Two St. Louis police officers hit a handcuffed man and shocked him with a Taser, leading to a $600,000 settlement. A deputy in southwest Missouri was convicted of assaulting another deputy’s wife. An officer in southeast Missouri who kicked a man on the ground and wrote a misleading report was fired.
They kept their Missouri police licenses and are still working as officers, despite being brought before a state discipline board.
Misconduct is supposed to be reported to the Missouri Department of Public Safety, but sometimes it takes years for that to happen — if it’s ever done. Police department officials aren’t required to report misconduct within a certain amount of time and face no consequences for failing to do so. Missouri isn’t a state that automatically revokes a police license when an officer is convicted of a serious crime.
The Marshall Project - St. Louis reviewed over 600 misconduct allegations vetted by two agencies before going before a state commission. The review unveiled a process that can take years to address a problem and routinely allows officers who have committed serious wrongdoing to keep their jobs.
The findings raise questions about how effective the state is at rooting out cops who have violated their duties. Many even continue to work while under investigation.
Police accountability advocates say Missouri’s system undermines public safety and trust.
“The stakes are just too high when it comes to law enforcement and the power that they hold over people’s lives,” said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project.
Missouri’s police licensing system has loose regulations enforced by a web of agencies. State law also prevents Department of Public Safety officials from disclosing where officers worked in the past. The so-called muni shuffle, when an officer moves around to different municipalities, can be an indicator that they’ve run into trouble in their career.
Z Gorley, a spokesperson for the legal advocacy organization ArchCity Defenders, said they were concerned not only about the potential for officers to switch departments, but also about transparency.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety is responsible for issuing the police licenses required to work as a sworn officer. Its Peace Officer Standards and Training program investigates reports of misconduct. The department’s spokesperson, Mike O’Connell, said anyone can submit a complaint, though most come from police departments. When department officials learn of an incident through news reports, they can also open a case.
If officials determine an officer should face discipline, they then send the case to the Missouri attorney general’s office. Officials there can file a complaint with the Administrative Hearing Commission, which decides if discipline is warranted. If it is, the deputy director can suspend or revoke a license, or place it on probation, O’Connell said.
Missouri Department of Public Safety Director Mark James and officials with the Administrative Hearing Commission declined an interview. The Missouri attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Marshall Project - St. Louis analyzed 627 cases handled by the Administrative Hearing Commission dating back to 2014. The analysis identified information, including the nature of the allegation, the approximate length of time between the incident and the beginning of formal proceedings, and the outcome. It took a median of at least 539 days for a complaint to be filed. One officer pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in 2008, but his case was brought to the commission in 2022. That officer’s license is on probation.
In half of the cases involving a death, it took over a year to get a case filed. A complaint was filed three and a half years after former Missouri State Trooper Anthony Piercy handcuffed a man to a boat, who was then ejected and drowned. Conversely, when former St. Louis Police Officer Nathaniel Hendren fatally shot another officer while playing a game, a case was filed five days later.
The commission can also slow the process. A case filed in November 2021 remains unresolved. Sometimes that gives officers the chance to get a new job before they are penalized.
Of the 627 cases that reached the commission, 73 involved allegations of sexual misconduct. Of those, 33 involved children. A complaint filed last year alleged a former St. Louis police officer forced a 7-year-old girl to have oral sex. Child welfare services substantiated the accusation. An evidentiary hearing on his license is scheduled for Oct. 7. He has since gotten a job with a different department.
Out of the 627 complaints, 135 officers surrendered their licenses and 150 had them revoked. The rest were unresolved, on probation, suspended or expired. In some cases, officers convicted of crimes including fraud and armed bank robbery were allowed to keep their license until it expired.
Even after an officer has been criminally charged, cases fail to reach the commission. A glaring example is that of Eric DeValkenaere, a former Kansas City detective who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a 2019 shooting. When his prison sentence was commuted in December 2024, he was still licensed. A department spreadsheet dated June 30 shows DeValkenaere has now surrendered it. Several officers who have appeared in news stories because of criminal charges have not faced formal actions on their licenses.
O’Connell said the Missouri Department of Public Safety cannot control delays in reporting incidents to the state agency or the pace at which cases move with the attorney general’s office and the commission. Criminal cases also take precedence over licensing. The department has taken steps to strengthen the system, he said, including implementing a program that alerts department officials when an officer is arrested. It doesn’t include officers who attended law enforcement training before 2018.
Requiring police officials to report misconduct within a certain amount of time is an easy, common-sense solution, said Megan Crane, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights firm.
Carlton Mayers II, an attorney and policing reform expert, suggested instituting automatic decertification for some convictions and allowing the Missouri Department of Public Safety to act independently from the attorney general’s office and the Administrative Hearing Commission.
Other states have strengthened their police licensing oversight structures. In Illinois, officers convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors automatically lose their license. Following the 2024 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, Illinois also signed a measure requiring more thorough background checks that include an officer’s performance records and internal investigations. Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New Hampshire have also passed legislation in recent years. In neighboring Kansas, the public has access to a police officer’s employment history, and the state’s Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training has direct authority to revoke a license.
O’Connell said the Missouri Department of Public Safety has increased its investigators from one to four, and in recent years has “more aggressively sought voluntary peace officer license surrenders,” which resolves cases more quickly than going through the Administrative Hearing Commission.
