Black prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell announces bid for Missouri US Senate
The 48-year-old Senate candidate told theGrio that the fallout from Michael Brown’s fatal police shooting in 2014 changed the trajectory of his political career.
A Missouri prosecuting attorney has launched a campaign for the U.S. Senate, throwing his hat in the ring to unseat controversial Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
“Public service is in my DNA,” Wesley Bell told theGrio in a recent interview.
“My dad was a police officer, and that’s what we do. That’s what my parents taught me, and I always wanted to serve first by teaching and then becoming a judge and running for city council,” he said.
The 48-year-old Senate candidate told theGrio that the fallout from Michael Brown’s fatal police shooting in 2014 changed the trajectory of his political career.
“Ferguson was a turning point for me in my city region…the scene was ready to explode,” he recalled. “I stepped in to help calm tensions between police and protesters.”
Shortly after, Bell was elected to the Ferguson City Council and a few years later became the state’s first Black county prosecuting attorney in 2018.
The Missouri native is running for U.S. Senate because he believes residents “deserve better” and that diversity is one of the country’s “superpowers.”
“I think that having a seat at the table means your community is represented,” said Bell. “When you look at Ferguson, one of the biggest issues that we saw was that we didn’t see much representation in the police department or in the courts.”
Bell is running for the Democratic nomination to face off against incumbent Senator Hawley, who he said does not deserve to keep his seat.
Hawley notably was the first U.S. senator to refuse to certify the 2020 presidential election after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed there was voter fraud in the contest against then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Hawley also infamously raised his fist in solidarity before Trump supporters ultimately stormed the U.S. Capitol building during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“[Missouri residents] want politicians who are going to actually be there for them, as opposed to people like Hawley who just want to be Twitter famous,” Bell argued.
The former public defender told theGrio that one issue he wants to continue focusing on if elected to Congress is police reform.
“Improving the way that police departments approach the communities that they serve is a big issue,” he said.
Bell, an alum of Lindenwood University and the University of Missouri-Columbia Law, is an advocate who believes the criminal justice system disproportionately impacts people of color. He wants to implement solutions that will promote equality.
“There’s a lot of folks struggling with mental health and with substance abuse disorder who do not need to see the inside of a jail cell,” said Bell. “So, we were deliberate about expanding the diversion programs to keep low-level nonviolent offenders out of prisons.”
He also plans to focus on job creation and training.
Bell told theGrio that he believes he has a great chance of winning Missouri’s Senate seat.
“When I ran for St. Louis county prosecutor, I ran against a seven-term incumbent, and no one thought we could win. All the political insiders…said we had no chance,” he recalled.
“But we went out, [and] we went to every corner of this county. We knocked on every door that we could, and we won, and we won big.” He added, “And I will take that same approach to this race.”
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