CLAYTON, Mo. — St. Louis County Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan said he was faced with physical assaults, taunting and racist slurs at last week's county council meeting.
In Khan's letter to the St. Louis County Council chairwoman Rita Heard-Days, he made accusations against specific people regarding their behavior at last Tuesday's council meeting. Now, some of the people named in Khan's letter are saying he lied and calling for him to resign.
Khan said former county executive candidate Paul Berry III and U.S. Senate candidate Mark McCloskey, both Republicans, were sitting behind him in the council meeting last week. Khan's letter states they "consistently berated me and tried to distract me from my presentation."
Both Berry and McCloskey said that is false and they did no such thing. Witnesses at the Monday night council meeting said Berry and McCloskey did nothing wrong during the meeting.
Now, both men want Khan to resign immediately or be fired.
"Hire a health director that is not in the middle, embroiled in a lie, and that way we can restore trust in our Department of Health. Otherwise, we're going to continue to lag behind the rest of the country on COVID issues," Berry said.
"Acting director of public office for the county in St. Louis. A person whose mandates put people out of business, ruin people's livelihood (and) destroy their lives is willing to lie about something where it's all on video," McCloskey said. "And he absolutely certainly lied, and he knows you can be proved to be a liar because this video what else would he lie about?"
In his letter, Khan also claimed St. Louis County councilman Tim Fitch has been stoking racist vitriol against him since he was appointed. Fitch said he's known Khan for 10 years, believes he's a good man and made a mistake when he admitted to giving residents "the finger" after the meeting Tuesday.
But Fitch, who is also a Republican, believes Khan's letter wasn't his idea. He thinks it was a political maneuver from Democratic St. Louis County Executive Sam Page, who named Khan health director earlier this year.
"I think the Page administration convinced him, 'Hey listen, you screwed up, you flipped the crowd the bird. Well, we need to come up with some reason of why to explain your actions.' And I think it all just backfired because it puts so many lies in there that now you're to the point where how could anybody listen to any health order that this man gives us in the future?" Fitch said. "I don't know how anybody could trust it."
Fitch also believes Khan should resign.