After an Independence police officer was killed in a shootout in September, Missouri state law enforcement initially refused routine federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon. The same month, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper released a federal fugitive after a traffic stop.
The incidents are described in a blistering court brief filed Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice outlining the consequences of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a new state law that prohibits Missouri police officers from helping enforce certain federal gun laws. The document paints a stark portrait of how SAPA, also known as House Bill 85, has disrupted cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement.
The DOJ says the Missouri state crime lab, operated by the Highway Patrol, is refusing to process evidence that would help federal firearms prosecutions. The Missouri Information and Analysis Center, also under the Highway Patrol, no longer cooperates with federal agencies investigating federal firearms offenses. And the Highway Patrol, along with many other agencies, have suspended joint efforts to enforce federal firearms laws.
The DOJ brief comes in an ongoing lawsuit challenging SAPA, filed by St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jackson County. A Cole County court this year upheld the law, a decision being appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.
“The United States has an exceedingly strong interest in this suit because H.B. 85 poses a clear and substantial threat to public safety. Since taking effect, the law has already seriously impaired the federal government’s ability to combat violent crime in Missouri,” the brief says.
SAPA declares “invalid” many federal gun regulations that don’t have an equivalent in Missouri law. These include statutes covering weapons registration and tracking, and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.
Local departments are barred from enforcing them, or risk being sued for $50,000 by private citizens who believe their Second Amendment rights have been violated. Police are also prohibited from giving “material aid and support” to federal agents and prosecutors in enforcing those “invalid” laws against “law-abiding citizens” — defined as those who Missouri law permits to have a gun.
Federal and local law enforcement officials have previously warned SAPA would harm their ability to investigate federal firearms crimes in Missouri. The DOJ, Democrats and other critics of the law, signed in June by Republican Gov. Mike Parson, have argued for months it’s blatantly unconstitutional.
The brief appears to include the most extreme examples to date of the measure’s toll on law enforcement. It says the law “is not only damaging valuable institutional relationships for enforcing firearms laws, but also increasing dangers in the field across a broad array of law enforcement operations.”
DOJ says a Highway Patrol trooper in September released a federal fugitive back into the community rather than risk liability for the state agency. The brief provides no additional details, including the location of the incident or what the fugitive was wanted for.
SAPA also initially hampered the investigation into the shooting of an Independence police officer in September, according to the DOJ. Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans was killed on Sept. 15 during an exchange of gun fire with a man sought for violating parole on a firearm conviction. The suspect, identified by authorities as Cody L. Harrison, died at the scene.
“Later the same month, after an Independence police officer was killed during a shootout with a burglary suspect, state law enforcement initially declined routinely provided federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon,” the brief says.
The DOJ provides no additional information about the circumstances of the refusal or how or why it was reversed. A Highway Patrol spokesman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. A spokeswoman for Parson didn’t immediately comment.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office, which is representing the state in the challenge to SAPA, hasn’t yet filed a brief in the appeal’s case.
A week after Madrid-Evans’ death, Parson expressed an openness to amending the law. Speaking to reporters after a police officers’ memorial prayer breakfast in St. Charles, the former sheriff described SAPA as intended as a political statement.
“You’re going to have to work with federal partners,” Parson said, according to KFVS. “And you’re going to have to work with other agencies. And we’ve got to make sure that can happen.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Eric Burlison, a Battlefield Republican who is running for Congress, and its other sponsor, Rep. Jered Taylor of Republic, have called the reactions of Missouri police, such as their withdrawal from federal partnerships, unnecessary. Taylor told “60 Minutes” in a story that aired In November that he is “not willing to even consider [changes to the law] at this point.”
In an October letter to Republican leaders, the Missouri Police Chiefs Association wrote that the law’s “wording and structure have caused confusion and potentially unintended legal implications.”
The MPCA has proposed specifying that the law would only apply to new federal gun restrictions approved after this past August, and that it doesn’t apply to suspects whom police encounter committing a crime.
It has also proposed clarifying which weapons-related federal crimes local police are allowed to help enforce. The current law allows them to help enforce gun restrictions that are similar to those in Missouri law, as long as those charges are “merely ancillary” to another criminal charge — wording that police groups have called vague.
The Star’s Jeanne Kuang contributed reporting
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