Just after newly sworn-in members of the St. Louis City Youth Council wrapped up their ceremony Wednesday night, criminal defense attorney Talmage Newton IV raised his briefcase as a buffer between himself and a man outside City Hall. The man grabbed hold of it and refused to let go.
A Tug-of-War Outside City Hall
The encounter became a tug-of-war over the briefcase before the man sat down on the ground and began shouting.
Newton waved over a City Hall security guard for help. Rather than stepping in, she shouted, “Call 911!” before heading back inside the building.
From Briefcase to Banging on Cars
Newton eventually retrieved his briefcase once the man's grip loosened. The man then walked onto Tucker Boulevard and began banging on parked cars. Police arrived on the scene and talked him down, and EMS took him to a hospital. No arrest was made.
The two staffers from Board President Megan Green's office who had organized the swearing-in were inside cleaning up when the confrontation unfolded outside, leaving the teens and Newton to navigate the moment largely on their own.
City Apologizes, Promises Review
Green's office sent out an email apologizing for the incident afterward. A spokesperson for the office said the security guard was actually a city marshal, and that she fell short by declining to intervene because the confrontation was happening on the sidewalk outside City Hall rather than inside the building. The office said it is still working to determine the actual responsibilities of City Hall security personnel.
The city describes marshals as providing auxiliary protective services as directed by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. That description does not spell out whether their protective role extends to sidewalks outside City Hall, underscoring the operational question Green’s office said it was still reviewing.
“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, according to the magazine. The office added that it is working with that sergeant to clarify and improve safety measures for future Youth Council meetings.
A Teaching Moment Amid Broader Struggles
The Youth Council itself is a group of young people who meet monthly to pitch solutions to city problems that get passed along to lawmakers, and its teenage members all live within St. Louis city limits.
How the Youth Council Is Structured
The council meets monthly and gives teenage St. Louis residents a forum to propose solutions to city problems for lawmakers. According to the City of St. Louis, it also has three adult members named by the Mayor’s Office and the Board of Aldermen.
The council is open to St. Louis residents ages 12 to 18 and meets monthly; its stated purpose is to let young people weigh in on issues affecting them and suggest changes to city leaders. Its adult membership includes the mayor’s senior adviser for children, youth and families, alongside representatives connected to the Board of Aldermen and local schools or youth-serving nonprofits, the city’s Youth Council page says.
Newton also framed the episode as a window into something bigger, describing what he called the city's pernicious not-my-problem attitude — pointing to the scene as a small snapshot of the housing and drug crises playing out in cities across the country.
Newton is a founding partner of Newton Barth, where his practice includes criminal defense in state and federal courts, as well as civil-rights and other litigation, his firm’s biography says. The housing crisis he invoked has a measurable local dimension: St. Louis’ 2024 point-in-time count recorded 1,235 people experiencing homelessness, including 154 counted outdoors or in other places not meant for housing; the unsheltered count was 45% higher than in 2023, the local Continuum of Care’s count shows. Those figures do not establish the man’s housing status.
