ST. LOUIS — Calls for St. Louis Alderman Joe Vaccaro to resign mounted Tuesday following a controversial encounter with a police officer caught on body camera.
The St. Louis Police Officers Association is now calling for Vaccaro to step down as chairman of the Public Safety Committee and resign as alderman, according to a statement police union president Jay Schroeder posted on the union’s Facebook page.
“This man goes on television and flat out lies, going as far as to call the officer an (expletive),” according to the statement. “When confronted with his bad behavior, Alderman Vaccaro doubled down and said the body camera footage vindicated him. As anyone who has watched the video knows, it tells a different story.”
The Ethical Society of Police, a membership organization that represents mostly Black officers, called for Vaccaro to resign from the Public Safety Committee Saturday.
"As an elected official and chair over the Public Safety Community using language such as (expletive) and now jerk is again extremely unprofessional," according to the statement. "How can you sit as chair over a committee that makes decisions for public safety while you don't respect those who work in public safety?
"The veteran is not a 'jerk,' he's a hardworking officer who has dedicated himself to the City of St. Louis and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The officer has a name and it's not 'jerk' nor any other name that is derogatory. Alderman Vaccaro has demonstrated with behavior and speech that those who work in public safety are not important to him."
Vaccaro said he had no comment to Tuesday's call for his resignation from the police union. He told 5 On Your Side hours after the release of the video he should not have called the officer an expletive, but believed the officer was being a "jerk" to him during the traffic stop, should have been more courteous and given him more time to find his insurance card.
In its statement Tuesday, the police union also demanded the police department end the internal investigation into the officer’s conduct.
“I call on the SLMPD to immediately stop this investigation, exonerate the officer and remove any reference of it from his employment file,” Schroeder wrote on Facebook. “I also ask Alderman Vaccaro to issue a public apology, take accountability for his actions, resign his chairmanship of the Public Safety Committee and step down as an alderman of the City of St. Louis.”
Vaccaro was pulled over for going 76 mph in a 60 mph zone along Interstate 44 near Jefferson Avenue on Feb. 10. He was ticketed for speeding and failing to show proof of insurance.
Vaccaro told 5 On Your Side he paid the ticket so the police department would release body camera footage of the stop. Records show the speeding ticket was amended to excessive vehicle noise and he paid a $207 fine. The ticket for failure to provide insurance was dismissed.
Vaccaro said the officer was “a jerk” to him, coughed all over him and wasn’t wearing a mask.
The approximately 10-minute interaction showed Vaccaro got out of his truck along the highway, which prompted the officer to jump out of his police SUV and tell him multiple times to get back into his car.
“That’s how you get yourself killed,” the officer can be heard telling him.
Two St. Louis police officers were struck and injured during a traffic stop along a highway in January.
The officer coughs, and, at one point, Vaccaro can be seen lurching backward to avoid the officer who was standing outside the car.
The officer asks Vaccaro for his license and registration. Vaccaro fumbles around in his wallet for 22 seconds before the officer returns to his police SUV to write him tickets for speeding and failure to show proof of insurance.
When the officer returns to the car, Vaccaro shows him his insurance card on his cellphone, but the officer tells him to take the ticket to court and show it to the judge to have it dismissed.
Vaccaro then tells the officer he was being “very rude,” and that he would be calling the colonel.
Vaccaro said he called Hayden to demand the officer be tested for COVID and to complain about how the officer was not courteous during the traffic stop. Vaccaro said during that conversation, Hayden offered “multiple times” to fix the tickets.
Hayden called a press conference Thursday – hours after the department released the body camera footage denying that he offered to fix the tickets for the alderman and demanding Vaccaro apologize to the officer for calling him an expletive.
Vaccaro has vowed to call Hayden to an upcoming Public Safety Committee meeting to have him discuss their phone call under oath.