Recent Missouri editorials

Kansas City Star, July 22

Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith was in the audience at the White House on Wednesday as President Donald Trump charged that violent crime is up in Kansas City, and elsewhere where federal agents are going in, because local officials have failed to do their job. “When they abdicate their duty,” the president said, “the results are catastrophic.”

Maybe the president doesn’t know that officials in Kansas City have almost no duty to abdicate in that regard since Smith and his department don’t answer to them, but to the state-controlled police board.

Surely the president didn’t mean that Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is in any way responsible, since that doesn’t fit his partisan narrative.

Inadvertently, Trump made the point that yes, local officials should be responsible for local problems, which is why Kansas City should control its own police department, the state shouldn’t impose its gun laws on us, and federal agents should either stick to helping clear murders, as originally promised, or get out of town.

The president’s determination to blame Democratic mayors for violent crime is part of his law-and-order-themed reelection campaign, but Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas took exception without answering in kind: “For the president to suggest that we don’t care, or that urban politicians are killing people or harming people, it’s a lie.”

And Smith’s presence there, at a highly politicized White House event to which Lucas was not invited, and where Trump announced that the Justice Department’s Operation Legend had been so successful here that it’s being expanded to other cities, only underscores the point that Smith does not answer to anyone here, or even feel the need to keep Kansas City officials in the loop.

Lucas was surprised, and skeptical, when he heard Attorney General William Barr say that federal agents here have already made 200 arrests; Lucas only knew about the one that was announced on Tuesday, the arrest of a man who was sitting in a stolen car, and who had earlier run over a police officer’s foot. (Turns out, he was right to doubt that number, which includes state and federal arrests back to December.)

If the point of these forays into cities by the feds was really to be helpful, Lucas would not have had to find out on Twitter that agents were coming to Kansas City.

Instead, the point seems to be to incite fear that we - and now Chicago and Albuquerque, where a “major surge” of federal agents is coming soon - could be the next Portland, where agents from who-knows-where are snatching people off the streets in anticipation of the crimes they might commit in the future.

Kansas City clergy are already discussing how to best respond to what feels like an invasion.

These unconstitutional round-ups look a lot like state-side extraordinary renditions, meant to intimidate, incite and up the law-and-order ante ahead of the November presidential election.

If Operation Legend were really, as we were told, an effort to clear the backlog of old homicide cases, why was the first arrest they announced of someone who had injured a police officer?

And if the effort is, as Barr and others explained on Wednesday, a program that identifies and arrests chronic offenders, that sounds a lot like the crime-fighting program that Smith dismantled after he took over as chief in 2017. Homicides have gone up since then, and since state gun laws have gotten progressively less restrictive.

Trump blamed “deadly politicians,” and Barr pinned the spike on the Black Lives Matter protests that have followed George Floyd’s May 25 murder in Minneapolis. It’s a “direct result of the attack on police,” Barr said. Do we even need to say that that makes no sense?

Lucas did: “I hate the fact that they link the Black Lives Matter protests to people getting murdered,” he said in an interview.

“I’m not asking them to leave yet,” the mayor said of the federal agents who are here. But he has more questions now than before Trump’s announcement. “Something’s not squaring up,” he said, and looks forward to hearing some answers from Smith when he gets back from Washington.

We are not a prop in Trump’s campaign, and the mayor is right to call out the racial “dog-whistling” in Trump’s rhetoric about crime, which is really more like a piercing scream.

“I do have concerns with the president’s racial undertones in his rhetoric. When I was growing up, they used to call it dog-whistling. I think the president has exceeded that.”

“What we don’t support is an expanded and broadened mission, which is what we’ve seen in Portland and what we’ve seen hinted at in interviews from the president that look like a federal takeover of policing in Kansas City,” Lucas told The Star.

Operation Legend is named for LeGend Taliferro, the 4-year-old Kansas City boy shot to death in his bed last month. His grieving mother, Charron Powell, spoke movingly at the White House event and pleaded with our city and others to support the effort.

We definitely want to make this city safe for 4-year-olds, and all the rest of us. But whether the feds will help us do that is far from clear.

Joplin Globe, July 27

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

- Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

Regardless of whether you think the federal law enforcement push into cities nationwide is political theater in an election year or a necessary effort to quell violence and social upheaval, one element of these recent interventions should concern us all.

Some law enforcers have been operating in tactical gear with no insignia and no identification. It happened with federal forces in Washington, D.C., and in Portland, Oregon. In some communities around the country, local police also have taken to covering or removing their name tags, badges and patches.

There has been talk about sending more federal officers to other cities, including some in Missouri, which raises a host of questions. A primary one for us is the extent to which those officers will either display identifying insignia and badges or present a badge and identify themselves when making arrests, especially if using force.

This anonymity tactic is one Missouri lawmakers should prohibit. It also is one city leaders should prevent, too.

The justification for doing this varies but boils down to the assertion that the public knowing who officers are would present an unacceptable risk to those officers. Particularly cited is the threat of doxing - an abbreviation for “documents” that refers to compiling and releasing personal information online with the intent to embarrass, harass or intimidate.

What is ignored is the risk to the public. Putting officers on the street without ID or insignia is dangerous.

When police aren’t identifying themselves, armed militias we see showing up at protests could usurp police authority. Conversely, civilians could refuse to follow lawful orders or resist unidentified law enforcers as a result of unnecessary confusion stemming from the practice. Most importantly, the power to identify is inherent to accountability, a fundamental issue involved in the wave of protests roiling our nation.

Five of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights pertain to matters of justice. Clearly, these were vital issues to the founders and are just as important today.

Accountability for law enforcers who might abuse their power is much more likely in the era of cellphone video and body cameras. Certainly, that has been the situation in the George Floyd case. But without identification, whom do we call to account?

Federal power is limited by the Constitution, and intervention in local matters without a cooperation of forces agreement is constrained to the protection of federal property, enforcement of federal laws and matters related to terrorism. In any case, federal or local, the requirement of a warrant or the need to establish probable cause in arrests also requires that officers be identified in order to make the required “oath or affirmation.”

If these practices continue, states and communities will be required to take measures to preserve public safety and police accountability.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 26

Congress has known for months that a steep economic cliff was approaching for millions of Americans last week. Both a $600 federal boost to unemployment benefits and a federal moratorium on evictions expired Friday. Meanwhile, state budgets across the nation are straining under the expense and diminished tax revenue of the pandemic. Testing systems nationwide are mired in long waits for results and lack of federal coordination. Countless small businesses, struggling for months, are going under for the last time. No one knows what to do about the approaching school year. All this as the coronavirus surges, threatening renewed shutdowns.

Yet the Republicans who control the White House and Senate waited until last week’s deadlines to start talking in earnest. Then they couldn’t reach agreement even among themselves on a new relief package before Friday - let alone negotiate with House Democrats who, unlike their GOP colleagues, got their act together months ago to pass such a package.

Even last week, Republicans continued couching the Senate’s unconscionable failure to act before now as if it was about a highway bill or something, instead of a time-sensitive lifeline to the nation during the worst public health crisis in a century. “It’s a normal part of the sausage factory,” shrugged Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Tell that to the millions of Americans now peering down over these cliffs of joblessness, homelessness, state budget cuts and unchecked infections.

This isn’t partisan gridlock. This is the Republican failure to lead that we’ve seen again and again in this crisis - and the nation is about to start feeling it like never before.

Economists have marveled that even as America endures massive (if, hopefully, temporary) business closures and unemployment spikes not seen in generations, the poverty rate hasn’t significantly increased during these past months. What has buffered millions from poverty is the $2.2 trillion Cares Act that Congress passed in March. Especially crucial was the additional $600 added to weekly state unemployment benefits for people thrown out of work by the pandemic.

The end of that benefit on Friday wasn’t some kind of surprise. It was a scheduled sunset in the legislation from the start. This newspaper and countless other voices pressed Congress to extend it before that deadline hit. House Democrats have long called for doing exactly that and have passed legislation to that effect. But Senate Republicans remained in recess until last Monday, then spent the week not getting it done. As a direct result of that failure, Missouri’s top weekly unemployment benefit for workers idled by the pandemic sits at a little over $300 as of this week. Try living on that while continuing to pay the rent.

And paying the rent just became a more urgent issue, because the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures at federally backed housing also expired Friday. That, too, was a wall clearly visible for months before the nation hit it. Congress’ failure to act makes a wave of new evictions virtually inevitable. Some 12 million renters could be affected - especially in states like Missouri, which haven’t instituted state-level moratoriums.

So Missouri, like other states, is still battling the pandemic’s high unemployment and now is seeing record levels of new infection, raising the real possibility that bars, restaurants and other businesses will again have to close. This just as their employees are losing access to both enhanced unemployment benefits and eviction protection. Talk about an economic tsunami.

For all its faults, the Cares Act has demonstrably shielded millions of Americans from what would have been far worse economic consequences than we’ve seen. With coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths all on the rise, that shield is still needed.

In mid-May, the Democrat-controlled House moved to get ahead of last week’s deadlines by passing the $3 trillion Heroes Act. It essentially extends the provisions of the earlier package - including the $600 unemployment benefits and eviction moratoriums that expired Friday - while adding a lot more. Not all of it necessarily belongs there; it was meant as a starting point for negotiation with the Republican-controlled Senate.

And what did Senate Republicans do with those 2½ months? First they insisted no further federal emergency spending was necessary. Then they acknowledged something will be necessary but got into a protracted debate with the White House and each other about what and how much. Then they took a recess as the deadlines loomed.

(As usual, President Donald Trump’s contribution to the situation has ranged between unproductive and counterproductive. With coronavirus test results now routinely taking more than a week to be completed because of backlogs, making them virtually useless for tracing, the administration has argued that additional federal money for testing shouldn’t be in any new rescue package. The mind reels.)

It’s been easy to see, for many weeks now, that the way through the resurgent pandemic is to lock down regions where it’s spreading the worst. That would necessitate a continued federal financial safety net to buffer economic havoc on small businesses and individuals. Democrats offered a proposal for that 10 weeks ago. Republicans continue to offer dismissive metaphors about legislative sausage-making, while millions of Americans’ financial stability, homes and even lives hang in the balance.

The GOP is only now meandering to the bargaining table - far too late for many of those who have long been headed for this clearly predicted cliff. Americans in November shouldn’t forget that this unacceptable dereliction of duty wasn’t bipartisan.