The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department's Internal Affairs division is investigating the improper use of some baseball tickets during the World Series here last fall.
Spokesman Richard Wilkes does not know when the probe began, how many officers are under the IA microscope, or what exactly prompted the investigation, which has to do with some of the 116 tickets that police officers confiscated during the Series.
What is clear is the investigation was definitely not ongoing early last November when I asked the department what exactly had happened to those 116 tickets. I'd heard from a few "resellers" that they'd been arrested and made to turn over their ticket stash, only to go into the game and find people — officers' friends? family? — sitting in the very seats they had tried to sell.
"The police walked up to me, asked did I have tickets. I said, 'Yeah.' They said, 'Walk across the street,'" said Tony Sanders, recounting his efforts to sell seats to Game 5 last October. "They took my tickets. They showed me a badge. Then they got on the telephone with somebody and said, 'You going to the game!'
"Then a white car pulled up about ten minutes later. They gave my tickets to the people in the white car!"
Wilkes says more details will be available once the investigation is completed.
