Campaign Action
If you are a St. Louis-area resident who looks like Michael Brown, the slightest criminal infraction could lead to death or injury at the hands of police in mere minutes. If you are a white male in the highest state office in the land, two felony charges resulting from two different criminal investigations aren’t enough to lose support of the law & order crowd. In fact, the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association kept him on the top of their bill, making him the keynote speaker at an event for fallen officers. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Wentzville Police Chief Kurt Frisz, who is chairman of the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association, confirmed Greitens’ attendance.
“All this stuff”? It isn’t as if the governor is being questioned about who’s at fault in a parking lot fender bender. If you’ve missed the news, Governor Eric Greitens is facing a felony invasion of privacy charge after allegations he took a photo of his nude mistress, without her permission, and threatened to publicly release it and humiliate her if she ever told anyone of their extramarital affair. In their own investigation, the Missouri legislature found the woman’s story to be "credible” and in her testimony to legislative investigators, the woman said their sexual interactions were not consensual at times and she claimed Greitens violently assaulted her.
In an entirely different criminal matter, this week prosecutors announced another felony charge of computer tampering against Gov. Greitens after investigators found that he stole a donor list from his nonprofit when he launched his gubernatorial campaign.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, at least some were uneasy with Greitens’ appearance at the police event.
There was at least some consternation among area law enforcement officials. In an email sent to area police chiefs on March 26, Ed Magee, spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, wondered if inviting Greitens to speak was such a good idea.
“Chiefs, are you sure you want a guy currently charged with a felony as your guest speaker?” he wrote, according to a copy of the email obtained by the Post-Dispatch. “That will not be good press wise.”
Responded Frontenac Police Chief Tom Becker: “I’m fine with him speaking, in my humble opinion.”
Two felony charges? No problem!
Greitens has been hiding out, far from news cameras and microphones, instead choosing to issue statements attacking prosecutors and his “liberal enemies.” When he did turn up at the event, the police association and Greitens handlers were quick to shut down media access, in the name of the fallen officers.
"Out of respect for those (fallen) officers and their families, we respectfully request that any concerns about the activities of our guest speaker not be addressed here," set a written statement passed out to reporters before the event.
The police association didn’t want the free press questioning them or anyone around the governor about the felony charges. But that didn’t stop them from taking potshots at the media from the podium.
In fact, the only veiled reference to those things came from emcee Joe Buck, who opened the event by noting the presence of reporters in the back of the room because of the governor's attendance.
"I would say to anyone with a camera or a microphone, where have you been?" said Buck, who is a long time promoter of police related events. He proceeded to note that 1,598 law-enforcement officers died in the line of duty nationally last year, including two in Missouri.
"Frankly, I'm glad the press is here," said Buck, who referred to Greitens as "a friend of law enforcement."
Apparently being a “friend of law enforcement” gets a free pass for criminal behavior, especially if you are a powerful white man. Is it any wonder why women don’t come forward with accusations against men like this? Police aren’t even pretending to shun him. To the contrary, they are elevating him.