Coup in a small town: Missouri cops block newly elected mayor from taking office

© AP
April 23, 2015: Kinloch city attorney James Robinson, left, asks Kinloch Mayor-elect Betty McCray if he can show the impeachment papers to the media at the Kinloch City Hall, in Kinloch, Mo

    

On April 7th, Betty McCray was elected mayor of the town of Kinloch, just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. However, after she was sworn in earlier this week, she headed toward city hall to start her term, when she was stopped by nearly two dozen police officers in front of the building (I should add that there are over 50 members of the police department for this town of 300 residents). They claimed that she had been suspended and served impeachment papers for voter fraud.

If all you read was the local mainstream news, you'd think this was a cut-and-dried case. It wouldn't be hard to believe either. Political corruption isn't exactly unheard of in America.

But in reality, there are a few holes in this story.

Countercurrent news reported on this strange situation last night.

Political opponents met her at the door and wrongly told her that she had been "impeached" before even taking the job. But that's simply not true.

Mayor McCray has not been impeached and she won the April 7th election. But police were there in what seems to be a small town coup of sorts, enforcing an illegal bar on the newly-elected mayor and preventing her from taking office.

"I won. The people spoke," McCray explained. "I was sworn in by the St. Louis County. Today I take office. I want them out, I want the keys."

Local Fox 2 reports that "after election results were certified earlier this week by the St. Louis County Board of Elections, Kinloch's outgoing administration refused to allow the city clerk to give McCray the oath of office, claiming voter fraud."

But in spite of these claims, there has been no evidence whatsoever to back it up.

McCray was elected. The St. Louis County Board of Elections certified the results. But the police are enforcing an illegal "coup" of sorts.

"Coup" sounds about right. The city attorney claimed that she had been sent the articles of impeachment in the mail, but she says that isn't true. She was later sworn in by the St. Louis City Clerk, but the city attorney and the incumbent administration don't seem to recognize it. Either way, according to Missouri state law, impeachment hearings cannot be held until thirty days after those papers are delivered. It's hardly been three weeks since she was elected. Even if she did commit voter fraud and they could prove it, they don't have the authority to keep her from starting her term.

Something very strange is going on here. Either the incumbent administration is using police force to maintain their office, or she did in fact commit voter fraud, and the city government doesn't care about following proper legal procedure. Neither of those possibilities bode well for the future political landscape of America.