ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

ST. LOUIS — Daniel Thurman sat in a trooper’s patrol vehicle on the side of the highway. It was around midnight.

Thurman, an off-duty St. Louis police officer, had been pulled over for speeding.

The trooper could smell alcohol on his breath. When Thurman took a breathalyzer test, it registered almost twice the legal limit.

Thurman was angry about it.

“Are you really trying to do this (expletive) to me right now?� Thurman said to the trooper, according to court records. “So, if, if I were to drive the frickin’ speed limit, would you be willing to forget about this all?�

It was Aug. 13, 2022. Thurman was arrested for drunken driving and speeding. But the charges were just the start of a legal process that would drag out for more than two-and-a-half years. Over that period, restrictions on his license were delayed, he kept working at the St. Louis police department, he drove his patrol vehicle in violation of a state order — without his bosses knowing — and his drunken driving charge was wiped from his record.

His speeding case is still ongoing. And he’s still working as a cop, in a new jurisdiction.

Altogether, his case reveals holes in a system designed to hold police officers accountable.

Thurman could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, notable DWI attorney Travis Noble, did not respond to several requests for an interview.

St. Louis police eventually fired Thurman several months after the incident, a decision that isn’t explained in court records. None of the parties involved would discuss his case.

Thurman is now a cop in Overland. His new boss, Overland police Chief Andrew Mackey, also wouldn’t comment.

Tim Maher, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said Overland has some explaining to do.

“If I was a resident of Overland,� he said, “I’d be demanding that the chief come clean on this.�

Maher said it’s possible the department did a thorough background check and several interviews to determine Thurman wasn’t at risk of reoffending.

“There is no doubt police departments have been having trouble recruiting people, not just in the St Louis area, but nationwide,� he said. “And less and less people are applying to become police officers. And I suspect, as a consequence, that some standards have been lowered.�

Now, the state is involved. On Feb. 6, the attorney general’s office filed a complaint against Thurman’s police license.

As a result, records in the investigation of Thurman’s drunken driving incident have become public.

‘Arresting city cops?’

At 11:54 p.m. on Aug. 12, 2022, Missouri Highway Patrol trooper Kyle G. Barba pulled over Thurman, then 27, on southbound I-270 at Dorsett Road in St. Louis County.

He clocked Thurman’s Nissan Maxima at 105 mph in a 60 mph zone, according to Barba’s report.

Thurman told Barba he was actually driving about 120 mph.

The trooper said he could smell alcohol on Thurman’s breath and noticed his eyes were watery and bloodshot.

Barba asked Thurman if he’d been drinking. Thurman said he’d had two drinks that night.

He passed two field sobriety tests, standing on one foot and walking in a straight line. But Barba noted Thurman’s eyes made some involuntary movements indicative of intoxication.

Barba asked Thurman to sit in the front seat of his squad car and take a breath test.

“It’s going to be over,� Thurman told Barba.

Thurman blew a 0.148, almost double the 0.08 percent legal limit.

“You’re really going to take me to (expletive) jail?� Thurman then said. “Look, could you please just give me a (expletive) ticket.�

Fourteen minutes later, at 12:08 a.m., Barba arrested him.

“So, do you guys get off on, uh, arresting city cops?� Thurman asked Barba.

Thurman’s Nissan had a male passenger, not identified in records, who waited for a ride. The trooper said he also confiscated Thurman’s personal handgun.

That night, the state issued Thurman a notice of a 90-day driver’s license suspension.

Restricted license

Thurman went back to work as a St. Louis police officer, according to the state’s complaint. It was his fifth year with the department. He hired a lawyer, Noble, to handle his case.

One of Noble’s first steps: He requested a hearing with the Department of Revenue to review the driver’s license suspension issued by the troopers. The effect of that request was to delay the license suspension until after the hearing.

On Nov. 3 of that year, Thurman’s DOR hearing was held, according to court records. Four days later, the state mailed a notice to Thurman that he couldn’t drive without an “interlock device,� which tests a driver’s breath for alcohol before the engine can start.

Noble quickly appealed the decision. Still, on Nov. 22, 2022 — while waiting for a hearing on the appeal — the restriction went into effect, as outlined in state law.

It took five months before a hearing was held on the appeal, and another almost four months before the court ruled, reaffirming the state’s decision to restrict Thurman’s license.

But Thurman continued to work as a cop and drive a patrol car in St. Louis, without an interlock device, according to the state’s complaint over his peace officer license.

The St. Louis police department, the complaint says, “did not become aware� of the restriction on his driver’s license until early January 2023. None of the documents, including the state’s complaint, explain how the agency learned of the license restriction. And none of the parties would discuss it.

Even the attorney general’s office isn’t sure when St. Louis police learned of Thurman’s arrest.

But city police should have known. Police departments in Missouri are enrolled in a program called RAP Back, which sends records of any police officer arrested or prosecuted back to the agency that employs them. The notice is automatic, triggered by the fingerprinting of the accused.

St. Louis police spokesman Mitch McCoy confirmed that the department gets the notifications. He declined to comment on Thurman’s case, citing personnel record laws.

Still, the state complaint says Thurman’s supervisors determined he had driven his patrol car, in violation of his interlock device requirement, at least 21 times between Nov. 25, 2022, and Jan. 4, 2023.

On Jan. 8, he was ticketed for Failing to Heed Restriction on Operator’s License.

Sometime over the next month and a half, the ticket was changed. On Feb. 24, the state complaint says, Thurman pleaded guilty to Littering from a Vehicle and paid a fine.

On April 26, 2023, Thurman was fired by St. Louis police.

Thurman pleaded guilty to the DWI on Nov. 16, 2023, more than a year after the incident.

Then, in an outcome even St. Louis County prosecutor Melissa Price Smith said seemed “unusual,� Thurman received a suspended imposition of sentence — meaning if he complied with one year on probation, the charge would be removed from his record.

He was also ordered to pay $10 to the victim’s compensation fund, according to the only document publicly available in the case.

Price Smith declined further comment; the case was during the tenure of her predecessor, now-U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell.

Adam Notch, the assistant prosecutor who signed off on the sentence, is no longer with the office, said he didn’t remember the case and declined comment.

The judge who sentenced Thurman, Lorne Baker, did not return calls for comment.

Then, on Nov. 28, 2023 — less than two weeks after Thurman pleaded guilty to driving intoxicated — the Overland Police Department hired him as an officer.

The state’s complaint

On Feb. 6, 2025, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed the petition to discipline Thurman’s peace officer license.

Mike O’Connell, the spokesman for the Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training commission, which handles peace officer licensing, said POST reviews cases and hands them over to the attorney general’s office. That office then determines whether to file a petition with the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission.

The commission is made up of five administrative judges, known as commissioners, who are required to be members of the Missouri Bar and are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Missouri Senate. The commissioners do not sit as a panel, but rather they are each assigned to cases.

A commissioner will review Thurman’s case and rule on whether there is cause for discipline.

If there is cause, the director of the state Department of Public Safety will then decide whether to put Thurman’s police license on probation, on suspension or revoke it altogether.

Thurman will have the right to appeal the decision in circuit court.

He is scheduled for a status hearing on June 25.

The speeding ticket from the night he was pulled over, filed separately from his DWI charge, remains pending.

His next hearing in that case is May 22. If convicted, he faces up to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000.