WTF? Why? St Louis Police Chief wore a $5900 badge!!!

[link to www.stltoday.com]
ST. LOUIS - Five finely-crafted, gold-filled works of a world-class jeweler are ready to adorn the chests of new St. Louis Police Chief Daniel Isom and other top cops.

Price tag: $1,987 each — about 100 times the price of a patrolman’s badge.

That’s a bargain for the St. Louis police, who acknowledged last week that they had paid $5,900 apiece for two solid-gold badges for Isom’s predecessor Joe Mokwa when he became chief.

The latest badges were a nearly $10,000 line item in a unanimous vote Wednesday by the Board of Police Commissioners to approve December purchases.

That was just hours before the department admitted that it had wrongly kept up to $6 million seized in the arrest of suspects.

Neither issue — the badges or the cache — came up for public discussion. Board approval of the badges was a formality because the department’s supply division already had made the no-bid purchase a month ago, according to department records.


At a press conference called Saturday morning after the Post-Dispatch disclosed the purchase on STLtoday.com, Isom called the badge expenditures "outrageous." He said there would be no more such spending.

"This is just one more practice of the department that I looked at and knew had to be changed," Isom said. "There are historical pracitices in this department that are broken. The people of St. Louis are counting on me to fix them, and as I find them, I will."

Isom said the badges had been ordered before a purchase order had been issued by the Police Board. A statement from the department said Isom had already "dealt with those responsible for purchase."

Isom said he would try to find a way to recoup the cost of the new badges.

The badges were ready to be picked up Friday from the jeweler, Stange Co., of Maryland Heights.

Other departments spend far less on brass for their top brass.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jerry Lee’s badge cost $110. Kansas City Police Chief James Corwin’s cost $48.75.

"We get a lot of compliments on it," said Kansas City police spokesman Darin Snapp. "No one has ever asked for an upgrade."

Col. James F. Keathley may be superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol but he is the king of thrift. The patrol’s uniforms do not include badges. Insignias bearing Keathley’s troop and badge numbers cost $3.15 per collar.

Mark Campbell is the police chief of the richest city of at least 1,000 residents in the United States. That’s Belvedere, in California’s Marin County, where the per capita income is $114,000.

His badge cost $200 — about 2½ times what his officers’ badges cost.

"My badge is more ornate," he explained.

Rank and file St. Louis officers wear badges bought for $19.75 apiece from a different supplier.

Badges for top-ranking St. Louis officers are Stange’s only law enforcement business.

Stange’s owner, Dave, who wouldn’t tell a reporter his last name, said Friday that his firm’s St. Louis police badges were a good deal, considering the artistry put into them. (Stange’s president is listed in a business directory as David Bouchein.)


****finish it here to be in compliance with GLPs 50% copyright posting policy w/link back to source
[link to www.stltoday.com]

Last Edited by Phennommennonn on 07/04/2012 10:27 AM