ST. LOUIS _ Three St. Louis police officers accused of beating an undercover colleague during protests last year and a fourth accused of lying to a grand jury about it turned themselves in to authorities Friday morning.
An indictment handed down Thursday accuses officers Dustin Boone, Randy Hays and Christopher Myers of kicking a 22-year police veteran, Luther Hall, and hitting him with a "riot" baton on Sept. 17, 2017. Officer Bailey Colletta is accused of lying to a federal grand jury investigating the incident.
Hall, a detective, has not returned to duty because of his injuries.
After being processed by court staff, all four appeared in court just before 11:30 a.m., shackled at wrists and ankles and in civilian clothes.
In separate, short hearings, U.S. Magistrate Judge Noelle Collins then handed the officers the indictment against them and told them she was releasing them on their own recognizance.
Boone, 35, Hays, 31, and Myers, 27, all face charges of depriving Hall of his constitutional rights and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Myers also faces a charge of destruction of evidence relating to destroying Hall's cellphone, and Colletta, 25, faces a charge of attempting to obstruct grand jury proceedings.
All were accompanied by their union-provided lawyers. Four federal prosecutors looked on, as well as FBI agents, media, court staff and others.
Collins told the four that they would have to remove any guns in their homes within 24 hours. Hays had some and Boone had "quite a few," Collins said, citing a report.
Although the judge cautioned all four not to talk to victims or potential witnesses, including co-defendants, she allowed Hays and Colletta to continue living together. The pair have been in a romantic relationship since the time of the protests, the indictment says.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers declined to comment after the hearings.
Colletta, Hays, Myers and their lawyers left through the back entry of the federal courthouse downtown Friday, which is not open to members of the public. The media were waiting with cameras at the front of the building to catch the officers leaving.
They'll be back in court Dec. 6, when they're expected to plead not guilty.
The four believed Hall was a protester and assaulted him "while he was compliant and not posing a physical threat to anyone," the indictment says. All had been assigned to the police "Civil Disobedience Team" working protest duty, the indictment said. Several had exchanged electronic messages before and after the arrest expressing "disdain" for protesters and "excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so."
The protests followed the acquittal of former police Officer Jason Stockley on a murder charge for the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said Thursday that her office had dismissed 91 cases associated with the officers.
Gardner stopped accepting cases from the four officers in question, "When we learned these officers were under investigation and the reason for the investigation," spokeswoman Susan Ryan said Friday. "That was in late August, early September," she said.
A source told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that those cases had been issued between 2016 and this year. Several were issued after the alleged assault on Hall took place, and well into the federal investigation into the incident, according to a source.
That means the accused officers were on duty, actively making arrests and building cases while they were the subjects of a federal criminal investigation.
It is not clear whether they were ever disciplined internally or put on administrative duty during the investigation.
St. Louis police spokeswoman Officer Michelle Woodling would not make Chief John Hayden available for comment Friday, and referred all questions, including whether the department put the officers on leave or limited duty during the investigation, to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Mayor Lyda Krewson's spokesman Koran Addo said Krewson and Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards were unavailable for comment.
In other cases in which St. Louis police officers have been investigated, federally and internally, accused officers have been put on administrative duty during the duration of the investigations _ including Stockley.
He was put on administrative duty following the fatal shooting in December 2011 as is standard. But his desk duty stretched across the administrations of two police chiefs as federal authorities investigated the shooting at the former police chief's request.
Even though Stockley was never charged with a crime while a member of the department, neither chief allowed him to return to duty following the shooting. He resigned in August 2013. Then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, citing new evidence, charged him with murder in 2016.
Many police departments sideline officers during investigations for liability reasons, said Richard Odenthal, an expert in general law enforcement administrative policy. He served 34 years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department before retiring in 2000.
"For me personally, we don't need these guys putting us at additional risk of a lawsuit or the risk of losing cases," Odenthal said. "I'm not saying my own agency is innocent. We've lost cases when somebody could have been relieved of duty and wasn't and a prosecutor decides he doesn't want to take a chance on losing a case at trial because of it."
