By Adam Allington, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The St. Louis Aldermanic Black Caucus has drafted a resolution asking the state to hand control of the St. Louis Police Department back to the city after nearly 150 years.
Control of the St. Louis police force was wrested from the city during the Civil War when rural legislatures worried that urban police departments could be conscripted as Union militia.
As a result St. Louis and Kansas City are the only two major cities in the country without local control of their police departments.
To this day, appointments to the St. Louis Police Board of Commissioners, which oversees the local force, are made by the governor.
Alderman Terry Kennedy says this structure has more than outlived it's purpose and turned the department into a political trump card.
"That gives some out state legislatures to the opportunity to control the major city, or have input into the major city of this state, the major metropolis of this state it becomes an issue of control."
A spokesman for the Police Officer's Association claim just the opposite that under local control the police department would become mired in city politics.
"We've got the same number of Aldermen that we had when we had over a million people residing in the city of St. Louis," says Kevin Ahlbrand, President of the St. Louis Police Officer's Association.
"I think there are way too many aldermen here. The police department works without an extra level of bureaucracy that could possibly interfere with the day to day operations of the police department."
Ahlbrand also points out that the city is able to approve the department's budget and the Police Board of Commissioners, which oversees the force, must be residents of the city.