Vernon Betts may be leaving office, but he’s not staying put.
Betts has been at the helm of the St. Louis Sheriff’s Office for nearly a decade but will depart at the end of the year after losing the Democratic primary to former deputy Alfred Montgomery.
In a nearly two-hour exit interview with St. Louis Public Radio, Missouri’s first-ever elected Black sheriff reflected on his career — including the changes he believes set up the department for success and the interpersonal struggles that limited how far he could go.
Betts' career as sheriff has been filled with tumult of his own making.
He has allegedly denied a deputy a promotion for growing a beard, faced several lawsuits for alleged discrimination and become known for saying just about anything.
Last year, a former deputy sued Betts for employment discrimination and retaliation after a recorded phone call captured him disparaging the Black deputy for not supporting him politically. Betts, who is also Black, used several racial slurs against the staffer.
“Whether you love me or not, you don’t mess with me, and that’s what he did,” he said in the recording. “... And he’s going to get worse than that if he [gets] one more person to call me and bother me about what somebody done to that Black-ass n-----.”
Betts believes some of his gaffes ultimately worked against his reelection hopes.
“I do regret some of the things that I have said in my career,” Betts told STLPR. “My opponents have been able to capture me in [some] of those moments where I wasn't being as nice as I should have been … and I've said some things. But what bothers me about that whole scenario is that the people will, right off the bat, start pointing fingers and blaming you, and don't ask you: ‘Well, what motivated you to go off the deep end?’”
But off-color comments haven’t been Betts’ only controversy.
Last year, the judges of the 22nd Judicial Circuit, which the sheriff is tasked with protecting, blasted Betts for not securing the building to their standards.
Betts said his relationship with the bench was rocky from the get-go, especially with some advocating for legislation that would’ve made the sheriff an appointed position. The measure ultimately failed.
“My relationship with the judges just never seemed to be able to get on track because the judges wanted to run the sheriff department,” he told STLPR. “I've not had a great relationship with the presiding judge or the incoming [presiding] judge because they just for whatever reason, I guess they don't like Vernon Betts.”
The outgoing sheriff said he believes his office would have been able to accomplish more during his tenure, like advocating for higher pay for deputies, if there was more cooperation with city officials.
“I don't think I've gotten all the support from the judges, all of the support from City Hall, all of the financing that we should have gotten to make that place a better place, and I don't think my people have been paid what they should have been paid,” he said. “I really thank the citizens of St Louis for [the opportunity], but we could have did more.”
A man of many lives
Betts began his path to sheriff in north St. Louis.
He grew up there with two brothers and a sister — raised by their father, Howard, and mother, Olivia. The two were culinary experts, Betts said, who would dig into their Southern roots and could make some of the best gumbo in St. Louis.
"I never remember my daddy missing a day of work," he said. "My dad was a hard worker — great provider — and that's where I kind of got [my work ethic.]”
Betts graduated from Beaumont High School in 1971, one of the first schools to desegregate after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. The school eventually became predominantly Black and closed its doors as a traditional high school in 2014.
The sheriff earned his bachelor's degree in education from Stowe Teacher’s College (now Harris Stowe State University) in 1977 and taught for roughly eight years in St. Louis Public Schools. “In teaching, either you gotta be crazy or you gotta love it,” he said. “I think it takes a little both to be a teacher.”
Ultimately, Betts said he wasn’t being paid enough in the school district to build a long-term career and took a job in janitorial services at utility giant Ameren.
"I always had the philosophy — it didn't make any difference where I start, it won't be where I end up," he said. "I went into Ameren, mopping and cleaning the floors and all that kind of stuff and I worked my way up.”
The plan worked, and Betts retired from Ameren’s financial department after nearly three decades and found himself at a crossroads: go back to teaching or find the next opportunity.
"After a year, I got a little restless and wanted to go back to work," he said. "My brother talked me into going to the St. Louis Sheriff's Department."
Becoming sheriff
What Betts found there — including a lack of motivation among his peers — alarmed him.
“Now, I come there from corporate life, so I saw a big difference in how [Ameren] operated and the lack of efficiency at the sheriff department and I said, ‘Oh, this place needs to be revamped,’” Betts said. “So I was motivated to stay there and try to make the sheriff's department a better place.”
Betts decided to run for sheriff against his predecessor, longtime Sheriff Jim Murphy, in 2011. The move cost him his job. “I have the right to run for sheriff,” Betts told the St. Louis American at the time. “It’s my constitutional right.”
Murphy decisively defeated Betts in the 2011 race. But when Murphy chose not to seek reelection, Betts triumphed in his 2016 bid for the seat — becoming the first-ever elected Black sheriff in Missouri.
"Anytime you are the first of anything, it adds a lot of notoriety but also a lot of pressure for you to be the trendsetter — for you to be the person that sets the bar," he said. "I had a standard I had to live up to.”
The young gun approaches
Montgomery, Betts’ eventual usurper, had only worked as a sheriff’s deputy for a few months when he realized he wanted a new job — the sheriff’s.
The deputy took to Facebook to share his candidacy in December 2019, and Betts fired him shortly thereafter for alleged "substandard work, absenteeism [and] repeated violation of department policy,” according to the RFT.
Betts won the 2020 Democratic primary in a landslide, roughly 34 percentage points, and easily took the general election. But the 27-year-old Montgomery returned for another round this year.
The opponents traded barbs throughout a contentious campaign.
In a recording leaked to KMOV earlier this year, Betts can be heard telling deputies to shoot people who disagree with him politically. When asked about the remarks, the sheriff told the television station his comments were a joke.
In another instance, Betts called Montgomery — also a Black man — a "monkey."
Betts also advocated for a bill through the Missouri legislature that would have disqualified his opponent from running because he was not a state-licensed peace officer. The bill was dropped on the House floor after Montgomery noted Betts wasn’t licensed when he became sheriff.
The sheriff narrowly lost to Montgomery in the August primary and a recount returned the same results. Subsequently, the sheriff refused to work with his successor on a transition of power, citing alleged harassment.
Montgomery recently vowed to fire most of the outgoing sheriff’s top officials on his first day in office.
“I don't think the voters understand the job. I don't think they understand how serious the job is, and I blame myself a little bit there because we have not done a good job in advertising all of the things that the sheriff's department has done,” Betts said, reflecting on his loss. “You can do 10 goods and do one bad, and that one bad will overshadow you. So I think that's what has happened in these last four years.”
A department changed
Betts is proud of how the sheriff’s office has evolved — despite the challenges he faced along the way.
When he first began, Betts said the sheriff’s staff had been given the nickname “brown clowns,” alluding to the brown and white sheriff’s uniforms.
That’s not something he hears much anymore.
“I'm really, really proud of having trained a lot of those guys — ladies and gentlemen — who were with the sheriff department [and] have gone other places,” he said.
Betts is especially proud that the deputies are now Peace Officer Standards and Training certified. The state-sponsored certification that Betts pushed allows some of the sheriff’s staffers to assist the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in making arrests, issuing traffic tickets and conducting searches.
But, that has also created challenges because his staff aren’t paid as much as other local law enforcement agencies.
“I just could not maintain a consistent workforce,” he said. “People are always looking for something better to make more money.”
Pay and staffing are some of the things Betts said Montgomery should look at immediately when he takes office.
“He should prioritize just making sure that he has the people that he needs to get the job done — and that's going to be one of his biggest issues right off the bat — because we are so short-staffed and we don't have all the manpower,” Betts said. “Maybe he can build a better relationship with the judges, and they can [...] give a little more support in helping him get the number of people he needs.”
But that’s not the only advice he has for Montgomery.
“Calm down. Let the people do their job, and they're going to make you proud. That's what they've done for me,” Betts said. “On December the 31st, I'm going to lay the keys to the building […] on the at the desk, and all Mr. Montgomery got to do is walk in and pick up the keys.”
Life after the badge
The outgoing sheriff said he wants St. Louisans to know he did the best with what he had to work with.
“I want people to be able to say: “Hey, when I came across the path of Vernon Betts, Vernon Betts helped me out,'” he said. “I want people to say: ‘Well, may not have been the nicest person all the time, but he made a difference.’”
Betts said he is considering staying involved in St. Louis’ political scene.
“If in my neighborhood, we can't come up with a good alderman, I wouldn't mind running for alderman of my neighborhood,” he said of Rasheen Aldridge’s seat in the 14th Ward. The current alderman said he would welcome Betts as an opponent because he beat him once in a race and wouldn’t mind doing so again. (Betts failed in a 2020 race against Aldridge for 5th Ward Democratic committeeman.)
Rumors also speculated Betts would also challenge Tishaura Jones for the mayor’s seat, but the sheriff said he’s keeping his options open.
“If I had won the sheriff's race this time, I had already made plans that I was going to run for mayor. I'm not happy with that particular office. I'm going to keep my eyes on that,” Betts said. “If I have to do something like [running for mayor…] to help the City of St Louis become a better city, I'll run for office. If I win, I win. If I don't, I don't — but I'll do my best.”
In the immediate future, the 72-year-old said he is weighing furthering his expertise in theology, alluding to serving as an associate minister at his north St. Louis County church, or cooking. The baseball fanatic may even get a part-time job as a St. Louis Cardinals usher or at Home Depot.
“Let's try to make St. Louis a safer place,” he said. “I thank the citizens for giving me that privilege."
