September 26, 2014 3:00 pm •
UPDATED at 3 p.m. Friday with statement from St. Louis Economic Development Partnership.
The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership said a “lack of transparency” led to the Thursday night termination of a marketing subcontract with the Devin James Group.
In a statement released Friday afternoon, Partnership spokeswoman Katy Jamboretz said the agency asked Elasticity, the lead contractor on a North St. Louis County marketing project to remove the James Group from its duties as a relations representative for the city of Ferguson.
The decision was made after the Partnership learned from a Post-Dispatch reporter late Thursday afternoon that the owner of the firm, Devin James, had served time in connection with the shooting death of a Memphis man ten years ago.
The statement said Elasticity, a St. Louis city marketing enterprise, was also unaware of the conviction.
“While we admire his personal growth from difficult circumstances and commend him for his high quality work in Ferguson, it was the lack of information about his background that prompted us to make this move.” the statement said. ” Mr. James failed to inform us of his prior conviction. He also did not reveal this information to Elasticity when he was hired as a subcontractor. As of today, we are developing new vendor due diligence policies which we believe will prevent similar incidents in the future.”
Earlier story:
Devin Sean James, who is overseeing public relations for Ferguson after the Michael Brown shooting, once shot and killed an unarmed man.
James, 32, began working for the city about two weeks after Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson killed the unarmed 18-year-old Brown on Aug. 9.
He has been handling media requests and overseeing Ferguson’s public relations strategy, including arranging a video statement released Thursday in which Ferguson police Chief Thomas Jackson apologized to Brown’s family.
Read More: St. Lois Post-Dispatch newspaper