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St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar has a $5,000 secret.

That’s how much he wants to charge me to see public documents that verify that the county police officers under his command had an “unprecedented” year in 2016 in terms of protecting citizens on MetroLink transit.

Belmar makes the claim of never-before-seen success in a commendation he issued to the entire MetroLink unit on Nov. 22. That same day, he told the police board that 11 officers in that unit would be reprimanded for various violations of county police policy. They were caught on videotape loitering in offices when they were supposed to be patrolling platforms, covering up the video cameras that were ultimately used against them, and potentially other violations of policy.

We don’t know what the reprimands say because Belmar won’t provide them. Nor will he provide the investigation that led to the reprimands.

But here’s where things get weird:

He also won’t provide the “700 arrest reports” and “750 police reports” that he cited as evidence for the unit’s extraordinary work, not unless I write him a check for $4,932.95.