Criminal law experts weigh in on STL Circuit Attorney's Office saying officers were not victims of an attempted carjacking - KMOV4

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - As the Circuit Attorney’s Office challenges claims from two St. Louis police officers who say they were the victims of an attempted carjacking, criminal law experts are pushing back saying there is still so much more to the story.

“Our criminal justice system is in a crisis,” said Attorney Kristi Flint. “We’ve got two very important government bodies…we have our police department and our Circuit Attorney’s Office that can’t agree on a lot of things.”

Flint is a former Prosecuting Attorney and currently works as a Criminal Defense Attorney.

“What we’ve heard is representatives of the circuit attorney’s office telling the public what they’ve reviewed and what they have seen in the video,” said Flint. “And it could all be correct, but I think as a public if we are going to put our system at further risk, if we’re going to deepen the divide between supporters of the police and supporters of criminal justice reform, we need to see all of the information and all of this does it make the city a more dangerous place.”

On Tuesday, the CAO released both body worn camera and surveillance video from the March 19, when officers say a man attempted to carjack their marked police car.

“Generally speaking, if two police officers say it was a carjacking, it was a carjacking. Why would they lie about it,” said Anders Walker, a Lillie Myers Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School.

Chief Warrant Officer Chris Hinckley, with the CAO, says the surveillance video is contradictory to the officers’ account of an attempted carjacking taking place.

“This is the nail in the coffin,” said Hinckley “This case has been dismissed and for good reason.”

Now on Wednesday, Walker shares a different perspective on what he sees from the video.

“As far as I can tell, it looks like the suspect stopped a police car, we don’t see what the suspect did,” said Walker. “He approached the passenger side window, and it looks like there was some type of altercation, then the suspect leaves and the police cruiser drives away.”

Flint says without more information from the incident, she says there is not enough to make a judgement on whether or not officers lied.

“As the public, we have not seen everything. We have seen portions of videos,” said Flint. “In this case, if I’m going to try to make a determination if they were lying, I would want to hear those radio transmissions, and I would want to talk to the people who had originally called 911 for help that evening. [Where] had he been...There’s just so much to uncover.”

News 4 submitted another records request for all video and statements related to this incident. This afternoon, city police denied that request again saying the investigation is still ongoing. However, the Circuit Attorney’s Office says this case has been closed.

“It is extremely important to turn over all of those stones in a situation where you’re calling police officers liars,” said Flint. “Because that has a much larger effect on public safety than just the careers of those two officers. People hear this, they don’t trust police, they don’t want to call police when something bad has happened.”

News 4 has requested the rest of the four-hour body camera video from the Circuit Attorney’s Office as well as any documents and footage they still have not shared publicly. We are still waiting to hear back.

The attorney representing the officers in this incident, Brian Millikan, did get a chance to speak on the phone with News 4. He says his clients are outraged by Tuesday’s press conference. He says they were both victims of a crime and now victims of a smear campaign by the Circuit Attorney’s Office.

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source: https://www.kmov.com/2022/04/06/criminal-law-experts-weigh-stl-circuit-attorneys-office-saying-officers-were-not-victims-an-attempted-carjacking/

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