An internal audit conducted by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department found dozens of errors across 50 investigations into police shootings. The audit was unsealed late last month as part of a lawsuit filed against the city by the family of Mansur Ball-Bey, who was killed by a St. Louis police officer in 2015.
St. Louis has spent years fighting in court to keep the audit under wraps. Portions of the audit were first detailed earlier this year in reporting by St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger. He was also the first to report on the details of the now-unsealed audit into the department's Force Investigative Unit.
“They found multiple flaws in each of the investigations,” Messenger said during Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air. “Sometimes they couldn't find a report, sometimes they thought that the wrong investigator was assigned. Sometimes they thought that witnesses weren't properly interviewed or followed up upon. There were multiple errors cited in the report, in literally every shooting investigation.”
The audit covered a roughly four-year span ending in 2018. Messenger said that the audit’s allegations of prolonged mismanagement could affect other lawsuits over police shootings.
“Every attorney that has a case against the city relating to a police shooting, going back, however long in the past, and now going forward, is going to go into court with a copy of this document and say, according to the City of St Louis Police Department, to their own document, they have a pattern and practice of failing to properly investigate police shootings.’”
To hear more from Tony Messenger, including how the audit is connected to the firing of the Force Investigative Unit’s commander in 2021, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
