum on Saturday, May 11, when another teenager, a 17-year-old, opened fire, striking her in the chest and killing her. 

The shooting occurred around 3:30 p.m. and Gunn was initially taken by an EMS crew to a hospital, where she was listed in critical condition before succumbing to her wounds. 

The 17-year-old alleged shooter was apprehended thanks in part to what police called the “robust surveillance system” present at the Metro station.

The 17-year-old is being held in a juvenile facility in the county on second-degree murder and armed criminal action charges. 

Similar to the case of the near-fatal beating outside Hazelwood East, a judge will determine if the case against the 17-year-old will advance in the juvenile or the adult system. 

Police have released very little additional information about the victim, Gunn, other than that she lived off Natural Bridge Avenue. 

This is a developing story and we will update it as new information becomes available.

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