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AUDIO: St. Louis Sheriff Uses Racial Slurs Against Own Deputy | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

February 21, 2023

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click to enlarge DOYLE MURPHY File photo of St. Louis City Sheriff Vernon Betts.
St. Louis City Sheriff Vernon Betts grew so enraged that an employee failed to support him politically that he boasted of demoting the staffer, repeatedly referred to him using racial slurs and said he could have fired him for his actions, according to audio obtained by the Riverfront Times. The employee has now filed a lawsuit against Betts. Deputy Sheriff Steve Chalmers, 65, was demoted from the Civil Process Servers Unit to the Security Unit in November 2020 after seven years as a deputy, according to the lawsuit Chalmers filed last September. When Chalmers asked Betts why he’d been demoted, he was told it was because he didn’t have a single sign supporting Betts’ candidacy in his yard. The suit also alleges that Betts regularly referred to Chalmers using the racial slurs “n****r,” “ni**a,” “negro,” “boy” and “Black ass.” Chalmers’ suit accuses Betts of expecting political loyalty from him because Chalmers is Black; Betts, who is also Black, didn’t expect similar loyalty from white deputies. The demotion changed Chalmers’ daily schedule, forcing him to work evenings as well as Saturdays and Sundays. A person who knew both men called Betts after the demotion and confronted him about his treatment of Chalmers. Three minutes of the call were made available to the RFT under the condition that the interlocutor remain anonymous and his voice disguised. In the audio, Betts seems agitated that he has been interrupted by the caller while he was watching the Disney film Mulan. “Know what else I’m gonna do? Know what else I’m going to do? Since you called me, and I was sitting watching Mulan the movie with my family and since you interrupted me, what I’m going to do, since he gonna tell you shit — I’m going to do his ass worse than that when I see him on Monday. Running around the city telling everyone what done happened to his Black ass when I should have fired his Black ass,” Betts says. In the tape, Betts says numerous times that he feels he was wronged by Chalmers because of a lack of political support. The audio below contains profane language and racial slurs.
“Whether you love me or not, you don’t mess with me,” Betts says a little later in the conversation. “And that’s what he did. And that’s what he is. And he gonna get worse than that if he act out one more person to call me and bother me about what somebody done to that Black ass n****r. I got one more. He better go somewhere and sit his ass down and be glad he got a job because he fucked with me. And he didn’t get out there and help me do what he should have been doing.” “That negro didn’t help me,” Betts adds a little later. “That negro didn’t put out one damn [sign].” The RFT has published four snippets of the recorded conversation. Much of the audio obtained by the RFT consists of cross talk between the caller and Betts, which makes it impossible to release without compromising the caller’s identity. Multiple times during the heated exchange, the caller attempts to take Betts to task as Betts denies he’s done anything wrong. “What’s worse than the white folks doing it to us, is us doing it to ourselves,” the caller says. Betts replies, “The n****r is lucky I didn’t fire him.” Betts was elected sheriff in November 2016 and took office the following January. He won re-election four years later. The St. Louis Sheriff’s Office serves eviction notices and court papers, and is the security service for the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court. Sheriff’s office spokesman Gregg Christian said that the office couldn’t comment on pending litigation. Chalmers’ attorney, Jerryl Christmas, says his client has the right to support whomever he wants politically and that Chalmers has “managed the ground game” for numerous local campaigns in the past. Of Betts’ use of the n-word, Christmas says, “People may think that because [Betts] is Black, it’s not racist. But it is. It’s very racist.” The lawsuit notes that Chalmers is dark-skinned and that lighter-skinned Black employees in the office were not subjected to the same treatment as Chalmers was. “Colorism is a real issue still in the Black community,” Christmas says. “It’s a relic of slavery and the favoritism of people with light skin stones.” The lawsuit also alleges that Chalmers drew his boss’s ire when Chalmers supported Michelle Sherrod in her 2018 state senate campaign against Steve Roberts Jr, who the lawsuit says Betts referred to as his “money man.” At the time, Betts’ chief deputy was Roberts’ father, Steve Roberts Sr. The lawsuit filed in 22nd Judicial Circuit Court means that it would likely be litigated in one of the very buildings Betts is charged with keeping safe. The suit claims Betts is guilty of workplace discrimination and retaliation. Both the lawsuit and the recorded phone call paint a portrait of the sheriff as a man inclined toward braggadocio. At one point during the phone call, Betts says, apropos of nothing, “I got more votes than any politician in the state of Missouri.” One day in December 2020, Betts pointed to a judge and told Chalmers that the judge was so scared of Betts that if Betts told the judge “to shit in the middle of the court building,” he would, according to the suit. In February 2021, a lawyer requested Chalmers’ employment records from the sheriff’s office, which tipped Betts off that his deputy was planning legal action. The lawsuit says that Betts subsequently banned Chalmers from working at the Civil Courts building, referred to him as “a clown” to local media, and denied two requests Chalmers made for secondary employment as a security officer. In the audio, Betts can be heard saying of Chalmers, “I should have fired his Black ass.” The caller asks, “For what?” “For fucking with me,” Betts says. We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at ryan.krul[email protected] or follow on Twitter at @RyanWKrull. Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

8 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

8 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

8 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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