Above Photo: FOX 2 St. Louis
NOTE: This race demonstrates the power of movements to change the political agenda. – Pop Res
The presumptive winner of the general election is a police reform advocate.
Ferguson city council member Wesley Bell defeated 27-year incumbent Bob McCulloch in the Democratic primary for St. Louis County’s prosecutor. Both candidates are notably the children of police officers.
McCulloch gained infamy for his refusal to prosecute the officer who fatally shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014. The shooting inspired the national Black Lives Matter movement, now a powerful force in progressive politics.
The incumbent prosecutor has never prosecuted a cop for killing an unarmed civilian in his seven-term history.
Bell, who carried 57 percent of the primary vote according to the unofficial result, is now the presumptive winner of the general election because no Republicans are running for the seat.
According to New York magazine’s Daily Intelligencer division, Bell campaigned on “pledges to appoint special prosecutors in police-shooting cases, end cash bail for low-level offenses, expand the county’s drug courts, provide more low-level drug offenders with alternatives to incarceration, and never pursue the death penalty in any case.”
McCulloch conceded the election on Tuesday night but has not answered press inquiry about his loss.