CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) - The leader of St. Louis County police board that was overhauled after a gay police sergeant was awarded nearly $20 million two months ago in a discrimination lawsuit says members are committed to stamping out bias.
Board of Police Commissioners chairman William Ray Price Jr. publicly praised Chief Jon Belmar on Thursday - the board’s first meeting since County Executive Sam Page replaced four of five commissioners - for creating a diversity and inclusion unit. It will be led by Keith Wildhaber, who says he was passed over for promotion 23 times and was told to “tone down” his “gayness,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
But despite the praise, Price said it was too soon to say whether the board would keep Belmar in the leadership role.
The new unit and Wildhaber’s promotion to lieutenant were announced last week, just days before attorneys for Wildhaber and the county were scheduled to begin mediation, although both sides said it was not part of any settlement.
During Thursday’s meeting, Price told Wildhaber that the new post was important and “not for show.”
Wildhaber’s appointment has been divisive, however. It drew criticism from the Ethical Society of Police, an association of black officers in St. Louis and St. Louis County, who questioned the process that led to it. In an op-ed published in the St. Louis American, the group asked why the department did not create a diversity unit after several times in recent years when black officers alleged discrimination.
Wildhaber declined to comment after the meeting.
County Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, D-5th District, said she shared the same concerns. She said while the creation of the unit was a positive step, “process matters.”
Asked whether he had any concerns about the process that led to Wildhaber’s post, Price did not directly respond. “The real question will be what this diversity and inclusion unit does,” he said.
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