The mayor of St Louis is facing continued calls for her resignation after reading out the names and addresses of protesters calling for her to defund the police and close the city jail.
A petition calling for Lyda Krewson’s resignation has topped 50,000 signatures since being uploaded five days ago, as political opponents put pressure on her to go.
But Krewson – a Democrat who won her 2017 election while promising to reduce crime – has said she is not going anywhere and plans to seek a second term in 2023.
The controversy stems from a Facebook Live broadcast Krewson did last week after meeting with activists, when she was given a bundle of budget proposals which suggested reducing police funding to zero and allocating the money elsewhere.
Krewson read out the proposals on the live stream including the names and addresses of protesters written on them.
St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson (pictured) is facing calls to resign after she publicly revealed the names and addresses of anti-police protesters in the weeks following George Floyd’s death
The move prompted fury from campaigners and and their advocates, who accused her of trying to intimidate protesters by opening them up to reprisal attacks.
Krewson subsequently apologized, saying she ‘never intended to harm anyone or cause distress’, but did not explain why she did it.
Alderwoman Megan Green, whose claims some of the activists were from her ward, has led calls for her to resign.
In response to Krewson’s apology, she wrote: ‘It’s not about intent. It’s about impact.
‘The apology takes no responsibility for actions and no commitment to do differently in the future. [You] put our residents at risk and need to resign.’
The campaign to have Krewson removed escalated on Sunday evening when activists marched into the gated neighborhood where she lives in order to protest outside her house.
It caught national attention when Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a white couple who are prominent lawyers in the city, walked out on their doorstep holding an AR-15 rifle and handgun and began pointing the weapons at the crowd.
A protester’s sign calls for the resignation of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson during a rally in front of her home on Lake Avenue in St. Louis on June 28
Indeed, for Krewson, who was elected to curb rampant violence in the city, calls to defund the police have resonate on a very personal level. She and her children watched in horror 25-years ago while her husband was shot dead during an attempted carjacking.
Jeff and Lyda Krewson and their two small children were returning home from shopping in 1995 when two carjackers approached with guns. Jeff Krewson was fatally shot in the neck as he tried to back the car away. Lyda Krewson and her children, ages 2 and 5, were not hurt.
St. Louis was violent then, as it is now. The city of 300,000 people that is about evenly split between black and white residents typically has one of the nation’s highest murder rates, and 2020 is shaping up to be another brutal year.
It’s also a region with a long history of racial strife that boiled over in 2014 when a white officer fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was Black, in nearby Ferguson. Officer Darren Wilson was cleared of wrongdoing and eventually resigned, and the shooting drew attention to the uneasy relationship between St. Louis-area police and Black residents.
Hundreds of protesters march down Waterman Boulevard headed to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home on Sunday, June 28. The protesters demanded Krewson’s resignation after she read the names and addresses of several residents who supported defunding the police department during an online briefing
Krewson, 67, who is white, defeated three high-profile Black candidates in the March 2017 Democratic primary, helped by an endorsement from the police union. She won easily in the April general election.
Protests again erupted months later after a white former police officer, Jason Stockley, was acquitted in the death of a Black suspect.
During a downtown demonstration in September 2017, more than 120 people were arrested, some violently, including bystanders and journalists. On another night, protesters broke windows and threw paint on Krewson’s home.
Floyd’s death reignited tensions in St. Louis. Speaking live on Facebook on Friday, Krewson said she had met with protesters who presented her with written suggestions for the city budget, including proposals to cut funding for police. She read the names and addresses of some of the demonstrators.
Armed homeowners stnad in front of their house along Portland Place as they confront protesters
Protesters then marched to Krewson’s home Sunday night and painted the word ‘RESIGN’ on the street. The protest drew national attention when widely circulated video showed a white couple standing outside their nearby mansion and pointing guns at passing protesters. Their attorney said they support the Black Lives Matter movement and were armed because they feared for their lives.
Other mayors have also found themselves under siege.
When protesters marched to the home of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey days after Floyd’s death, Frey was booed off the street after declining to support calls for abolishing the police department.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has faced pressure to resign during weeks of protests over police accountability. Just as in St. Louis, demonstrators and some City Council members have sought a drastic reduction in the law enforcement budget.
Krewson’s spokesman, Jacob Long, said the mayor was unavailable for an interview but has no intention of resigning and plans to seek a second term.
Anita Manion, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, said the moment may simply be too big for Krewson to survive politically.
‘I feel the current movement isn’t something that’s going to go away quickly, and I don’t think that a lot of St. Louisans are going to forget this,’ Manion said.
Removal from office seems unlikely since it would require a recall vote, and obtaining enough signatures to trigger a special election would take several months at a time when the next mayoral election is just eight months away.
Going forward, Krewson supports ‘common-sense police reforms and has committed to a comprehensive review of use-of-force policies,’ Long said.
For Reed, Krewson’s actions will be what ultimately matters.
‘You cannot afford to be tone-deaf,’ Reed said.