St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said she will do whatever she can to support her police department after local officer Tamarris Bohannon died taking a bullet to the head.
Bohannon, 29, was shot while responding to a shooting on Saturday evening. On Sunday evening, he died from his injuries, leaving behind his wife, Alexis, and their three children.
“I just told Alexis and Officer Bohannon’s mom and dad how sorry I was,” Krewson said Wednesday on Fox News’s Bill Hemmer Reports. “Sometimes, fewer words are better in these situations. [I] also told them that, of course, we’ll be there for them in any way that we can. It is just a heartbreaking tragedy for the family, friends, for our city, and of course, for our St. Louis Police Department.”
Krewson, a Democrat, disputed calls to defund the police, adding that support for law enforcement should be upheld by Republicans and Democrats.
“We need to fund [police] appropriately and support them appropriately,” Krewson said. “Supporting law enforcement should not be a partisan issue.”
St. Louis has been one of the cities participating in the federal government’s Operation Legend to distribute federal law enforcement officers to aid local police and corral recent surges in violence.
The city’s Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards warned of violence “occurring in every portion and sector of our city,” noting that the police department is down “in excess of 100 officers,” according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
“We absolutely need more officers,” Edwards said.
Krewson said Operation Legend has about 50 officers in St. Louis who collaborate with local police. She said the program has been in place for about a month and it’s “going well.”
Krewson became the subject of protesters’ ire earlier this year after she broadcast the personal information of her constituents calling to defund the police. She apologized for the incident.
