The mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, issued an apology after publicly announcing the names of the individuals calling for police reform during a Facebook Live briefing, according to multiple reports.
In a Facebook post written on Friday, June 26, Mayor Lyda Krewson apologized for sharing the personal information of the protesters, writing, “I would like to apologize for identifying individuals who presented letters and comment cards to me at City Hall as I was answering a routine question during one of my updates [on the situation of COVID-19] earlier today. While this is public information, never did I intend to cause distress or harm to anyone.”
On Friday, Krewson offered a briefing for the status on COVID-19 through Facebook Live outside of the Medium Security Institution, known as the Workhouse. After the briefing was completed and people were free to ask the mayor question, one particular question was written in and asked Krewson how the meeting with protesters went, according to KSDK.
Earlier on in the day, a group of around 50 people were marching in front of the Workhouse, and in response to the question that the person posed regarding the meeting, Krewson said that the meeting “wasn’t really a two-way conversation…because there was a very loud response from the demonstrators,” the news outlet reported.
Krewson also informed the public that she had received letters pushing for the reformation of Police as well as other changes in regards to policing the news outlet reported. Then, Krewson began to read out the names and addresses of the protesters who had given her the letters.
One of the letters read as such: “Here’s one that wants $50 million to go to Cure Violence, $75 million to go to Affordable Housing, $60 million to go to Health and Human Services and have zero go to the police.”
According to the New York Post, many people were commenting on the live video, asking Krewson not to share the personal information of the protesters. Three hours after the Facebook Live video was posted online, it was deleted, and along with the deleted video, Krewson issued an apology for identifying the protesters by name.
The New York Post also reported that Krewson received backlash from the incident, as following the incident, with demands for the resignation of the mayor. A petition was also created, and within a few hours of creation, had garnered over 8,000 signatures. As of now, the petition has nearly 40,000 signatures.
