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Sheriff Vernon Betts Says the RFT Is Getting St. Louis All Excited

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One hundred percent of the sheriffs in the City of St. Louis agree: the Riverfront Times is an exciting read.

That was — more or less — the sentiment Sheriff Vernon Betts expressed at a neighborhood meeting in Bevo Mill Thursday night, where he was one of several elected officials and candidates speaking at a union hall on Delor Street. After his remarks, someone in the audience asked him about recent media coverage of a photo that showed a detainee in Betts’ charge lying in his own excrement.

Betts responded thusly, “I want everyone to understand, when you get these reports and stuff from places like the Riverfront Times, those people are writing stories to get you all excited.”

Damn straight, our content is exciting. No disagreement there.

However, right after Betts heaped upon us (what we’re choosing to interpret as) praise, things started getting a little off the rails in the facticity department.

The original question put to Betts referred to the story of 35-year-old Lamarr Pearson, a paralyzed man who earlier this month spent the better part of a long weekend in the troubled City Justice Center lying on the floor in soiled pants.

When his attorney, Susan McGraugh, met with Pearson, she was so alarmed by his soiled state, she took a photo of him and sent it to the Riverfront Times. We ran a story about it, and other media followed suit. 

But that’s when things got slightly complicated. The City Justice Center has both intake areas (controlled by Betts) and floors of cells (controlled by Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah). The city’s Department of Public Safety, which reps Clemons-Abdullah, said that Pearson’s beleaguered condition wasn’t their problem because he was in a holding area of the jail controlled by Betts when the photo was taken. Betts said that was a lie.

At the meeting on Thursday, Betts seemed to imply that Pearson was only his office’s charge for the briefest of periods prior to the photo being taken.

He said the 35-year-old was on “the police side” of the jail all weekend until deputies brought him into the area controlled by Betts’ office Monday morning and that his deputies were taking action to help Pearson. In the window after they brought him over, but before they could get him aid, McGraugh came in and took the photo that was later published by media outlets.

Or, as Betts put a bit more excitedly: “The lawyer goes over on our side where we’re getting ready to get this guy cleaned up, takes her phone out — it’s illegal! She wasn’t supposed to take pictures. It’s illegal. That’s what we call contraband. She takes a picture and then in two hours, she, the lawyer, calls the Riverfront Times. What the hell?”

He adds, “Don’t you think that was some kind of setup?”

On Friday, we checked with McGraugh just to make sure we hadn’t been in cahoots with her to “set up” the sheriff. She confirmed no such plot had been hatched. In fact, she’d only taken on Pearson as a client that morning and didn’t know about his condition before laying eyes on him.

She added: “The last person I am going to be intimidated by is Vernon Betts.”

McGraugh, who in addition to being a criminal defense attorney is a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law, previously told us that when Pearson asked for something to wipe himself with, a deputy told him to use a nearby sandwich wrap. “Sometimes we have to improvise,” McGraugh heard this deputy say.

McGraugh adds that Pearson was on his stomach for the entire hour she met with him that day, which pretty much belies any notion of Betts’ crew taking quick action. She says that at one point, when deputies saw her alarmed reaction to the soiled state of her client, one deputy brought him an orange jumpsuit.

“The other deputy said, ‘Why did you give him that? He can’t put them on.’ And [the deputy] said, ‘At least we can say we gave him clean clothes.'”

McGraugh tells the RFT she considered calling 911, but decided the best thing she could do would be to get him out of the jail on bond. Despite showing the photo and pleading Pearson’s case to the prosecutor and Judge Catherine Dierker, the request for bond was denied. McGraugh was, however, able to get the judge to sign an order mandating the jail provide Pearson healthcare.

She adds that a law student was with her and witnessed the scene as well.

As the Riverfront Times previously reported, in the wake of the incident, Betts tried to ban McGraugh from the area of the jail under his control. She eventually got a judge to order her to have access.

Though McGraugh needed a judge’s order to get access to the holding area of the jail, it appears that the rest of us will need no such piece of paper.

Betts extended an invitation to the Bevo Mill community member whose question sparked the sheriff’s response. “What I’ll do for this young man, he can come Downtown tomorrow and I’ll take you in the jail,” Betts said. No word on whether Betts’ inquisitor took him up on it.

He then made a similar offer to everyone else present: “Come down and see me. I’ll give you a tour.”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

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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

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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

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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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