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Chaos at St. Louis City Justice Center Draws Legal Concerns | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

August 25, 2023

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click to enlarge RYAN KRULL An officer stands watch outside the City Justice Center in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday, August 22. A hostage situation was underway at that time.

Well after a SWAT team put an end to the hostage situation at the St. Louis City Justice Center Tuesday morning, chaos continued to reign at the jail for days, according to multiple attorneys with clients in the facility.

Attorneys speak of detainees not being adequately fed or clothed, being housed in an area that is supposed to be a temporary transfer point, and being denied access to legal counsel. One lawyer tells the RFT he has heard from federal authorities and that he believes they may be investigating the facility.

Criminal defense attorney Robert Taaffe says that he and other attorneys with his firm tried twice to enter the jail on Wednesday to meet with a client, a full day after the hostage situation was reportedly resolved, and that they were turned away. Taaffe says they then went to a judge asking for a court order to force the jail to let them in.

They ultimately didn’t need the order and were able to meet with the client yesterday, Taaffe says, but it took two hours to enter the facility. When they did meet with the client, he was wearing only underwear and jail-issue flip flops.

“They brought our guy in. He was shackled. He had [only] his underwear on, and he was telling us that he wasn’t getting enough food,” Taaffe says. “He doesn’t have a cup. He doesn’t have a toothbrush.”

Taaffe says that it’s a violation of a detainee’s constitutional rights to not be able to meet with their legal representation.

“I don’t care what it’s for,” Taaffe says. “You can understand a temporary emergency, like on Tuesday, but they should have been letting us see him online still. They were saying, ‘Oh, we don’t know where he’s at.'”

The RFT reached out to the city for comment Wednesday about allegations including a lack of food and two recent suicide attempts in the jail. We have yet to get a response.

And Taaffe isn’t the only attorney who tells the RFT they’ve had a client seemingly lost in the jail’s system in the past few days.

Matt Mahaffey of the state public defender’s office says that at least on one occasion since Tuesday, attorneys with his office have attempted to see a client supposedly housed on the fourth floor, where the hostage situation played out. “The jail didn’t know where the person was,” Mahaffey says.

Multiple attorneys tell the RFT that since Tuesday, the court system has been doing docket hearings over video — a COVID-related measure that had gone away this past January. Conducting the hearings via video complicates detainees’ ability to confer with attorneys prior to them.

Normally the jail has space that serves as a transfer area for detainees moving from the jail to a court hearing in their case. But since Tuesday, that space has become ad-hoc housing for detainees who had been previously housed on the fourth floor of the facility.

“The Justice Center has moved all the people from that fourth floor down into the big pen where they normally keep the people who are going across the street to court,” says defense attorney Terry Niehoff, who also has clients in the facility. “By putting everybody in those cells, from the fourth floor, there’s no way that people can be taken from the jail to the courthouse.”

The fallout from Tuesday’s hostage situation has also brought to light tensions between two entities tasked with making the jail and the courts run smoothly: the city’s Division of Corrections and the city’s Sheriff Department.

In most counties, the sheriff is responsible for running the jail. In St. Louis city, the sheriff’s deputies transfer detainees in and out of the facility, but correctional officers — who report to Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, not Sheriff Vernon Betts — are responsible for jail operations.

With the area of the jail usually used as a transfer point now serving as housing, sheriff’s deputies have been unable to retrieve detainees for court dates. Taaffe says that an attorney with his firm witnessed the problem first-hand at what was supposed to be a bond hearing earlier this week.

“The sheriff’s deputies weren’t weren’t allowed to get access to the guys. And they’re technically the sheriff’s prisoners. The deputies are like, ‘These are our prisoners. And you’re saying that we can’t have access to them?'”

Taaffe adds, “Which is completely illegal.”

Niehoff says that since Tuesday he’s been contacted by a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in St. Louis. Niehoff says the prosecutor wanted to talk to him because he represents both people detained in the facility and has also represented guards accused of misconduct.

“I think they’re looking at the jail administration,” Niehoff says of his conversation with the federal authorities.

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year 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

1 year 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

1 year 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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