Scare outside City Hall becomes a lesson for new St. Louis Youth Council members

A swearing-in ceremony for the St. Louis City Youth Council ended on Wednesday night with an unplanned lesson in how the city handles safety, after a man who appeared to be homeless and on drugs approached a group of departing teenagers outside City Hall.

The council brings together young city residents who meet monthly to discuss solutions to local problems, which are then passed on to lawmakers. Criminal defense attorney Talmage Newton IV, whose daughter is among the new members, noticed after the ceremony that some of the youth were walking to their cars alone and hurried to join them.

He arrived in time to see a man he described as addled making a "beeline" toward the teens. Newton raised his briefcase as a buffer, and the man grabbed it, sat down and began, in Newton's words, "screaming wild nonsense." Newton said he worried about what the man might be on. "If this guy is on PCP or something, I'm in big trouble," he recalled thinking, adding that his daughter and the other young people were nearby and that the situation "could get real bad real fast."

Newton waved over a security guard who came out of City Hall. According to his account, she shouted "Call 911!" and went back inside. Eventually the man loosened his grip and Newton took back his briefcase. The man wandered onto Tucker and started banging on cars, while everyone else returned toward City Hall.

After police arrived, Newton found the guard and asked what had happened. He said she told him, "I'm an inside guard," and later, "This isn't my job." He said she did not answer when he asked whether she had called 911.

Police talked the man down, and a St. Louis Metropolitan Police spokesperson confirmed that EMS took him to a hospital. No arrest was made. Newton described his daughter as "unnerved but not panicked."

Aldermanic President Megan Green's office, which coordinates the youth council program, emailed participants to apologize and said it is working to learn exactly what City Hall security personnel are responsible for. A spokesperson said the guard was a city marshal and that she fell short by declining to intervene on the grounds that the incident was on the sidewalk rather than inside the building.

"We have made the SLMPD sergeant who oversees the marshals aware of these reports and expect that he will take appropriate action in response," the spokesperson said. "We're also working with him to ensure that we clarify and improve safety measures for our meetings going forward." The office's two staffers at the event were inside cleaning up when the incident occurred outside.

Newton said the episode offered the teens several lessons: his own on de-escalating frightening situations, a view of the housing and drug crises affecting cities nationwide, and what he called "the not-my-problemism of the city."