Private Policing Firm the City's Finest Sued for Wage Violations

Last year, the City's Finest was Exhibit A in a ProPublica investigation into how St. Louisans are increasingly paying private policing firms to enforce the law within their neighborhoods.

Now the City's Finest is itself accused of breaking the law.

A lawsuit filed last week in federal court accuses the St. Louis-based private policing firm of failing to pay overtime in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Missouri's minimum wage law. The suit was filed on behalf of a St. Louis County resident named Lamar Tolden, who says he worked as many as 70 hours a week but was never paid the time-and-a-half premium required by law.

"In 2022, Mr. Tolden worked approximately 65 hours per week on average," the lawsuit alleges. "In 2023, Mr. Tolden worked approximately 47 hours per week on average. Despite working substantial overtime, Defendants never paid Mr. Tolden an overtime premium for his hours worked over 40 in a workweek."

The lawsuit seeks to represent not only Tolden, but also all other similarly situated employees of the City's Finest. It was filed as a "collective action," a legal term somewhat akin to a class action lawsuit that would allow Tolden's colleagues to opt in.

The suit says Tolden was hired in June 2022 as an armed security guard and was paid $25 an hour, with shift differentials for nights and weekends. He says he sought to raise the overtime issue with the company's founder Charles Betts, a former city police detective, but was unsuccessful.

The City's Finest has drawn scrutiny because it hires off-duty police officers to perform the function that in many cities are done by the actual police department — such as patrolling neighborhoods and arresting suspects. Neighborhoods say they've turned to the City's Finest because the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department either can't, or won't, provide such police work at the level their residents desire.

But making access to those services dependent on a private company can't help but increase disparities. And the ProPublica story questioned whether, by besting the department's own overtime rates, the City's Finest was "in essence outbidding the police department for its own workforce."

Tolden appears to be in a different group than the moonlighting officers, in that he worked full-time for the City's Finest. Concerns about the company's business plan have largely focused on full-time city employees picking up extra shifts — essentially being paid by a private employer to do the same job they do during the day.

At the time of the ProPublica investigation, city officials said they would undertake a “complete review” of how off-duty officers are used and hire a firm to “review for best practices that are going to be equitable to officers, the community and the city.” They later told ProPublica they would be hiring a consultant for that task.

This past August, after another city neighborhood voted to tax itself to pay for private policing, we asked the city where that effort stood. We did not hear back.

Tolden's suit was filed by Philip E. Oliphant of the Crone Law Firm, which is based in Memphis.

Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News |  Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed