By Joe Mahr
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — St. Louis city police are re-evaluating their practice of not seeking warrants for thousands of fugitives suspected of felonies after a Post-Dispatch investigation found the fugitives could pass police checks elsewhere and be let go.
“It points out issues we need to examine,” said Chief Joe Mokwa.
The newspaper investigation found that authorities in St. Louis and St. Louis County routinely refuse to issue warrants despite police saying they have enough evidence to arrest the suspects. Without warrants, the suspects’ names can’t be entered into state and FBI fugitive databases, so police elsewhere won’t know they’re fugitives.
As of Oct. 31, the most recent data available, there were 2,057 cases in St. Louis and 2,330 in St. Louis County. Those cases included 16 murders, 75 sexual assaults and 279 robberies.
Police insist that, in each case, they have “probable cause,” or reasonable belief, that the suspect committed the crime. That’s the constitutional requirement to either arrest or get a warrant for someone.
In most major metropolitan areas, if authorities have probable cause, they issue arrest warrants.
But in St. Louis and St. Louis County, in all but the most extreme or unusual cases, police must first find the fugitives and question them before seeking warrants from prosecutors.
To fill the void, police issue “wanteds” - alerts that go into the local police fugitive database, but nowhere else.
Mokwa said city police had been reluctant to take requests for warrants to prosecutors unless there was evidence that a fugitive had fled. He said that even though police thought they had enough evidence to arrest suspects, the cases might be complicated, and prosecutors might not be ready to press charges.
Still, Mokwa said the system must be re-evaluated in light of the newspaper’s investigation - a review Mayor Francis Slay supports.
“Law enforcement in other jurisdictions should know when someone from St. Louis is on the lam,” Slay said in a statement.
Missouri’s other major urban area - Kansas City - issues warrants as quickly as possible, in part to ensure that suspects can’t avoid arrest by fleeing Jackson County, longtime prosecutor Michael Sanders said in an interview last year.
“Maybe that person is no longer in the jurisdiction, and you don’t want them 100 miles away, across state lines - and because that national warrant hasn’t been issued, they’re let go,” said Sanders, now the county’s chief executive.
But St. Louis city prosecutors - who are responsible for securing warrants - said they had no problem with the current system.
Ed Postawko, the chief warrant officer, said that even in cases with enough evidence for charges, police could figure out “in a large number of the cases” if the fugitives had fled and could obtain warrants before they harmed anyone elsewhere.
It’s impossible to determine how many of those sought on wanteds have been let go elsewhere and harmed someone. Authorities refuse to release the names of those sought on wanteds.
Regardless, that’s a gamble other major metro areas haven’t been willing to take, and it raises questions among police and legal experts about whether St. Louis’ system needs to be overhauled.
“There shouldn’t be something unique about the system, either in St. Louis or St. Louis County, compared to major metropolitan areas,” said Washington University law professor Peter Joy.
“If it works elsewhere, why isn’t it working here? Or, if this is really such a better system, why don’t we find it in other major cities?”
St. Louis County authorities did not return calls.
Copyright 2008 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch