Cape police chief says state should enhance sentencing

Despite national upheaval around law enforcement, there's a more positive story to be told in Cape Girardeau where officers have developed good relationships in the community.

Wes Blair, the city's police chief since 2013, spoke with me this week in a wide-ranging interview. A two-part column begins today with the second half to publish later this week.

Reading the newspaper regularly, you've probably noticed more stories about local crime. The city has to get a handle on this issue. Shots fired calls are all too frequent. But it's not necessarily a new issue, Blair told me. Crime tends to spike in the summer, though he said there has been an increase lately "in the low percentages."

Cape Girardeau police officers release the scene of a shooting at 918 College Street after speaking with chief Wes Blair, right, on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Cape Girardeau. (Ben Matthews ~ Southeast Missourian)

Blair said it's "incredibly difficult" to get people who witness these crimes to come forward with information.

Gang activity and drugs are part of the problem, but one reason becoming more prevalent is "the disrespected me-thing shootings," Blair said.

"That seems to be one of the really prevalent ones, is a couple of people have issue with each other over whatever and instead of sitting down and talking through it, or back when we were kids, people go out in the parking lot and have a fistfight and it'd be over," he said. "And now they go and get their guns and [begin] shooting each other."

If information about a crime is not presented within the first week after the incident, it becomes more difficult to solve, Blair said. But police continue to work on the case, and in some cases time has helped because an individual may become more scared about retaliatory violence, making them more likely to ask police for help.

"So sometimes time does help us, but if you start getting weeks out from a shooting or a month out from a shooting, it makes it much more difficult to get people interested in talking to you. Which is why we throw so many resources on it right at the very beginning because we want to try to round up as many witnesses as we possibly can."

Blair said addressing crime has also become more difficult at times because of state and federal laws that tie the hands of law enforcement, particularly when it involves juveniles.

"We've had some instances where we'll have a convicted felon who cannot have a gun, because he's convicted felon, riding around with a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old who's carrying the gun for him. And there's nothing we can do to that kid for having that gun because constitutional carry doesn't say that they can't. It says they can. So you might have a convicted felon sitting over on the driver's seat and you've got the 15-year-old in the passenger seat carrying the gun, and there's nothing you can do about it."

It's an issue that's been brought up to legislators, but with the shortened session this year because of the coronavirus it didn't gain traction.

Blair said Missouri should re-evaluate its sentencing for criminal activity. Because federal gun laws are more stringent, there's been a shift to get crimes tried in federal court.

"It's not uncommon for our shooters to be people who have gotten probated or out of prison early, and then they're back out on the streets with guns shooting each other; because they're not spending the time that they need to in prison, and the state's letting them right back out. There's this whole big push with the Department of Corrections for this restorative justice. And where it's more of a rehabilitation thing and community-based rehabilitation to get people back into society as productive members, and I'm all for that; I get that. And I'm a proponent of rehabilitation. But not everybody is capable of that. So spinning everybody right back out of prison onto the street is not the answer if they're not reformed. And they're going to go out and pick up a gun and shoot somebody else again. That doesn't help us. Nor does it help them."

A few weeks ago when a Black Lives Matter protest took place at Freedom Corner, followed by a march on Broadway, Blair was spotted communicating with one of the organizers.

He told me while the police would have preferred the protesters remain on the sidewalks, once it was determined they would be marching in the street Blair said he would do what he could to protect them and block off traffic.

"I think that transpired the way it did because of all the work that we have been doing over the last several years just trying to build relationships in our community. And so when we got there several people in the crowd knew who we were personally. Kind of like, 'Yeah, these guys are decent guys. They're going to take care of us.' And you know, I think in some of your other cities, you may not have those relationships, which is why you see things maybe turn sour because there's that tension built up. But we don't have tension with our community. We don't want to have tension with our community. We want to give them a safe space to do what they feel like they want to do under their First Amendment rights. And as long as we're respecting that, and they're respecting other people's property and not damaging things, then we can have those kind of events and be OK."

That mutual respect goes back to relationship building, Blair said. The Southeast Missourian reported recently about a youngster who setup a lemonade stand. Officers stopped by the stand to purchase lemonade and one even went as far as securing an honorary business license for the child. Blair said this type of thing happens on a daily basis in Cape Girardeau, though most of the time the public doesn't see it and officers will ask that the good deeds stay private.

Blair said officers will regularly get out of their vehicles to play catch with kids, talk with folks at lemonade stands and connect families in poverty with services. He mentioned a couple years ago there was a child whose bicycle was stolen, and an officer was able to get a bike donated to the child.

One of the community efforts Blair has championed is Coffee with the Cops. Due to the coronavirus, this event has been postponed. But Blair looks forward to resuming the gathering when COVID-19 is no longer an issue.

Lucas Presson is assistant publisher of the Southeast Missourian.