香港三级片

Last week, Bowlin was part of a news conference at the St. 香港三级片 Police Officers Association headquarters, in which several state lawmakers 鈥� all of them white, and none of them from the city 鈥� called for an amorphous special session on crime so those same lawmakers could spend a couple of weeks bashing Black elected officials like St. 香港三级片 Mayor Tishaura Jones, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner.

Bowlin wasn鈥檛 there because the mayor of Wildwood can (or should) do anything about crime in St. 香港三级片. He was there, I believe, because he is considering a run for higher office. This was a political photo-op, a chance for white Republicans to say they #BackTheBlue.

(Except for when members of the police officers鈥� association beat up one of their own Black colleagues, or when Capitol police officers are attacked by a Trump-inspired insurrection, or when police chiefs beg lawmakers to let them pass reasonable gun regulations in their cities to help keep their officers safe.)

Dr. Sonny Saggar is one of Bowlin鈥檚 constituents. (As am I.) Saggar owns and operates a 24-hour urgent care in downtown St. 香港三级片, and used to have one on the city鈥檚 north side. He鈥檚 not a fan of Bowlin鈥檚 attempt to disparage the city where he spends more time than he does at his home in Wildwood.

鈥淚鈥檝e been downtown at all hours of the day and night,鈥� Saggar says, 鈥渟o I think I鈥檓 more familiar than most people when I say that downtown is safe and friendly. The people who live and work downtown are the salt of the earth.鈥�

In the city, Jones鈥� plan is to take money from the police budget that had been there for years under previous mayors to hire additional police officers that were never hired and spend it in the neighborhoods where crime is high, addressing the father of crime, poverty. It鈥檚 an idea upon which Jones based her winning campaign for mayor. It鈥檚 supported by police Chief John Hayden (#backtheblue), and the director of public safety, former police Chief Dan Isom (#backtheblue). Saggar doesn鈥檛 have a particular opinion on the two mayors鈥� different approaches to crime, but he hopes Jones鈥� plan works.

He wishes his mayor, however, would show Jones the same respect he shows the white mayors in the cities surrounding Wildwood, like Chesterfield, Eureka, Ellisville and Ballwin. Bowlin didn鈥檛 alert Jones that he was coming to her city to participate in a news conference criticizing her approach to policing. Imagine, for a moment, that Bowlin didn鈥檛 like one of the decisions one of his neighboring mayors made regarding their city budgets. Do you think for one moment, he would join a news conference in one of those cities without calling up the mayor to give him a heads-up?

Of course he wouldn鈥檛. In fact, when Bowlin sought to insert himself into a Chesterfield matter in 2018, the first thing he did was pick up the phone and call Mayor Bob Nation. We know this because of documents in a federal lawsuit against Bowlin and the city of Wildwood recently settled with a former candidate for office, Tony Salvatore, for $295,000.

When Salvatore was running for office, he campaigned by holding signs on city right of way. One intersection bordered Chesterfield, and, according to documents in the lawsuit, Bowlin called Nation and asked him to send police by to see Salvatore. Later, Wildwood, which denied any wrongdoing in the settlement, made it very difficult for Salvatore to access public records following Sunshine Law requests.

Now, Bowlin adds his name to an effort in which state lawmakers meddle in police affairs in the city of St. 香港三级片 once a Black mayor is elected, despite having done very little in previous sessions to address crime in the city. 鈥淢y purpose on that stage was not to slam the city,鈥� Bowlin told me.

OK, then, why put yourself there? Then again, the guy who organized the news conference, Rep. Nick Schroer, R-O鈥橣allon, had to recently convince a judge that he was living in a random constituent鈥檚 rented room, and not with his family, which had moved to a house outside the district before his most recent election.

Political boundaries (or the law) don鈥檛 apply, apparently, to some people the way they do the rest of us.