If you were stopped by or in the custody of Officer Marcellis Blackwell, we believe you.

Thirteen months on the job. May 2022 to June 2023, patrolling the little cities of inner north St. Louis County for the North County Police Cooperative. On August 10, 2026 he stood in federal court and admitted what he did to 18 men in the back of his patrol car. Sixteen of them were in handcuffs. If he pulled you over, put you in that car and drove you somewhere that wasn't the station, this page was written for you.

• Free
• Confidential
• No obligation
• You never pay a dollar

6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

• You had a warrant, or you were actually under arrest. Everyone in his plea agreement was. The law he admitted breaking is about what an officer does with the power he has over you, not whether the stop was good.
• He wrote it up as a clean arrest. He admitted doing exactly that, 13 times: switching off his body camera, then writing that it ran the whole time. His paperwork says nothing happened. That was the point of it.
• Maybe you've got a record. Maybe you were on parole, or you'd sooner never speak to a cop again as long as you live. Fair. But the FBI said in 2023 that he picked people he figured wouldn't report, which is to say he was counting on exactly that, and the same year it said it still hadn't put names to everyone in the recordings on his phone. Some of those men are the reason this page exists.
• You're a partner, a mother, a brother asking for someone who can't bring himself to. Reach out anyway. The quiz has a door for that.

Marcellis Blackwell and the North County Police Cooperative: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It is the U.S. Attorney's Office, the federal court in St. Louis, the county prosecutor and the reporters who covered them, and every line links to its source. Blackwell pleaded guilty on August 10, 2026 and has not yet been sentenced. Where a line says a complaint alleges something, that is what it is, an allegation; the cities named have admitted nothing, and two of the three complaints have already lost their claims against them. We say so below.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 20, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Officer Blackwell did

Blackwell himself, first. A federal civil-rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 runs against the officer who did it, and a guilty plea to 18 counts is about as much proof as a civil case ever gets. He's in custody, he was a cop for 13 months, and nobody should pretend he has a fortune. But a judgment is a judgment, and every civil case filed so far names him.

Then the department, which in legal terms means the City of Vinita Park, because Vinita Park runs the Cooperative. So Vinita Park gets sued, and Chief John Buchanan with it, and in the newest case the City of St. Ann too, since its jail did the booking. Boil the complaints down and the theory reads like this. They handed a rookie a car, handcuffs and a body camera he could switch off. Never paired him with anyone. Never checked his mileage, never checked his footage, and kept accepting reports that said the camera ran when it hadn't. The Wilkins complaint says the first assault sat on the department's own video server for seven months. It also says nobody looked into who he'd been before he was hired.

Now the honest part. Twice, October 2024 and August 2026, a federal judge in St. Louis has thrown those claims against the city and the chief out. Not because the judges doubted what Blackwell did. Because the law in this circuit requires that the department actually knew of a pattern first, and neither complaint, the judges said, showed that. The third case is pending and pleads more. We can't tell you how it comes out. We can tell you that a claim against a Missouri city runs under different rules than one against a private company, that a public entity can't be made to pay punitive damages here, and that a lawyer will explain the rest before you decide anything.

Your deadline: how long you have to bring a claim over a Missouri police officer

Your situation still qualifies even if

• You never reported it. Most of the 18 hadn't, until one man did on June 4, 2023 and the rest came out of his phone.
• You can't tell whether you're one of the 18, or it was before the dates in the plea. He'd been in that car for months before the first count he admitted to. Tell us anyway.
• You did report it, to the Cooperative or the county, and heard nothing back. Say so in the quiz; it matters to the case against the department.
• You were guilty of whatever he stopped you for. A warrant, a suspended license, something in the car. None of it gave him the right he admitted taking.
• It was another Cooperative officer, not Blackwell. Say so in the quiz. The complaints describe a second officer in November 2022; the record isn't only about one man.
• You've moved. Across the river to Illinois, out of state, or you're inside somewhere. Most people he stopped weren't from Vinita Park either. And if you can't place the year, pick the closest bucket; the call sorts the rest.

Where he was

Named in the plea and the complaints: stops along Natural Bridge Road, including Lucas and Hunt across from the Beverly Hills precinct; a job site in Wellston; the Normandy High School bus lot; the Cooperative's own back parking lot; the back seat of his patrol car on the way to the St. Ann Police Department, where arrestees were booked. That's the list we have. The footprint is bigger. Between May 31, 2022 and June 7, 2023 the North County Police Cooperative had cars out in eight cities, Vinita Park, Wellston, Pine Lawn, Dellwood, Beverly Hills, Velda Village Hills, Hanley Hills and Uplands Park, all inner north St. Louis County, run from headquarters at 8374 Midland Boulevard in Vinita Park. The roster's since grown to ten. Somewhere else inside that? Tell us anyway.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

1. You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
2. A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
3. You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Missouri attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.