The Jefferson City News-Tribune, May 7
We’re glad to see the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t affecting the state’s ability to test a backlog of rape kits.
By January, various state agencies had a total backlog of more than 7,000 untested kits, according to a story we recently published.
Last year, we urged the Missouri Highway Patrol to redouble its efforts to test the kits. There were far fewer untested kits then, and we said that was unacceptable.
It’s still unacceptable, but we’re encouraged that progress continues to be made.
The state completed a full inventory of the untested kits in the fall, and in January, it began sending kits to a private forensic lab in Virginia for testing - an effort funded by a $2.8 million grant from the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance to help test approximately 1,250 of the state’s overall backlog of untested kits.
The patrol’s crime lab continues doing its own testing, while adhering to social distancing.
It takes 90 days to test a kit.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office in January estimated it would take approximately six months to work through the kits they can afford to test with the federal funding, until more funding can come through, and if any result in a DNA match, prosecutors would begin to build a case.
We urge the state to remain dedicated to funding and testing the kits.
If the kits go untested, that sends a message to sexual assault victims that such crimes are a low priority. Testing the kits are an integral step before prosecutors can build a case against offenders.
Some of the untested kits are from cases that are outside the statute of limitations. That’s unfortunate, but the state is doing the right thing by testing these kits as well, even if offenders can’t be held legally accountable at this point.
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The Joplin Globe, May 7
There’s been more talk in Jefferson City this past week about arming teachers and school staff.
We’ve always thought that should be a district’s last resort.
Everyone is on board with protecting children in schools, and if training and arming teachers was the only way - or the best way - to prevent school shootings, we’d go there too.
But beginning in 2018, Missouri law allowed districts to choose to arm staff who meet specific training requirements. The program is voluntary and up to each school board, yet very few implemented it. Clearly, they don’t see it as the best solution either.
We think the better, safer option for everyone is putting into schools trained police officers. Yes, it will be expensive. For a district like Joplin, it would mean employing 15 or so officers - one per school. This is not a burden that should fall solely on the district, but as it is a societal problem, costs should be shared by the city, state and even the federal government.
For us, it comes down to a question of the most effective response to an active shooter situation: a highly trained officer, or an armed teacher or staff member. If we had confidence the latter would be effective, that would be one thing, but it is probably unlikely to work and is certainly unproven.
Protecting children in our schools requires a societal challenge, and it also must incorporate solutions beyond putting more guns in classrooms.
Self-defense starts with prevention and should certainly include funding for mental health initiatives. The 2019 Missouri Governor’s School Safety Task Force noted that: “Schools report mental health-related problems increasing annually, without a corresponding increase in available mental health resources. Many communities and schools lack high-quality treatment for children and adolescents.
“There is an urgent need for effective prevention interventions and the ability to identify youth at risk for mental illness in schools to connect them with needed treatment and services.”
We’ve written before and will continue to emphasize that our unwillingness to prioritize mental health funding and treatment in the country is a societal failure that is at the heart of many of our problems.
The simple fact is that there is no perfect, one-size-fits-all solution to school shootings. We must address a number of complex problems, and if all we’re talking about is arming teachers without addressing these deeper issues, we’ll prevent little.
One last thought: How districts proceed, especially on a matter as sensitive as introducing guns to classrooms - whether controlled by trained officers or put in the hands of teachers and staff - must be a choice made locally.
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The Kansas City Star, May 7
In February, the Missouri Senate approved a short bill exempting food pantries from liability for providing “shelf stable” food, including dried venison. Some called SB 662 the “deer jerky” bill.
This week, the Missouri House took up the measure and passed it. It has, um, changed.
The legislation now addresses, among other things: legislative subpoena power, hairstyle discrimination, the “Kratom Consumer Protection Act,” motor vehicle condition disclosures, salaries for court reporters, eminent domain for power lines, liability protections for COVID-19 health care responders and costs related to changes of venue in death penalty cases.
Oh, and it allows feral hog hunting on public land along with raw milk sales, and provides liability exemptions for private campground owners because of “the inherent risk of camping.”
With just a few days to go before adjournment, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled General Assembly are frantically cramming a hodge-podge of favored legislation into catch-all omnibus bills. The aim is simple: Pass whatever’s still lying around and hope no one notices.
Call it omnibus-mania, because it is truly madness. It must stop.
Legislators are now debating plans to neutralize the authority of county health directors, changing the rules on expanded Medicaid before voters get their say, adjusting the tax structure on airplanes, even legalizing brass knuckles.
A five-page bill addressing opioids is now a 49-page monstrosity reestablishing debtors’ prisons in Missouri. A “crime” bill appears to require security officers in schools to carry guns and attempts to nullify federal gun laws. Payday lenders may get a break in last-minute legislation.
These measures, and others, are contemptible on their own terms. Passing controversial bills in the waning hours of a session disrespects the state’s voters who want to make their views known before lawmakers act.
And how can lawmakers say with a straight face that they understand all these measures? Or that the courts won’t throw these multi-topic bills in the garbage where they belong?
Such behavior is - or should be - unthinkable in the middle of the disastrous coronavirus pandemic. Missourians are still getting sick and dying. A Missouri food processing plant is crammed with workers who have tested positive for COVID-19. Parts of the state remain closed.
Perhaps legislators should spend more time contending with how to deal with the fallout from the deadly virus and less on the right to wear metal weapons on your fingers.
We’re not the only ones who think lawmakers have lost their way. In an extraordinary letter this week, a coalition of Missouri groups from the left, right and center urged legislators to focus on the pandemic, not on political trophy-hunting.
“Lawmakers are failing to lead by example if we are truly all in this together,” the groups said. “Passing bills unrelated to the budget or the COVID-19 virus without the scrutiny of sunshine taints the legislative process and public trust in the institution.”
It isn’t often that the ACLU of Missouri agrees with Americans for Prosperity Missouri. Those groups and others are aghast at what’s happening in Jefferson City, as all Missourians should be.
This is not the time for politicians to take advantage of a generational calamity to pass indefensible legislation while constituents are focused on their health and their families.
It’s time for lawmakers to go home.
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