As Missouri officials argue with the Biden administration over the scope of the state’s new gun law, federal law enforcement agencies are quietly assessing whether police departments will cut ties with them in firearm investigations.
The passage of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which blocks Missouri police from enforcing a variety of federal gun laws, has alarmed gun control advocates and sparked concern that it could hamper police efforts to arrest violent criminals or confiscate their guns.
Emails obtained by The Star show federal prosecutors in eastern Missouri have asked at least a dozen police departments whether they will stop participating in federal gun crime investigations. The FBI has also queried a southwest Missouri police department, and is assessing the responses of local police statewide.
At least two departments have pulled officers from assignments with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, spokesmen confirmed.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol has suspended its participation in an ATF task force, to which one trooper was assigned full-time and three part-time, Lt. Eric Brown said.
“With the passage of HB 85, Patrol members can continue to serve on federal task forces except where the task force’s primary focus is on weapons violations,” Brown said.
The O’Fallon Police Department has withdrawn two K9 officers “who were deputized to ATF on an as needed basis,” Operations Division Captain Derek Myers wrote in an email to other police officials.
An ATF spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
The new law declares many federal gun regulations, including those that covering weapons registration, tracking and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders, “invalid” in Missouri.
Local departments are barred from enforcing them, or risk being sued for $50,000. They also are prohibited from assisting federal agents in enforcing laws declared “invalid,” and from hiring former federal agents who had enforced them.
The law’s passage was a victory for gun rights activists who have pushed it for nearly a decade in the Missouri legislature. This year, they picked up new momentum by responding to the Biden administration’s vows to enact stricter gun control.
But the measure has drawn an ambivalent response from Missouri law enforcement officials. Some say they are supportive of Second Amendment rights but concerned about their ability to investigate crimes alongside federal agents when guns are used or involved. In those cases, prosecutors often pursue gun charges because they come with additional penalties upon sentencing.
Federal agencies run a variety of task forces related to guns and drugs across Missouri, and often provide extra funding for local departments. Last year the Justice Department launched Operation LeGend in Kansas City and St. Louis, in response to record gun violence in Missouri. The ATF Strike Force also focuses on violent crimes committed with firearms or explosives in St. Louis. Parson appointed two state troopers to that effort in 2019.
AN INVITATION FROM THE U.S. ATTORNEY
St. Louis city and county have sued the state over the law, seeking to block it from taking effect. Last month, a US. Justice Department official wrote to Parson and Attorney General Eric Schmitt saying HB 85 “conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulation” and threatens to disrupt the working relationship between federal and local authorities.
“Missouri is not attempting to nullify federal law,” Schmitt and Parson wrote back. “Instead, Missouri is defending its people from federal government overreach by prohibiting state and local law enforcement agencies from being used by the federal government to infringe [on] Missourians’ right to keep and bear arms.”
But emails reflect concern among federal law enforcement agents about their partnerships with Missouri police.
Last Thursday, an FBI intelligence analyst emailed a crime analyst in the Joplin Police Department, asking whether the local department would stop participating in firearms investigations. The FBI analyst mentioned the State Highway Patrol’s withdrawal from ATF.
“We’re seeing changes from locals on LEOs (law enforcement officers) working firearms charges….has JPD (Joplin Police Department) made any changes in response to the legislation signed a few weeks ago in which they are no longer working certain aspects of firearms cases?” the FBI analyst wrote. “Thanks for any info you can provide, we’re trying to see the response statewide.”
The emails show no written response from the Joplin analyst. Both the FBI and the Joplin Police Department declined to comment on the effect of the new law.
In eastern Missouri, U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming on June 21 called local police chiefs to a meeting scheduled for Friday to discuss how the departments would respond.
The emailed invitation included four federal police agencies and was sent to at least 12 Missouri police chiefs who work with the St. Louis-based federal prosecutor’s office. Fleming wrote that her office would not issue a legal interpretation of the Second Amendment Preservation Act but would share “our office’s internal policy.”
“With respect to your agency/department, please be prepared to discuss your current policy as to existing and future investigations and prosecutions involving potential federal firearm charges,” Fleming wrote. “We fully respect and understand that each department/agency will have its own interpretation of the legislation and resulting policy. Hopefully, having a more complete understanding of the various policies will help everyone going forward.”
“I am confident we will work through this,” she added.
A spokeswoman for the St. Charles County Police Department, which provided the emails to The Star in response to a public records request, did not respond when asked if the department would stop assisting in federal gun investigations.
“The St. Charles County Police Department will continue to serve and protect the community,” she said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice declined to comment.
CHILLING EFFECT?
The law’s sponsor, Rep. Jered Taylor, said he didn’t see any reason why local police would need to withdraw from federal agency partnerships, unless Congress passes further measures pushed by the Biden administration such as magazine restrictions or an assault rifles ban.
“Law enforcement is still going to be able to work with federal partners, after working months and months with law enforcement across the state to make sure we had a bill that not only protect Second Amendment rights but make sure law enforcement is still able to do their job,” he said.
There are exceptions in the law allowing local police to help federal agents enforce gun restrictions that are similar to those in Missouri law, or to help in cases in which the local police involvement is “ancillary” to bringing about a federal gun charges.
Taylor said he expects police will able to retain their federal partnerships and rewrite agreements to specify the restrictions of the new state law.
Kevin Merritt, executive director of the Missouri Sheriff’s Association, said the law is worded vaguely enough that some police feel a “chilling effect” that could keep them from working with federal agents at all, for fear of being sued.
“What does it mean if you cooperate with [federal agents investigating a] bank robbery and the primary investigation is centered around the robbery, well, there’s an enhanced penalty at the federal level to commit it with use of a firearm,” Merritt said. “If local law enforcement helps with that and anyone believes that that firearm wasn’t ‘ancillary,’ and the sheriff’s office helped take the gun away from the Missouri citizen, now they can sue.”
Still, he said the majority of sheriffs are likely to continue working with federal agents.
“We haven’t seen a mass exodus” from partnerships, he said. “They’re proceeding cautiously.”
The O’Fallon department’s withdrawal from working with the ATF was ordered by former Police Chief Philip Dupuis on June 18, hours before he resigned over what he called the new law’s “poor wording and future unintended consequences.”
In an email to subordinates, Dupuis ordered “a temporary retraction … until further notice” of all the department’s officers who are assigned to federal agencies or federal-led task forces. The action was “being taken on advice of legal counsel,” he wrote.
The department’s records supervisor Jamie McCarrick clarified to The Star that the non-ATF task force officers remain “in place with restrictions.” Those include two officers assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency as well as one assigned to postal crimes and one to cyber crimes.
Some police departments have had no written contact with federal agencies over the issue so far. Some, such as Kansas City Police Department, have said they are continuing to work with federal agents. Other police chiefs have raised concerns over the law, but said they are still evaluating it.
In Cape Girardeau, Police Chief Wes Blair told the Southeast Missourian two weeks ago he was worried he would have to pull his officers out of task forces with federal agencies, including the ATF.
But the department has not communicated in writing with federal agents about the law recently, Lt. Jeff Bonham said, and “is undecided to the participation in any federal partnerships or task forces at this time.”
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