Prosecutors Dismiss 91 Cases After STL Police Officers Indicted

ST. LOUIS, MO — Prosecutors in St. Louis have dismissed more than 90 cases filed by four Metropolitan Police officers indicted on federal charges Thursday stemming from alleged misconduct during a 2015 protest, the Post-Dispatch reports.

A grand jury said 35-year-old Dustin Boone, 25-year-old Bailey Colletta, 31-year-old Randy Hays and 27-year-old Christopher Myers beat a fellow undercover officer at a protest following the acquittal of white police officer Jason Stockley for murder in the shooting death of black motorist Anthony Lamar Smith. They then lied and destroyed evidence to cover up their crime, prosecutors said.

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St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said the cases would have required testimony from the officers to ensure convictions. That testimony has now been critically undermined by the officers' alleged actions and text messages revealed in court documents.

"It's gonna get IGNORANT tonight!!!" Boone wrote, for example, on September 15, according to prosecutors. "But it's gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these s***heads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!"

In other text messages, he called beating protesters "a blast," and bragged, "we start beating the shit out of everyone on the street after we give two warnings."

In one exchange between Boone and Hays, Hays cautioned: "We are in south city. They support us but also cameras. So make sure you have an old white dude as a witness."

But the problem seems to go beyond the four accused officers. In August, Gardener said she would no longer accept cases for prosecution from 28 St. Louis police officers, and despite public safety director Jimmie Edwards calling the four "outliers," others have said the alleged conduct is part of a larger, systemic problem in St. Louis.

Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri, said the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has consistently behaved in an unconstitutional manner. His group is responsible for many of the more than a dozen lawsuits stemming from the protests.

"While these officers have been indicted for illegally abusing an undercover officer they mistook for a protester, there has still been no real accountability for the individuals officers who engaged in the same behavior toward protesters," Rothert said. "St. Louis officials must address this rampant lawlessness by its police."

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