Missouri senators debate wide-ranging public safety package that would alter St. Louis police governance

Senators debated a broad public-safety package built around Senate Bill 52 (with a committee substitute that incorporates provisions from Senate Bill 44) that would add new criminal penalties, expand vehicle- and asset‑forfeiture authority, create new stunt-driving and street-takeover offenses, tighten child-endangerment statutes to add fentanyl and carfentanyl, and — in its most controversial element — create a state-appointed commission with authority to manage the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD).

The package’s sponsor, the Senator from the second (sponsor of SB52), urged colleagues to approve the substitute as “about public safety,” saying the bill “surgically removes politics from the public safety equation altogether” and that the measures would “restore order in the city of Saint Louis, protecting innocent lives, and holding criminals accountable.” He tied several provisions to policing problems he described in St. Louis — staffing gaps in crime labs and firearms ranges, training‑facility shortcomings, and recurring violent incidents — and said the bill was meant to give law enforcement and communities new tools.

Supporters said the substitute bundles many responses to what they described as rising or concentrated public-safety problems: vehicle forfeiture for repeat violent offenders who use vehicles as weapons;…