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Jail Oversight Board Is Now Split on Controversial Warden | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

November 30, 2023

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click to enlarge DOYLE MURPHY The Reverend Darryl Gray is one of the Detention Facilities Oversight Board members taking a more conciliatory tone toward Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah.

The civilian board tasked with overseeing operations at St. Louis’ City Justice Center has split into two divergent groups following Tuesday’s 50-minute meeting between three board members and Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah.

The meeting that took place on the fifth floor of the jail itself, access that members of the board have sought for months. Some members see the meeting as a leap in the right direction. Others say it was just another broken promise from a jail administration they see as stringing the oversight board along.

For months, the Detention Facilities Oversight Board accused Clemons-Abdullah and other city officials of stonewalling their access to jail, which they said they needed in order to investigate detainee deaths and complaints about the conditions there. City ordinance mandates that oversight board members couldn’t enter the jail until they completed 40 hours of training, which board members said was an onerous requirement that jail administrators could slow-walk because some of the training needed to be scheduled with them. Nonetheless, board members the Rev. Darryl Gray, Pamela Walker and Ornetha Lewis-Walls did complete the required 40 hours and were approved for what was initially described as a walk-through on Tuesday.

But even though the board members requested two hours in the facility as well as access to five specific sites in the jail, including the medical unit, they were instead escorted to the fifth floor where they spoke with Clemons-Abdullah for 50 minutes.

“I’m gonna be very clear and very candid,” Gray says. “The commissioner showed us what she wanted to show us.”

Gray adds, “I told her that is unacceptable.”

Still, despite all that, Gray says Tuesday represented a major step forward for jail oversight as Clemons-Abdullah said that she would help investigators get what they need to look into complaints about the jail made by detainees and their families.

“I told the commissioner, ‘We don’t have to be adversaries. We can work in a collaborative way,’” Gray says.

Pamela Walker is the former acting health director for the city as well as one of the board members who met with Clemons-Abdullah in the jail. She’s in agreement with Gray. “We demonstrated we have a right to enter the facility,” she says. “It’s a small victory, but a victory.”

But not every member of the oversight board views Tuesday’s events that way. Vice-chair Janis Mensah told the RFT in a text message that Tuesday was “just broken promises and more ‘first steps.'”

Board member Mike Milton felt similarly, saying that what was supposed to be a tour of the jail turned into just a conversation with the commissioner, which he says could have been an email.

“After more than a year and a half of fighting for access and information to the jail and its plethora of issues, some [oversight board] members conceded to the city’s illegitimate and unethical demands for additional training,” Milton says. “For that they received a salutation from the jail’s commissioner, who subsequently sent them right back outside the jail doors with absolutely nothing. They didn’t talk to staff. They didn’t talk to inmates. They didn’t even see the living conditions.”

Milton has been outspoken in saying that jail administration has turned the training requirements into obstacles, pointing specifically to a 16-hour training that needs to be completed at the jail and has proven particularly difficult to schedule. He says that nonetheless he is making his best effort to complete the requirements, but feels he and other members highly critical of Clemons-Abdullah are being iced out.

Both Milton and Mensah were among the first board members to call on Clemons-Abdullah to resign. Gray and Walker subsequently voted along with the rest of the board to call for her resignation as well.

However, Gray and Walker have both conceded that the corrections commissioner is likely there to stay.

“She has stated emphatically she is not going to resign,” Walker says, adding that Mayor Tishaura Jones and Director of Public Safety Charles Coyle are “clearly pleased” with both the conditions in the jail and the Clemons-Abudllah’s overall performance. “To obsess about her not resigning is a waste of time.”

Gray puts it this way: “To simply call for her resignation and to do nothing else does not solve the problem.”

Milton and Mensah, on the other hand, remain steadfast that the commissioner needs to resign.

“#FireTheWarden,” Milton tweeted Tuesday night.

There are currently 781 detainees in the jail, up from 557 this time last year.

In the past few months the jail has experienced numerous alarming incidents, including three deaths in one six-week period and a corrections officer taken hostage amid what appears to have been a riot. In September, Mensah, the oversight board’s vice-chair, was arrested in the jail’s lobby after being denied access to the facility, where Mensah was attempting to investigate the death of detainee Carlton Bernard.

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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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