By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph Police Chief Paul Luster is pleased new Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe has focused on public safety to begin his tenure.
Kehoe, a Republican, signed six executive orders on his first day in office, all dealing with public safety.
Luster says the action shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“For anybody that followed the campaign that Gov. Kehoe had or followed the election, I think he said pretty much since day one that he was going to take steps to support law enforcement and to fight crime in Missouri,” Kehoe says. “If I heard it right, I think he did that within about an hour of taking office.”
Kehoe signed six executive orders after taking the oath of office as Missouri’s 58th governor.
The first executive order establishes “Operation Relentless Pursuit,” a regional anti-crime effort that emphasizes intelligence-led policing to chase down dangerous fugitives.
Luster says he is pleased the executive order hinges on the use of intelligence-led policing.
“We do that a lot here in St. Joe,” Luster says. “We look at who our problem people are, where our problem areas are, and that’s where we direct resources to. And that way we’re not just randomly out there hoping to get lucky, catching somebody doing a crime. That happens sometimes, but we can be a lot more efficient with our resources. He kind of just put that into a statewide, cross-jurisdictional, collaborative effort.”
A second executive order creates the Blue Shield Program to recognize local governments for their dedication “to effective law enforcement and community safety.”
Another executive order targets immigration enforcement, a key priority of the Trump administration in Washington. It allows state and local law enforcement to work with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enforce immigration law.
“So, I think he wants to make sure that the training’s available and that people know the resources; not trying to put that in local government’s hands. There’s a federal agency that deals with that. We’re not just trying to shift that to the local level,” according to Luster. “But to know that if there (are) criminal offenders out there that we want them brought to justice regardless of immigration status.”
A companion executive order directs the Missouri Department of Public Safety and the Missouri State Highway Patrol to collect the immigration status of those within the statewide uniform crime data reporting system.
A working group will examine the state parole system under another executive order. An executive order issued by Kehoe modifies the Missouri State Highway Patrol salary schedule to allow troopers to reach the top salary tier in 12 years rather than 15.
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