St. Louis police spend thousands on gold-filled badges

[proud2BlibKansan]

ST. LOUIS | St. Louis' new police chief and other top officers in the department are receiving gold-filled badges worth nearly $2,000 each.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that that's about 100 times the price of a patrolman's badge. And it's more than other departments spend. For example, Kansas City Police Chief James Corwin's badge cost $48.75.

But it's a lot less than the $5,900 each the city spent on two solid-gold badges for Chief Daniel Isom's predecessor, Joe Mokwa.

The latest badges were a nearly $10,000 line item in a unanimous vote Wednesday by the Board of Police Commissioners to approve December purchases.

The vote came just hours before the department admitted that it had wrongly kept up to $6 million seized in the arrest of suspects.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/947030.html

[47of74]

1. That's what the other smell was

There's two competing smells here in Iowa now. One's blowing in east from the Chicago PD. And now there's one blowing in from the Saint Louis PD.

[lonestarnot]

2. Fucking A. Does the corruption ever stop?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Not in Missouri

Very corrupt cops here.

[sk8tenn]

3. Gold-filled badges cost $2000 each?!

I make jewelry as a hobby. Gold-filled materials (wire, sheet, etc.) are made of 14K fused to a brass core. The layer of 14K gold is thicker than plating or vermeil (and has no nickel like plating medium can), but gold-filled materials are nowhere near as expensive as something made of a sold gold alloy (14K, 18K, etc.). Actually, gold-filled should be about the same (or just a little more) than regular sterling silver, and a badge shouldn't cost anywhere near $2000.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Sounds like somebody is making some money

[aquart]

5. You wondered about that, too?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. We don't need no steenking gold-filled badges.

WTF?

[Statistical]

8. I can see related news story in couple months "Police baffled by string of badge robberies" (n/t)

[Swamp Rat]

9. That will make them prime targets for robbery.

A bonk on the head, and the thief gets a gun AND a hunk of gold. :dunce:

[acmavm]

10. And my brother in Omaha, NE had $400 taken from here during a search.

And his attorney told him to shut up, he's getting off real good. Don't make waves.

Seems that they're calling the wrong people 'criminals'.