ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis church pastor was initially led to believe that a destroyed historic church marquee was the result of vandalism in August. However, it was later revealed to be damage caused by yet another St. Louis Police crash.
The officers involved in the crash did not leave a note or contact the church, according to the pastor. Six months later, the City of St. Louis has yet to acknowledge the incident.
Fortunately, a neighbor captured photos of the scene at the Westminster Presbyterian Church at Union and Delmar. The images show a crashed St. Louis Police cruiser on the church lawn, stopped right where the 100-year-old sign used to be.
“The base of the sign was limestone. Above it was copper and steel,” said church pastor Rev. Mark Miller, DMin. The base and shattered glass are about all that’s left. You can still read part of the church name etched into the piece of glass.
“We took pictures… could see the tracks in the yard. We saw the damage to the sign. At that point, we did call the police,” Rev. Miller said.
The church was empty at the time of the crash. He called police to report what he thought was vandalism, possibly in response to a ‘Pride’ flag and ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign next to the church marquee.
Police made no mention of the crash and told him an officer would be coming to take a report, he said. No one came. He did not hear back from the police.
Days later, a neighbor came forward with the photos showing the crash scene.
Nearly two months later, Rev. Miller saw St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy at a neighborhood event and told him about the police crash, the damage, and the photos.
He followed up with an email and got no response.
A couple of weeks ago, he emailed Mayor Tishaura Jones. A staff member responded, saying the City Counselor’s Office would be getting in touch within a few days.
“You know we were giving the benefit of the doubt so we didn’t make a stink out of it,” the pastor said. “At that point, we had hoped to work through channels and just get it taken care of. That didn’t happen all of these months later.”
With the wave of recent St. Louis police crashes, frustrations grew.
Things have changed in the past week amid news media reports.
Police now tell Fox 2 News that the officer was “unable to stop the vehicle” because of an apparent brake failure. “He veered right” to avoid a collision and struck the church sign.
The City Counselor’s Office has finally contacted the pastor about making things right.
He bears no grudge.
“We’re certainly not demonizing police. We’re not going after anybody. Obviously, this is a systemic issue when all of these systems are not working the way they are supposed to,” he said. “Whatever’s going on with the numerous accidents that have happened, something needs to happen, and someone needs to be held accountable. We all make mistakes. If things happen, then fix them.”
He’s now in the process of submitting proposals for replacing the sign to the City Counselor’s Office.
