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Leaders credit Koster for filling leadership void during Ferguson, but some accounts differ

ST. LOUIS – The recent gubernatorial forum had its fair share of contentious moments between Attorney General Chris Koster and Republican nominee Eric Greitens. However, a comment Greitens made about Koster’s handling of the protests and subsequent riots in Ferguson raised eyebrows and sparked a flurry of varying accounts from two years ago.

The comment comes roughly 50 minutes into the debate. Greitens accuses Koster of wanting to fire Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Michael Brown, which sparked the protests.

Greitens
Greitens

“When [Koster] showed up at Ferguson, one of the first things that he did was he said, ‘Can we fire Darren Wilson?’ “ Greitens said. “He did this before he knew the facts, he did this because it was politically convenient for him.”

Officer Darren Wilson, of course, was the police officer who shot Michael Brown which sparked the Ferguson unrest. An investigation by the Department of Justice found that Wilson had acted appropriately in self-defense.

During the debate, Greitens did not cite any sources as to how he knew what Koster’s comments were, and while the Greitens campaign did not respond to a request for further comment after the debate, the Koster camp was quick to denounce Greitens’ statements as a “flat-out lie.”

However, former Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson told The Missouri Times that he told Greitens that exact quote during a recent conversation.

“I told Mr. Greitens nearly the exact words he used there. People should know what Koster was up to in that situation,” said Jackson.

While many significant figures involved in the unrest have a very different account than Jackson, most everyone in the critical meetings, from Koster supporters such as Kevin Ahlbrand, the former president of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, to the loudest critics of how the situation was handled – such as Republicans like Ferguson Mayor James Knowles and former House Speaker John Diehl – credit Koster for proactively stepping into a leadership void in an attempt to help the city during its critical moments in the crisis.

Further, everyone in the meetings in question all stated that Governor Jay Nixon was not involved or anywhere to be found. In fact, Knowles has stated multiple times that Nixon never returned the city’s numerous calls for help.

“You had a situation where there was no communication from the Governor’s office and the City of Ferguson,” Knowles said. “I give Chris Koster credit for being the one to reach out to the city and try to step up and provide some leadership.”

Jackson echoed those sentiments.

“The Governor was a pretty much a non-factor from the start but after he called for a ‘vigorous prosecution’ of Officer Wilson before the investigation was even complete he was totally useless to anyone on the ground.”

Differing accounts

So what actually happened in the meetings about how to handle Wilson’s position with the Ferguson police force?

Diehl PHOTO/TIM BOMMEL - HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS
Diehl
PHOTO/TIM BOMMEL – HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS

One of the most outspoken critics of the Nixon administration’s response to the crisis was then-House Majority Floor Leader John Diehl. Diehl stated that he was invited to three or four meetings by Koster for the purpose of attempting to provide a bipartisan response and solution to the crisis.

Diehl added that in those meetings, he never heard Koster state a desire to terminate Darren Wilson or reprimand him. He further expressed that Koster’s position, unlike others in the room, was focused on assisting law enforcement and first responders and maintaining law and order.

“There were clearly some anti-law enforcement actors in those meetings, but Koster was not one of them and was reserving judgment,” Diehl said. “While we did not agree on everything, he was an ally of mine as it relates to not throwing Darren Wilson under the bus and trying to make sure we provided for his safety and well-being”.

Diehl, who had a track record in the Missouri House as a leading advocate of police and first responders, was glowingly praised by Jackson.

“John Diehl was actually one of the loudest and most vocal elected officials outside of Ferguson of both myself and Officer Wilson being treated fairly during the entire crisis.”

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson remembers the meetings similarly to Diehl. Dotson, along with a multitude of local political leaders, including Koster, or their representatives, had long discussions where he said many of them came to the conclusion that Wilson would likely not work in law enforcement again by his own choice. He ultimately resigned after the grand jury reached their decision not to charge him with a crime.

“I have no recollection of Chris Koster calling for the immediate firing of Darren Wilson,” he added definitively.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill also weighed in on the matter, noting that it was inevitable Wilson wouldn’t be returning to the department.

“Everyone had already acknowledged that Officer Wilson was not going to return to the Ferguson Police Department—including Officer Wilson himself,” she said in a statement to The Missouri Times. “Many were discussing ways to accomplish that goal, and to help ease the unrest in Ferguson, in a way that was fair to everyone.”

However,  Jackson has become a major critic of Koster’s since leaving the department shortly after the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Ferguson Police Department was completed. He alleges that while Koster did step into the situation, he was trying to fire Wilson and that he even went a step further and tried to have Jackson fired as well.

“Most people don’t know what he was doing behind the scenes, and it was despicable,” Jackson said. “He was looking for a scapegoat, looking for someone to blame, looking for a head to roll to get things to stop. I thought it was cowardly. He actually called several people to convince them to get me to step down.”

Jackson, who is working on completing a book about his work during the unrest, said that Koster was also contacting local business leaders to encourage him to resign. However, none of those leaders we were able to reach would validate the accusation.

However, Knowles, Dotson, and Diehl pointed out that Jackson wasn’t in any of the meetings with Koster. Jackson himself confirmed to The Missouri Times all of his assertions about Koster, including the statement Greitens quoted in the debate were not based on first-hand accounts of Koster’s statements, but on the accounts of others who were personally in the meetings.

Mayor Knowles did, however, echo portions of Jackson’s account, and has stated that he disagreed with Koster’s assertions regarding the removal of Wilson.

“I did take issue with Koster’s ideas to remove Officer Wilson and Chief Jackson even before the investigation was complete without due process.”

Jackson said he could recall only personally speaking with Koster twice, once while he was on the state’s juvenile diabetes board while Koster was a Republican state senator and a second time during the unrest when Koster came to his office for what he described as a “brief and virtually meaningless visit held primarily for the press.”

During the meeting in Chief Jackson’s office, he said Koster never asked him to resign or referenced either he or Wilson should leave the department.

“It was such as meaningless visit I don’t even know if I made any notes afterward,” said Jackson.

Wilson told The Missouri Times through his attorneys that they had no reason to believe they were dealing with anyone beyond the City of Ferguson’s attorney, Stephanie Karr. Karr requested on behalf of the city that Wilson resign while his lawyers argued for a settlement package for the officer so he could continue to provide for his family.

“Never during the course of these conversations were there any indications that there was pressure being placed upon the City of Ferguson by Attorney General Koster, Sen. Claire McCaskill, or any state, local or federal politicians,” Wilson’s attorneys, James Towey and Neil Bruntrager,” said in a statement. “Never in the course of these conversations did the City of Ferguson through its representatives indicate that it was speaking for anyone other than themselves…

“It was our belief then, as it is our belief now, that we were dealing directly with the City of Ferguson and no other parties or entities.”

Wilson’s lawyers added that the embattled police officer only resigned “because of perceived credible threats against him and other members of the [Ferguson Police] Department.”

Kevin Ahlbrand, the former state president and current legislative director for the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), said that Wilson was a member of the FOP and he had a primary responsibility to protect Wilson’s rights. Ahlbrand noted he did not have many discussions with Koster about Wilson, but that Koster did work to accommodate the police to the best of his ability.

“I never heard him say anything about calling for the firing of Darren Wilson,” Ahlbrand said. “He called me within the first couple of days, and his first question was ‘What do you guys need?’ He knew I was on the ground there and he was always asking ‘How can I help you guys? What do you guys need?’”

The Missouri FOP ultimately endorsed Koster for governor.

Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, also rebuked Greitens’ and Jackson’s take. “Mr. Greitens’ statement at last week’s debate is false,” she said in a statement. “Throughout the protests, Attorney General Koster worked with law enforcement and members of the community to restore peace, and worked in the federal courts to protect police officers from various lawsuits filed by the ACLU and others.”

Why Ferguson matters this election

In the Republican primary, the candidates argued that as attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of the state, Koster had failed Missouri with a lackluster response that led to burning buildings and violence. Former Speaker Catherine Hanaway argued her time as a U.S. Attorney gave her a strong perspective on law and order, Lt. Gov Peter Kinder spoke about his own experiences on the ground and reaching out to urban communities, and Greitens promised supporters that if he had been governor at the time, he would have had peace by the second night.

Greitens called the events of Ferguson a failure of leadership. While the meetings in question were taking place, Greitens told St. Louis Magazine that he went to Ferguson to “understand what was going on.” In hindsight, Greitens says he would have instituted a curfew and set up listening posts.

Yet, law enforcement stood by Koster two years after the incident. When the organization first endorsed him in August, Detective Joe Patterson, the president of the St. Louis County Police Association (SLPOA), acknowledged that law enforcement and the attorney general had not performed optimally. However, he noted that Koster was one of the first statewide elected officials on the ground coordinating with law enforcement.

“I don’t think he was perfect during this incident, I don’t think I personally was perfect during this incident, I would argue that probably any police officer there would acknowledge and respect the fact that we all learned and grew from that,” Patterson said in August. “I would argue feverishly that we got better and better with time.”

On the other hand, Greitens has also had some positive responses from the law enforcement community. Members of the SLPOA had endorsed him in the late stages of the Republican primary before rescinding that endorsement. Greitens ultimately complied with a cease and desist order to stop touting the rescinded endorsement.

Greitens said at a campaign event in Springfield shortly after that he had the support of many individual members of law enforcement, and Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott who has held political office for nearly 10 years counts himself among Greitens’ supporters.

“I’m not going to worry about an endorsement from a union for a career politician,” Greitens said at the August event.

Greitens also wrote one of his most in-depth policy discussions about combatting violence against police in July after five police officers were targeted and killed in Dallas and one was shot and injured in Ballwin.

Turner, speaking on behalf of Koster and the campaign, said that before the grand jury’s verdict, Koster met with many government and law enforcement officials to examine methods to “calm the unrest, protect officer safety, and protect the safety of the public.” He said that included changes in the leadership of the Ferguson Police Department, but also the St. Louis County Police Department absorbing the FPD, and the expansion of body cameras.

“The firing of police officer Darren Wilson was never an element of the proposal, nor did Attorney General Koster advocate for his firing,” Turner said, adding that Jackson may have a mistaken memory or could be saying things for political reasons. “However, because it was known to all involved that Officer Wilson desired to leave the Ferguson Police Department, the time of Officer Wilson’s departure was an element that received consideration.”

Greitens did not return calls for comment. The most recent poll from The Missouri Times shows Greitens deficit in the race has shrunk to three points.