June 29, 2026
Today was the first regular Sikeston City Council Meeting since the death of Lloyd Gilmore in police custody on June 10th.
I counted 14 heads in attendance (excluding council members). Sikeston is a town of approximately 16,000 people. This means less than 0.000875% of the population attended the meeting. This is less than average for most small cities.
The agenda did not include anything about Lloyd Gilmore or any scheduled discussion over it. This is standard, as there’s no local policy over what happened to move forward with.
The order of business (simplified) was to…
1. Re-adopt an ethics ordinance that outlines the need to disclose conflicts of interest
2. Authorize to rezone a re-plat of Linn St. Place from Highway Commercial to a residential district
3. Readings of other bills to re-plat and rezone Linn St. Place and to rezone 503 Ruth St. from a single family to Highway Commercial
4. Renew service contract with Historic Downtown Sikeston
5. Authorize the purchase of body cameras for Community Development
6. Questions or comments from the public
Sikeston’s Department of Community Development handles construction permits, inspections, and ordinance codes related to buildings and properties. There would be 5 body cameras over a 5 year contract with Motorola, totaling $24,334.20 by the end. This was apparently approved by the city council last year, but got put off.
Council Member Lorenzo Ware said he was not there last year when they approved it, and “wanted to make everyone aware that community development does a lot of personal interactions, and those will not be admissible. They will not be able to use a lot of that information.” City Manager Jon Douglass said that it’s “not really for evidentiary purposes, it’s for safety” because code enforcement officers often go into tense situations. The order was again approved.
During the questions & comments portion, Jesse Due asked the council a question about the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s investigation into the incident that left Lloyd Gilmore dead. He wanted to know whether or not the council had received information on a timeline for the investigation.
Mayor Greg Turnbow responded, “they have not given anyone a timeline. I know that they were waiting for a toxicology report, so we’re basically just like the public. We’re sitting here waiting for them to come back to us and tell us what their findings are… They haven’t let us release anything at all in the ongoing investigation… But we wanted to have them do the independent investigation.”
The meeting lasted less than 15 minutes. This was my first time attending. I was surprised how quick it was, and how few people were there.
Throughout my coverage of the death of Lloyd Gilmore, i’ve observed a sense of disconnection between the public and their leadership.
If you attend a city council meeting, you may be given at least 3 minutes worth of time to ask questions, share relevant comments, or concerns. This is a time when you can express yourself to your leaders – in an orderly fashion, of course. For your leaders to understand your needs, your concerns, how you think – they have to know you and speak with you.
The next regular meeting is July 6th, 2026 at 5pm.
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