Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
St. Louis County’s chief of police thought that speed cameras were a racket and that armed teachers could stop school shooters. He told anyone who would listen, despite powerful people asking him to shut up. When he discovered a conflict of interest, he called the FBI on his bosses. That led to upheaval on the Board of Police Commissioners and a messy political skirmish. When he was alerted to fraud in the Department of Health, he brought in the feds again. Along the way, he became a minor folk hero, a white knight battling corruption and cronyism at every turn. It was quite a year for Col. Tim Fitch. Then, without warning, the 52-year-old retired. Fitch swears he wasn’t pushed out, and no doubt, he’s as feisty as ever. Sitting in his office a couple of weeks before his February 1 retirement, I ask whether to pay or dispute a red-light camera ticket. “This is what I always tell people to do,” Fitch says. He stands, takes a piece of paper from his desk, walks it over to a shredder in the corner, and drops it in.
Growing up, what drew you to law enforcement? There was a TV show called Adam-12. It was very, very popular in the ’70s. It was about two LAPD cops. You go, that’s a pretty cool job. Look at the difference they’re making in the community. Then I got in high school, and then I got interested in teaching. Maybe I want to be a teacher. Then I went to work for a radio station for four years while I was in high school and right out of high school.
How did you choose? I knew Bob Hyland, he was the big guy at KMOX. I found out that you’re not going to make much money in broadcasting. How about the teaching thing? Well, teachers don’t get to hit back. I think I want to be a cop.
When did you get your first taste of politics? My very first job was in a police department, right across the river, in Cahokia. The chief of police then was a guy named Earl Justice. I applied for this job. He said, “Can you start on Monday?” Yeah, I’ll be there. “Well, here’s what I need you to do first. You need to go down and talk to the alderman for the area where you live, and tell him you’d like to have this job, and see if he’ll come in and put in a good word for you.” I’m 18 years old, just into college for law enforcement. I thought, why would I need to do that if you told me to be here Monday?
Then what happened? So I go see the guy. I said, “Hey, I’ve never met you before.” He goes, “Oh, I know your family.” “I applied for this job in the police department, and I wondered if you could put in a good for me with the chief.” “Oh, I’d be happy to.” He gets in his car and goes up and puts in a good word. Well, guess what? The chief got the guy he wanted to hire anyway, and now the alderman owes him a favor. I said, OK, I see how this works.
When did you first suspect a problem with the crime-lab construction contracts? I can read the charter. I’m not stupid. I could see what was going on with the police board chairman [Greg Sansone], when I found out that he had bid on the contract [to install the heating-and-cooling system]. It didn’t say in the charter, oh, it’s OK if you get a subcontract through a general contractor. It says, no, if you’re an appointed or elected official, you can’t financially benefit, period. Anybody can read that.
What did you do next? I went to the county executive and to the chief operating officer and said I’ve got real concerns about this. At the end of the day, they threw their hands up and said, it’s all good. There absolutely has to be some more oversight. But that’s just a philosophical, ethical thing for me. Clearly the ninth floor didn’t have that ethical problem. So there was support for [Sansone] to continue in his police-board role and in the contract role for the HVAC. That’s a decision they made, and that’s a decision they have to live with.
Then you called the FBI. Eventually, it blew up in the media. Once the public found out about it, the political pressure started on the ninth floor, and that’s when [Sansone] stepped aside. Then, of course, we had two other departures from the police board.
One of those was Floyd Warmann, who stepped down mysteriously. Do you know what happened there? It’s still mysterious. All I know is I got a call from the U.S. attorney—the U.S. attorney—who said, he’s coming in to resign. I haven’t heard anything since then as to why. I have never seen that happen before. You just have to draw your own conclusions on that one.
Did you fear for your job at any point? No, never. The county council had my back on this all the way. They know right from wrong. I felt like as long as I had the people’s support—and I don’t just mean the council, I’m talking about the citizens of St. Louis County. They saw it. They knew it was wrong. As long as I had the people’s support, that would protect me politically.
Bill McClellan said you were untouchable. That’s one of the words he used. Did you ever read his “Life’s a Fitch” column? The man’s got a way with words, doesn’t he? Politicians, there’s only one thing they’re afraid of, and that’s voters. For the most part, as long as the voters have your back, they’ll leave you alone.
Did you believe that County Executive Charlie Dooley was trying to stack the police board with people who would side with him against you? Well, there certainly was evidence to lead someone to believe that. From the conversation that Mr. [John] Temporiti had with the one police board member, basically saying, “We’ve got problems with the chief, and we need to replace some board members, and thank you Mr. [John] Saracino, you’re off the board,” I believe that 100 percent, even though Mr. Temporiti denied that. That absolutely sounds like something he would say and do. I always felt like after I was done talking to Mr. Temporiti that I needed to delouse.
Is that the same thing they did to your predecessor, Jerry Lee? I was the No. 2 guy in the police department for eight years before I was the chief, so I had a front-row seat on how things worked then. Jerry Lee was a good man. They basically started removing police board members under Jerry Lee, with the threat as we’re going to get enough to get rid of you. He agreed that probably the best thing for him to do would be to retire. There is no doubt that they thought this would work again with me.
Do you have any questions about Temporiti’s involvement in county government? I don’t know what his role is today. Clearly, he’s hurt the county executive in a lot of the things that he’s been involved with. I think the county executive may recognize that now. I think that if Mr. Temporiti has his chance, he’ll still work behind the scenes. That’s just how John’s put together. He’s a competitor. He wasn’t afraid to take me on at all. I don’t expect him to be. But I’m also not afraid of him or afraid of anybody who thinks like he does.
First, you had the crime-lab controversy. Then, Ed Mueth embezzled millions from the health department before killing himself. What is going on in St. Louis County? Well, that’s really up to the voters to decide. Look at the facts. Draw your own conclusion. If you think there is a problem, you get to decide how to deal with that. If you think it’s fine and you want this to continue, you get to decide that as well. It’s entirely up to the voters of St. Louis County.
In Mueth’s case, you were quoted as saying it was millions of dollars. Then the county spokesperson said you didn’t know what you were talking about. Turns out, you were right. That’s because you have a spokesperson who’s responding politically instead of by the facts. I get it. She’s appointed by the county executive. She serves at the pleasure of the county executive. She has to respond that way. But it still should be truthful. If you don’t know the answer, you say, I don’t know. But just to say that no, it’s not millions, and the chief’s wrong… I knew that eventually she’d have to own up to saying that and acquiesce that yeah, it truly was millions.
It’s been alleged that some county officials had suspicions about Mueth, but didn’t bring them to law enforcement until after he had committed suicide. That was one of the flat-out questions I was asked: Do you think they tried to hide this? I can’t answer that. I honestly can’t answer if they tried to hide it. Only they know the answer to that.
But they didn’t tell you as early as you would have liked? Absolutely correct.
You keep saying “the county executive,” rather than “Charlie Dooley.” That’s not by design. Charlie Dooley is a nice man. I’d love to sit down and have a beer with Charlie Dooley. I’m using his name now. If you want to talk about what are the issues in his administration? He’s allowed some people to be around him that have really caused him some problems. But he has been, at least one-on-one to me, nothing but supportive for me and the police department.
Would you consider endorsing his opponent in the upcoming election? I have not given that any thought whatsoever. But I’ll continue to be interested in the affairs of St. Louis County government, as a resident and as a taxpayer of St. Louis County. I want to see this county flourish and thrive. Charlie Dooley and his administration have done some good things. But when you find out you have a problem in an organization, you have to deal with the problem. It falls on all of us in these top positions. I take personal responsibility for every officer who engages in misconduct. I think to myself, what did I do wrong? What can I do better? We’ve had a few.
Rick Hayes, who allegedly instructed officers to target African-Americans, would be at the top of that list. Absolutely out of left field. What was he thinking? That’s not how we do business here. But as soon as I found out about it, I was able to react to it and say, this isn’t right. We did a very, very thorough investigation. You go, listen, we’ve got multiple police officers who said they heard these things. Shame on me if I don’t take the correct action. In this particular case, it was termination.
Does an incident like that give the whole department a bad name? No doubt about that. There are people like Mr. [Adolphus] Pruitt from the NAACP in the city, who wants to paint the department with a wide brush. He’s said multiple times publicly, “these guys in South County, these guys in South County.” You know what, I haven’t seen any proof that it’s these guys in South County. We haven’t found any evidence that shows that officers actually took what [Hayes] said and did it. Every one of them said, I knew it was wrong when I heard it.
What’s the status of the FBI investigation into the crime lab contract? I specifically asked the FBI not to keep me posted. I don’t want any of our staff working on this case. Because I didn’t want anybody to ever say that we leaked any of the information or anything came from us. To be honest with you, I have absolute trust in the FBI. Whatever conclusion they come to, I’ll say is the right decision, whether they decide to charge somebody or not.
You won’t be disappointed if nothing comes of it? There are lots of times you put cases together, it may not be criminal. Like the history museum thing. Did you see Jennifer Joyce’s report? Basically, she said, boy, there was an awful lot of cronyism going on here, but that’s not criminal. Well, I think we’ve pretty much already concluded that’s the case in the crime lab. But the real issue is, is it criminal?
What about Mueth and the health department? You brought in the FBI in that case, too. We originally had that case all on our own. We were called by the chief operating officer, Gary Earls, and asked to look into that some 18 hours after Mr. Mueth killed himself. One of the things you always do is you subpoena financial records. Literally there were a foot and a half of financial records that came in, and to be honest with you, they were very complicated. There is nobody better at white-collar crime than the FBI. So we asked them to get involved.
At one point, Dooley nominated former gubernatorial candidate Dave Spence to the police board. Spence accidentally left you a voicemail intended for Sansone. You couldn’t make this stuff up. That was one of those woops. Do I think there was anything sinister going on there? No. Clearly, he has a personal relationship with Mr. Sansone and wanted to console him and tell him everything was going to be fine. He just happened to call the wrong phone number. With our phones and our email, it’s a matter of public record. I certainly didn’t relish to turn that over. I knew it would be embarrassing for Mr. Spence. That wasn’t my intent.
You say the decision to retire had nothing to do with what you’ve been through. This business opportunity that I have, I’ve actually been talking about for a year. I’ve been eligible to retire for a year and a half. When I leave, I’ll make about 70 percent of my salary. So on the day I was eligible to retire, I came to work for 30 percent of what I was making. If I didn’t have this business opportunity, I wouldn’t be leaving.
Were the folks on the county council who stood up for you this year disappointed by your decision? Would I tell you that some of them were disappointed? Yes. Wished I hadn’t gone? Wish I hadn’t gone now? Yes. There was some of that conversation. They wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being forced out or pushed out.
You honestly weren’t? I think Wendy Wiese on Donnybrook probably said it best. She goes, “Listen, there’s no way this guy was forced out. If there was, he would have called a press conference and told everyone.” I have not been afraid to share with the public the inner workings and the politics of what goes on here.
Transparency has been a hallmark of your time as chief. That’s good and bad. There are people who think that’s terrible that there’s transparency. But if the media asks me a question, I have a choice: lie, tell them the truth, or deny and not say a word. I made a decision a long time ago, you never lie to the media. One of the things that will come into play with anybody that works in a political environment like I do is how will this hurt me if I speak out about it? I have always been of the feeling that if the public didn’t want me in this role, that I would lose their support and I would have to go. But I never felt that at all during my tenure.
You also have a blog… Or Twitter! I retired over Twitter. Did you know that? When I announced my retirement, it was a tweet with a link to my blog that explained it in more than 140 characters. I’ve generated many, many, many, many news stories at 140 characters. My suggestion would be to the new chief that they embrace that.
How do you sum up your career? Most people would be very, very, very fortunate to have the opportunities that I’ve had. I’ve been all over the world doing law-enforcement things. Crime is the lowest it’s been since 1969. That’s a heck of an accomplishment. These men and women that are out there working every day really just do a fantastic job. We really refined our hiring process so that we hire the best of the best.
That’s something that will benefit your successor. My son, Ryan, is a police officer in the Air Force. He’s a gunner in a Humvee over in Afghanistan. But on his base in Tucson, he’s a police officer. Guess what, he says, “When I get out, I want to be a county police officer back at home.” Well, I want this to be a place where he wants to work.
Why are you against red-light and speed cameras? I don’t know that I’ve ever said I’m against them. I’m against how they’re being used. They’re being used for the purpose of raising revenue for governments and private entities. These private entities have a lot of political connections.
How do you tell if they’re being used for good or greed? The true test, to see if they’re being used for safety, is what do you do with the money? It would prove to the public that truly it was about safety if the money goes somewhere other than back to the local government that generated the ordinances that create the cameras in the first place. Have it go to schools, have it go to the Crime Stoppers program, have it go somewhere other than right back into the city coffers. None of them are willing to do that.
The companies that sell and operate the cameras also profit immensely. About 40 percent of any camera ticket goes back to the company. And the company is smart. You come to town. You hire the most politically connected attorneys. Then you just grease the wheels, and you get it moving, and you get the ordinances passed. Then you make your money.
What about speed cameras, specifically? I’ll use Country Club Hills for an example. They have their cameras pointed in the only downhill part of their city. Why? That’s where people are not on the brake. By the way, they can’t prove there’s been any accidents there related to speed. This is about making money, and anybody that thinks it’s for any other reason is just kidding themselves.
How would you rate the level of violent crime in the county? We protect 410,000 people in the county, about 100,000 people more than the city police department. Our violent crimes have gone down every year for the last five years. The previous five years, it was up every year. You hear the city talk a lot about hot-spot policing. We’ve been doing hot-spot policing for three years. We just didn’t talk about it.
How do you feel about the movement toward marijuana legalization? In my entire 34-year law enforcement career, 31 years here, 3 years at Cahokia PD before I came here, I really was never the drug police. I was never assigned to the drug unit. But what I have done in my career is I was a homicide guy for a lot of years. In that homicide time, almost all of the murders I worked were related to the drug trade. I don’t believe that legalization is going to help anything.
You’ve also been fighting a heroin epidemic. We started this heroin initiative in 2010, because we say young people dying of heroin overdose. Our average age, up until 2010, of a heroin overdose death was in the forties. In 2010, it had dropped into the age range of 19 to 25. Huge, huge difference. We did 24 town hall meetings around the county. One of the things I learned from the parents and survivors of all these heroin victims is I didn’t meet one of them that hadn’t tried and worked on marijuana first, and then went into maybe cocaine, prescription pills, whatever, and eventually led to heroin.
Have you had success with the heroin initiative? If you look at our heroin deaths today, they’re less than half of what we had in 2010. We targeted the high school crowd, and something worked, because our number of deaths have changed from that 19- to 25-year-old category to the over-40 category, back to what I’ll call the traditional long-term heroin user. We have a little card we give to anybody we suspect of drug abuse. On one side, it says, need help? Call this 1-800 number. You can call a social worker who will respond, 24/7, and help you with your drug problem. And on the other side, it says, by the way, we want to know who’s selling this stuff to you.
And that works? Usually, by the time you are putting handcuffs on someone in a drug situation, they’ve hit rock bottom. They’re looking for a way out, and they’re looking for help. They’re not looking to go to jail. We’re not looking to put them in jail. We’re looking to make them productive citizens.
You’ve proposed having officers carry a heroin antidote. When I said I wanted to put Narcan in the police cars, I would have thought, who would be against this? There are people in the community who sent me emails and called in here and said, “Let those sons of bitches die. They’re a drag on society. They’re stealing from me. They’re breaking into my house. Let them go.”
Yikes. I said, “Well, what if this was your son or daughter?” When you say that, they usually go, “Well, my son or daughter would never.” Oh, you think, huh? I have met many parents through this whole heroin epidemic. These are hardworking, God-fearing people that their child made a bad decision, started using prescription pain meds because they had a broken leg, got addicted, and then couldn’t afford it anymore and went to heroin. That could happen to anybody, and don’t think it can’t.
You also caused a stir with the idea that the city and county should report their crime stats together. What happened was, Chief [Sam] Dotson and I had been to multiple meetings together, mostly with the business community, where they want to hear about crime in St. Louis. We heard it over and over: They’re sick and tired of hearing St. Louis is one, two, or three. They got us up there with Detroit. They got us up there with Oakland. We want to get off of this list. So I said, “Sam, why don’t we talk about reporting our crime together?”
Wouldn’t you just be putting lipstick on a pig? TIME magazine, they did an article and it said, “St. Louis has a solution to its crime problem: play with the numbers.” Well, I guess you could argue that, but our stats would be the same as Indianapolis or the same as Louisville or the same as Charlotte. Are they fudging the numbers? They just have an unfair advantage, because they have one police department for that whole area and we happen to have two.
Playing with the numbers isn’t the only thing Dotson’s doing to reduce crime. It’s not like he’s going, “Hey, let’s pull all the cops out of the violent areas, and let them fend for themselves, and we’ll get with the county and fudge these numbers up.” I think the city has done everything humanly possible with the resources they have to address the crime problem in the city.
Is it difficult to deal with all of the little municipalities in the county that have their own police forces? I will tell you that there are 65 police departments in St. Louis County. Only about 10 shouldn’t be in business. The other 55 or so departments, generally speaking, do a wonderful job. But the problem is that those 10 that I’m talking about, they make it bad for everybody else.
For instance? I’ll use Uplands Park as an example that just got rid of their police department. If it’s predictable, it’s preventable. I could have predicted when they hired cops at no pay or very little pay with no benefits that there would be corruption issues that followed shortly thereafter. It wasn’t long before they had cops that were calling prostitutes into the police station and raping them in the basement of the police station. We continue to see some police departments that operate like that.
Is it a funding issue? Some, I’ll use Wellston for an example, the chief of Wellston is a good guy, honest guy. But the resources just aren’t there. So his cops are constantly battling for bullet-proof vests and radios. Wouldn’t it be better just to get about five or six of those departments together and throw all your money into one pot, and then you can afford something that will be somewhat of a professional operation? But they won’t do it. To me, that’s been one of the most frustrating times in my tenure as chief is trying to get cities to work together to share resources.
About once a year, there’s a horde of stunt bikes that comes through and wreaks havoc on the highways. If we catch you violating a motor vehicle law that’s safety related, if you’re doing wheelies down I-270 at 100 miles an hour, we’re not just going to give you a ticket and tow your bike and arrest you. We’re also going to send a letter to your insurance company and notify them what we caught you doing.
That’s smart. That idea came from my insurance agent, who I called one day and said, “Would this have any impact?” He goes, “Are you kidding me? I’d like to know if a guy I’m insuring is doing wheelies down I-270 at 100 miles an hour. But if he gets his ticket fixed by a lawyer, I’ll never know.” I know it’s worked, because they were mad as hell when they found out we were doing that.
I’ve talked to Chief Dotson about using drones to patrol the streets. What are your thoughts on that concept? I’m not as excited about drones in law enforcement. I have some privacy concerns, to be honest with you, about the government being able to fly over your back yard. The fear would always be, is there a political reason? Would some elected person call us and say, “Hey, fly over so-and-so candidate’s house who’s running against me, and see if he’s with his girlfriend tonight.” That sounds pretty far-fetched, but I’ve seen crazy things happen in the last few years.
You proposed letting teachers have guns in schools. Our own Ray Hartmann wasn’t too keen on that idea. As a matter of fact, he wrote a column saying your teacher is not Dirty Harry, if I remember correctly. He’s right, but I never would have suggested putting guns in the hands of unqualified people in a school.
So what did you propose? The example I gave, which didn’t make the light of day, my next-door neighbor was a gym teacher at the local high school, avid hunter, avid firearms expert. This guy had more guns than I’d ever hope to have and was a better shot than I’d ever hope to be. If some guy comes into this school where this gym teacher friend of mine works, and he was armed, there is no doubt in my mind he’d have a real good opportunity to take out a few of those people before law enforcement got on the scene.
School shootings are rare, but putting guns in schools could cause all sorts of problems. I talk about a safe. I could put a thumbprint on my safe and get my gun out, but it’s only my thumbprint. If the teacher’s got a safe in his desk or near his desk that’s his thumbprint and there’s a school shooter coming down the hall, do I want him to take a chance to take that guy out before he kills my students? Absolutely.
Any chance you’ll run for office? Everybody has asked me that. Are you going to run for anything? The answer to that is no.
Alvin Reid wrote a blog post on stlmag.com saying you should run. Your wife commented and said she wasn’t so sure. Yes, she did. I know how she feels about it. She said, “You would be living alone if you ever decided to do anything like that.” There have been, I will tell you, many, many calls, especially in the last year, from some pretty influential people in the community, asking me to run for something. I have told all of them the same thing: I have no interest in a political position. Based on everything I know about politics, I just can’t stomach the thought of it.
One might argue that we need people like that in government. Yeah, but I don’t know that you would ever be a successful politician that way, would you? Is it possible to have a politician who could really do what they thought was right? Is that possible anymore?
