White St. Louis Cops & White DA Withheld Video & DNA Evidence to Get Lower Settlement in Anthony Lamar Smith Case

'I Wanted to Save the Black Man Not Murder Him' & Other Solid Gold Nonsense.   From [HERE] An investigator hired by Missouri's attorney general isn't the only one looking into allegations officials withheld evidence from the family of Anthony Lamar Smith during wrongful death lawsuit negotiations in 2013.

Deputy St. Louis City Counselor Nancy Kistler is as well, she said Friday.

A St. Louis police officer shot and killed Smith after a high-speed pursuit in 2011. A judge acquitted Jason Stockley, the police officer, of first-degree murder charges in September, sparking ongoing protests throughout the region.

But in 2013, attorneys for Smith's family were negotiating a wrongful death settlement with the state, which, at the time, oversaw the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Albert Watkins, an attorney representing Smith's daughter, has said officials improperly withheld lab reports showing Stockley's DNA was the only DNA found on a revolver recovered from Smith's car, and cellphone footage filmed by an onlooker after the shooting.

He has said the evidence would have helped the family — which agreed to a $900,000 wrongful death settlement in 2013 — negotiate a higher amount.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican, announced on Sept. 25 that an independent investigator would probe Watkins' allegations. On Oct. 4, City Counselor Julian Bush wrote to Watkins saying his office would, too.

But Bush, in his letter, said the city "had no involvement in the case at all."

Kistler clarified to the Post-Dispatch on Friday that the Board of Police Commissioners was under state jurisdiction at the time. So if police officials and the attorney general's office acted improperly, City Hall played no part in it, she said.

"The Police Board was a separate entity, and so the city would not have been involved in that," she said.

Bush did say in his letter to Watkins that "the allegations in your letter are indeed disquieting," referring to a letter from Watkins on Oct. 2. And even though the Board of Police Commissioners was under state control, the city has "inherited the liabilities" of the old board.

"In anticipation of litigation that may be brought concerning this matter, it is my intention to get to the bottom of it as best I can, and I have assigned one of my deputies to the task," Bush wrote to Watkins.

Kistler said she plans to finish her probe next week.

A spokeswoman in the attorney general's office would not comment on the timeline of the independent investigation, which Hal A. Goldsmith, a former federal prosecutor and current attorney at the Bryan Cave law firm, is heading.