St. Louis Prosecutor Faces First Opponent Since Ferguson Protests

Daniel Nichanian

St. Louis County’s longtime prosecuting attorney Bob McCulloch is seeking an eighth four-year term, four years after the 2014 Ferguson protests. That year, he drew heavy criticism for the way he handled his investigation into Michael Brown’s shooting and for his failure to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Brown. His actions fit a long pattern of cases in which he did not press charges after police shootings of unarmed Black men, Pema Levy reported at the time.

In the Aug. 7 Democratic primary, McCulloch faces Wesley Bell, a former public defender who was elected to the Ferguson City Council in 2015 and who “helped establish new police accountability and court reforms,” Amanda Sakuma reports in a new Appeal article. The primary winner will face no opponent in the November general election.

McCulloch is campaigning as a “public safety” candidate and warning against the advocacy of reform groups. “That is a real danger to public safety. They don’t think people ought to go to prison,” McCulloch said according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But Bell has campaigned on a need for reform. “That antiquated model of focusing on conviction rates and looking strong, that model is not working and is not making us safer,” he said.

What does this contrast mean for concrete policies? In their answers to a lengthy questionnaire prepared by the ACLU of Missouri, Bell makes a series of reform commitments that McCulloch does not mirror. (You can read Bell’s and McCulloch’s full answers.) Commitments that only Bell makes include: never seeking the death penalty, eliminating money bail for nonviolent offenses, supporting the creation of safe injection sites, opposing legislation that sets new mandatory minimums, reducing the share of cases in which prosecutors seek the maximum sentence, and considering the immigration ramifications of prosecutorial decisions. While campaigning, Bell is specifically spotlighting his stance on money bail, for instance tweeting this brief video on why he opposes its use.

As for the issue that looms over this race, Bell states in his questionnaire that he would entrust investigations into police misconduct to an independent unit or independent prosecutor. During the 2014 protests in Ferguson, McCulloch faced calls for a special prosecutor to take over because of concerns that he was not impartial, but he did not recuse himself.

The candidates operate on different financial planes. McCulloch has raised $370,000 since his current term began in 2015, and more than $200,000 this year alone; Bell has raised $124,000, much of which just over the past few weeks. In addition, McCulloch has been endorsed by “every living former police chief in St. Louis County,” Alan Greenblatt reports. Local organizations supporting Bell include Indivisible St. Louis and the Ethical Society of Police.