Organizing for America | Obama Drama: this is sad

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this is sad

By Hussian - Sep 13th, 2008 at 8:24 pm EDT

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The small town of Wellston is a huge mess

Sept. 3, 2008 - Wellston Mayor Frank McNeil Sr. (with glasses) and Police Chief Brian Gilmore are advised by the Wellston city attorney during Wednesday evening's City Council meeting in Wellston. (Erik M. Lunsford/P-D)By Todd C. FrankelST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH09/13/2008
WELLSTON - This tiny town, not quite one square mile in size, has long-suffered a big city's problems and scandals. Unemployment is high, crime a constant worry. Past mayors have gone to jail. Police chiefs — entire departments, too — come and go. Still, when the town's two top cops pulled guns on each other at the police station last month, Wellston seemed to hit a new low. City officials dismissed it as an isolated event. An embarrassing aberration.

But the high-profile fight was, in fact, just a dramatic twist to a string of previously undisclosed, questionable incidents. Several former officers say it fit a pattern of meddling by city officials. RELATED LINK

McNeil, Gilmore balked at media photographs

In the days before the fight, the mayor demanded that a woman claiming to be his granddaughter be released from jail. Hours later, a councilwoman protected her son and another man from arrest, according to officers on the scene. The next day, in a move many viewed as payback, the mayor gutted the 14-person police force. A new police chief was hired; days later, he helped his nephew avoid arrest, according to former officers.

Outside authorities, including St. Louis County Police, say they have seen nothing illegal in the city officials' actions.

But residents are appalled. Making the situation worse, as the police department melted down, a wave of home burglaries — 30 in all — swept over the town, which has only about 800 occupied homes.

"We want to be protected," said Seqenenra Shakur, 34, a freight handler. "We want our houses protected. When you've got the mayor going against the police, it is altogether wrong. Something really needs to be done about it."

MAYOR DEMANDS A FAVOR

Mayor Frank McNeil, 71, admitted helping the woman who claimed to be his granddaughter, but he disputed the relationship.

"I've been here 47 years — everyone calls me 'Pops,'" said McNeil, who for two years has been mayor of the town, sandwiched between St. Louis and University City. "She's no kin of mine."

But after the arrest of the woman, Catina Lee, 35, on July 26, the mayor called police to plead her case.

Lee and another woman, Viola Nettles, 49, were charged with failure to comply with police orders after shouting at an officer and refusing to move away from her cruiser, according to a police memo obtained by the Post-Dispatch.

"Lee continued that her grandpa was the mayor and that I could not arrest her," wrote former Officer Amy Smith.

Lee and Nettles were arrested and taken to the town jail. McNeil ordered the women released with a ticket. He warned of firings if he was ignored.

"If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong," McNeil later told the Post-Dispatch. "But I did not interfere."

Police officers on duty that night disagreed.

The mayor "wanted me fired for doing my job," Smith said. "He didn't let the chief do his job. It was awful."

As family and friends gathered outside the station demanding the women's release, then-police chief Robert Cossia suggested moving the women to the county jail in Clayton. Wellston's mayor holds no power in the county. Both women were taken to Clayton and released within three hours, according to jail records. Neither woman could be reached for comment.

But the mayor was incensed.

COUNCILWOMAN PROTECTS HER SON

Wellston once boasted a bustling shopping district clustered at the end of streetcar lines. There was a JC Penney. A Woolworth's. The town was home to nearly 10,000 people in 1950.

But the streetcars disappeared, and so did the factories. Today, storefronts along Martin Luther King Boulevard are boarded up or barely getting by. Population is down to 2,400.

The town also has been hit by scandals in government. In the 1990s, several city workers were accused of various criminal deeds. One mayor was impeached in 1991 for taking bribes. Another was convicted in 1997 for stealing city funds. And for three years county police patrolled the streets after the local police force was disbanded.

Last month, just hours after the mayor demanded a favor, the tension continued for Wellston police. Early in the morning of July 27, a speeding Jeep Grand Cherokee refused to stop for a police officer and blew through a stop sign, according to three former officers and another department memo. The car finally stopped near the home of Councilwoman Linda Whitfield. The police station sat across the street. Brian McGill, a police sergeant at the time, ran over to help.

It was a classic high-risk encounter, McGill recalled. The car windows were heavily tinted. McGill and Officer Fanon McDaniel pulled out their guns and yelled at the driver and passenger to get out. Two men climbed out just as Whitfield ran from her house and demanded to know what was going on, McGill said.

"Whitfield advised me that both driver and passenger were related to her," wrote McDaniel in a police memo with the subject line, "Political Interference."

The passenger, it was later discovered, was Whitfield's son. Police never identified the driver.

Officer Smith arrived. McGill and Smith said they hoped the driver would at least get traffic citations. But no charges were filed. The incident vanished.

"Anybody else they would've locked up," Smith said.

Whitfield declined repeated requests over several weeks for an interview.

McGill, who was fired and was still looking for a new job weeks later, was dismayed by it all.

"You can't do your job," McGill said of policing Wellston. "When you're right, you're still wrong."

He added: "Nothing is going to change so long as those council people are out there."

NEW CHIEF HELPS HIS NEPHEW

The fallout at the police station was swift. Smith, the only officer trained to handle canines, was fired. McGill, McDaniel and two other officers were fired, too. Cossia was demoted to deputy chief. A new police chief was brought in by the mayor.

Brian Gilmore, a 27-year veteran of St. Louis city police, took over a department slashed to nine officers from 14. Within a couple of weeks, the department would be down to as few as six.

Four days into Gilmore's new job, on Aug. 1, his nephew was stopped by police after leaving a dead-end street, an area known for drug-dealing, according to then-Officer Ron Huddleston, who pulled over the car. Cossia, back on patrol since his demotion, drove up to assist.

The car's license plates were registered to a woman named Gilmore. The driver, a man, did not have any ID, but he gave his last name as Gilmore, too, according to Huddleston and Cossia. "He was definitely going to jail," recalled Huddleston, who has since moved on to another police department.

Then the police radio crackled with news that "King 1" was on his way to the scene. That was Chief Gilmore's call sign.

When Gilmore pulled up, the driver was in handcuffs. "Hey, Uncle," the two officers recalled the driver saying before Chief Gilmore told the officers to release his nephew.

In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Chief Gilmore denied interfering. "They had nothing to arrest him for," Gilmore said. He also disputed his nephew was handcuffed. "I told the officers if there was any type of violation, to move on it," the chief said. "I didn't interfere whatsoever."

A CHILLING STANDOFF: CHIEF VERSUS EX-CHIEF

Later that day, the police station buzzed with officers upset about paychecks coming up short, according to interviews and a police report. Cossia and Gilmore stepped into a room to talk. A fight broke out.

Prosecutors say Cossia pushed and choked the new chief, then pointed a loaded gun at him. Gilmore pulled out his gun. The standoff was defused. Cossia has said his actions were self-defense.

Cossia declined to comment on the charges but confirmed details in the other incidents involving him. He was charged with two counts of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor. A hearing is set for Oct. 2.

But the case might be tainted. Wellston officials asked nearby Pine Lawn police to investigate. Conducting the inquiry was Pine Lawn Sgt. Robert Sampson, who used to work for Wellston police and had been fired by Cossia in 2007.

The county prosecutor's office declined to say whether this constituted a conflict of interest. "We're just going to deal with it at the time of the trial," Don Schneider of the prosecutor's office said.

WELLSTON STILL WAITING ON CHANGE

On Aug. 20, nearly three weeks after the fight, Wellston held a council meeting. McNeil quickly called for a closed session.

The council was gone two hours. Residents were upset. It was later learned the council had voted to fire Cossia.

Nearly alone in the barren council room, while public officials talked behind closed doors, sat James Hinton. He had served three terms on the council. A retiree, he has resided in Wellston for almost 50 years. He had lived through the troubles that have scarred the city. Still, there are signs of life, such as the nearly 80 low-income houses built in recent years.

Hinton said he thought Cossia had been doing a decent job as police chief. He noted police's quick response when his car was stolen several weeks ago. Cossia must have run afoul of the mayor, Hinton said.

To Hinton, the current disputes seem like a return to a regrettable pattern, one that Wellston can't seem to shake.

"I keep thinking we'll have a turnaround," Hinton said. "I'm 74 years old and still hoping out here."

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