Outside Webster Groves City Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 18, a crowd of about 100 people – almost all white – held Black Lives Matter signs and glowing candles.
Inside, Neil Bruntrager – the attorney who represented then-police officers Darren Wilson and Jason Stockley in their high-profile cases for killing black civilians – took his seat at the city council meeting as the city’s new attorney.
Wilson was a Ferguson police officer who killed Michael Brown in August 2014 and was never charged after a grand jury reviewed the case. Stockley was a St. Louis police officer who killed Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011 and was found not guilty of murdering Smith, in a bench trial.
For more than an hour at the December 18 City Council meeting, Webster’s council members and mayor heard from community members who decried their decision to hire Bruntrager, saying that his presence does not make people of color feel safe or welcome in their city.
"If there's a way for you to help people of color feel safe living in our town, will you please do it? It really matters to me." -Eloise Lancaster, age 8.
“The moment that we face is about racial justice, and it’s about leadership – and it’s telling me a lot,” said Adelaide Lancaster, a Webster resident and Forward Through Ferguson board member. “It tells me that, one, we don’t have the right leadership or, two, that our leadership doesn’t have the right skill set to do their jobs — equitably, transparently, and with the interest of our full community in mind.”
As of press time, neither Mayor Gerry Welch nor the city council had released a statement regarding the public comments.
More than 400 Webster residents signed an open letter claiming that city leaders’ hire of Bruntrager points to their tone-deafness to the regional conversation and work around racial equity.
“It hurts, like losing a loved one,” the Rev. Anthony L. McPherson, pastor at Parks Chapel A.M.E. Church in Webster, told the council. “I’m not sure if your hearts have ever been broken, but the hiring has broken the hearts of many of your constituents.”
Ferguson resident Emily Davis recited statistics from the Missouri Attorney General’s 2017 Vehicle Stops Report, an annual report that details racial disparities in how police across the state pull over drivers. Webster Groves Police Department had the greatest disparities among St. Louis municipalities: Their officers were over five times more likely to stop a black driver than a white driver in 2017.
“At the same time, you are finding contraband on half as many black people as you are white people in those stops,” Davis said. “[Webster officers] are violating the rights of individuals of other races on a regular basis. The Constitution still applies to everybody here. We know that in Ferguson now: You need to be careful.”
Terrell Carter, an African-American pastor at Webster Groves Baptist Church, author and former police officer, told The American that he was once pulled over by a Webster police officer who told him that he stopped him because he was going the speed limit — and that looked suspicious. And he had more stories like this.
"I have a concern about what this does to the style of policing that is currently practiced in Webster." Terrell Carter
“I understand how frustrating this is — the optics of it — because [Bruntrager] has successfully defended two white officers who killed black citizens,” Carter said. “Also, as a former [St. Louis police] officer who quit because all of the things that are wrong with the department, I also have a concern about what this does to the style of policing that is currently practiced in Webster.”
When Carter was a St. Louis police officer, Bruntrager represented him on two cases as a then-police union member. Carter said that Bruntrager has represented both black and white officers and will represent whomever the police union asks him to defend. That said, he agrees with the open letter and has concerns about Bruntrager’s hire.
“The question is not Mr. Bruntrager’s skills,” Carter said, “but what kind of signal does it send to people who live in the community?”
Last week, clergy members gathered together to discuss the issue, and city council members Laura Arnold and David Franklin attended. These same two council members also attended a meeting on Dec. 13 with the Alliance for Interracial Dignity.
At the meetings, Arnold explained that Bruntrager was not the city’s first choice, Carter said. He was the third choice, but the first two candidates declined, because they didn’t want to relocate to Webster. The city attorney must live within Webster, and this is one thing that residents said they would like to change at the city council meeting.
Arnold also explained that the city attorney’s hire has been on the agendas of the city council meetings. However, Carter said that residents responded to her: “We understand that you did your due diligence, but when it’s something this important, you should go above and beyond to make sure residents know what’s happening.”
After the city council meeting, The American asked Mayor Welch how she was feeling after hearing such comments from the approximately 20 speakers.
She replied, “Oh, don’t ask. It’s very difficult.”
She said she had just raised almost $150,000 for a sculpture as a tribute to North Webster, the city’s historically black neighborhood. “And it’s really hard to sit here when we work hard at what we do,” she said. “We’ve done so much in this community.”
One of the most powerful speeches to the council came from eight-year-old Eloise Lancaster. At Bristol Elementary School, she said there are no kids of color in her class and only two lead teachers of color in the entire school.
“I’m worried that people of color don’t like living in our neighborhood,” Eloise said. “And I’m worried that people of color don’t feel safe in our town. If there’s a way for you to help people of color feel safe living in our town, will you please do it? It really matters to me.”
Rebecca Rivas is a reporter with the St. Louis American, where this was originally published.