Who is Kimberly Gardner, St. Louis prosecutor investigating gun-toting couple?
By: Stephen Sorace (Fox News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The standoff between a gun-toting couple who stood in their front yard and peaceful protesters who marched through the private neighborhood is under investigation, according to St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner's office.
Gardner, who was elected in 2016 on a platform of reforming the criminal justice system, was reportedly backed by liberal billionaire George Soros.
Since being elected, Gardner has butted heads publicly with Missouri's Republican attorney general and faced lawsuits for allegedly ignoring public records requests.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner was investigating the confrontation between a St. Louis couple who brandished guns on their own property as protesters passed through the private neighborhood. (Circuit Attorney Office)
More about Gardner's investigation into the St. Louis couple, Soros' campaign support, her feud with the state attorney general and the lawsuits against her office:
Investigation into gun-toting couple
In a statement Monday, Gardner described the encounter between married lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey and the protesters as "a violent assault" against those exercising their First Amendment rights.
Armed homeowners standing in front of their house along Portland Place confront protesters as they march to Mayor Lyda Krewson's house on Sunday, June 28, in the Central West End in St. Louis. (Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
"I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault," Gardner said. "We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated."
She said her office was working with the police department to investigate the confrontation, adding that authorities "will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable."
No charges were filed against the couple as of Tuesday morning.
Albert Watkins, the McCloskeys' attorney, told Fox News that under Missouri's Castle Doctrine, a person has "the absolute unmitigated right to protect his or her castle or family while on their property." He said the protesters were trespassing, "damaging and destroying private property and acting in a threatening and hostile fashion."
"If Kimberly Gardner wants to press charges against two attorneys who are protecting their home and their family and themselves on their own property, I will tell you that it will be nothing short of the proverbial clusterf--- with the ensuing assertions that she's doing this for political purposes," Watkins said.
"And I will tell you that as a person, I don't believe that to be what she is doing," Watkins added. "I just believe she probably has a difficult time reading the English language."
George Soros connection
Gardner, a Democrat, was elected circuit attorney of St. Louis in 2016, running on a campaign that promised to reform and rebuild trust in the criminal justice system and reduce violent crime.
She was criticized ahead of the election for releasing a political ad paid for by the Safety and Justice Super PAC that was at least partially funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The total funds donated by the super PAC were at least $190,750, according to the report, with Soros giving at least $30,000. It was not immediately clear what her campaign budget was or who else contributed.
Gardner at the time told the paper that she had no regrets about accepting help from the super PAC.
Soros is known for backing left-wing causes across the globe, having last year used his super PAC to successfully boost two liberal prosecutor candidates in Virginia over incumbent Democrats.
Beef with Missouri AG
Gardner publicly butted heads with Missouri's Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who she referred to as a "Trump wannabe" during an online meeting of local political candidates earlier this month, FOX2 St. Louis reported.
Schmitt had earlier criticized Gardner on Twitter for allowing the release of all 36 rioters and looters arrested in the city following protests over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
"In a stunning development, our office has learned that every single one of the St. Louis looters and rioters arrested were released back onto the streets by local prosecutor Kim Gardner," Schmitt tweeted June 3.
Gardner responded that only eight of the 36 cases were referred to her office and that police did not provide "admissible evidence."
"He just wants to launch a politically motivated attack against me, even if it means misleading and lying to the public," Gardner said of Schmitt. "While the AG continues to fuel the division in the community at a time of great pain, suffering and racial divide, my response to the AG: I got work to do."
Lawsuits against Gardner's office
Gardner was sued last week for at least the third time over the state's Sunshine Law, an open records law that requires the government to respond within three days to requests for public records, the Post-Dispatch reported.
The latest lawsuit claims Gardner's office failed to fulfill an April 23 open records request for data on case statistics, dismissal data and staffing totals, the paper said. Her office responded in a letter May 12, according to the paper, saying more time was needed to fulfill the request due to the coronavirus.
The Post-Dispatch also sued Gardner's office in 2019 over her office's refusal to release copies of contracts with vendors. A judge ruled in the paper's favor in April, but the paper said Gardner's office has not yet fully complied.
Gardner sues city officials
Gardner also filed her own lawsuit against city officials in January under a federal law passed to curb the violence of the Ku Klux Klan following the Civil War.
In the suit, Gardner accused city officials, the local police union and a special prosecutor of a "racially motivated conspiracy to deny the civil rights of racial minorities" by obstructing her work to get tough on police misconduct and create change in the criminal justice system, The New York Times reported at the time.
Her opponents denied the accusations, with a police union leader calling the suit "frivolous, desperate and pathetic," the paper reported.
Gardner has been at odds with the St. Louis police and local legal establishment since taking office and taking steps to hold police officers more accountable, according to the paper.
Conviction rate falls
The rate of convictions under Gardner has fallen dramatically in the past two years, according to a KMOV-TV report from February.
The station obtained data from Gardner's office that showed prosecutors got guilty verdicts in 51 percent of cases in 2018, and in 54 percent of cases in 2019. The station reported convictions had dropped by about 20 percent.
A spokesperson for Gardner's office responded to the station at the time, saying that counting plea agreements, the overall conviction rate is 95 percent. They said over 90 percent of cases are resolved outside the courtroom.
"The Circuit Attorney ran on a platform to reduce the number of cases unnecessarily charged in order to focus on the more difficult cases for trial," the statement said.
Fox News' Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
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She somehow got to be St Louis Circuit Attorney
"Gardner took office on January 6, 2017. [6] She is the first African-American to head the Circuit Attorney's Office (CAO). Under Gardner's tenure, St. Louis has seen a significant increase in non-prosecuted felonies. In 2019, St. Louis police sought 7,045 felony cases, but only 1,641 were prosecuted by Gardner's office. Many were returned to the police citing insufficient evidence, despite claims of sufficient evidence to prosecute by the police union. [7] [8]
Gardner continued the prosecution of former St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) police officer Jason Stockley for first degree murder in the shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith , a case first filed by her predecessor Jennifer Joyce. The acquittal in the bench trial in a controversial decision by Judge Timothy Wilson led to intense protests in the latter months of 2017.
As Circuit , Gardner has reduced and removed or reduced amounts of cash bond for minor, nonviolent offenses. She is also expanding diversion and drug court programs, [9] and consulting with the Vera Institute of Justice on these issues. [10] She is ending prosecutions of low-level marijuana possession and is dismissing many cases. [11] The CAO is sharing a federal grant to work with the Midwest Innocence Project on wrongful convictions . [12]
In the summer of the 2018, the existence of an "exclusion list" (similar to a " Brady list " in other jurisdictions) of 28 SLMPD officers whose conduct is considered so tainted by misconduct that the CAO would no longer accept testimony or evidence in court cases and would reconsider past cases. [13] Fifty-five prosecutors and law enforcement officials from across the United States signed a statement supporting Gardner's Brady List. [14] Gardner, in February 2019, announced that the CAO and police department are working together on problems stemming from the list. [15] In January 2019, Gardner's office accused officers within SLMPD of obstructing their investigation in the shooting death of officer Katlyn Alix by officer Nathaniel R. Hendren, one of two officers charged with crimes relating to the incident, which resulted in a sharp rebuke by Chief John Hayden . [16]
In 2019, Gardner admitted to repeat campaign finance violations dating back to her time as a Missouri State Legislator. These violations included using campaign donations to pay for a private apartment. Gardner reached an agreement with the Missouri Ethics Commission to pay a settlement of $6,314 in lieu of a $63,009 fine. [17]"
The American people have allowed all this to happen. This woman should never be in this position!
Meanwhile over in Seattle:
" Seattle’s Democratic mayor is calling for the City Council to investigate a socialist council member over her "contemptuous behavior" during anti-police protests and other alleged abuses of office.
Mayor Jenny Durkan is accusing Council Member Kshama Sawant of allowing hundreds of protesters into City Hall after hours and without following coronavirus health guidelines, marching protesters to the mayor’s home and encouraging protesters to occupy the city’s East Precinct, along with raising a handful of ethics concerns.In an email to City Council President Lorena Gonzalez, the mayor argued that Sawant, a self-described socialist, is using her position as a city official “in violation of law” and for “recklessly” undermining other people’s safety “for political theatre.”
Durkan cited city law that allows the council to “punish or expel” a member for “disorderly or otherwise contemptuous behavior” -- in this case spearheading a protest at Durkan’s home, which is supposed to be at a secret location due to a state confidentiality program and safety concerns. The mayor has received threats in connection with her previous role as U.S. attorney.
Sawant allegedly led a crowd of protesters to Durkan's home and delivered a speech outside over the weekend.
“All of us have joined hundreds of demonstrations across the city, but Council Member Sawant and her followers chose to do so with reckless disregard of the safety of my family and children,” Durkan wrote.
She has recently called for Durkan’s resignation in response to protests in the city over the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. She has also criticized the Seattle Police Department for its handling of the unrest.
The city pulled police out of the East Precinct building earlier this month after violent protests in the immediate area, and the space has since become the so-called Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP.
Demonstrators moved in and set up what they called a “cop-free zone.”
Police say emergency response times in the area have tripled and that officers are only responding to “life-threatening” incidents within the CHOP. Since it was established, there have been at least four shootings, two of which left a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old dead in separate incidents.
In response to the 16-year-old’s death Monday morning, Sawant tweeted that the killing “highlights capitalism’s brutality & endemic violence.”
“Our movement rejects insinuations & falsehoods perpetuated by corporate & conservative media that this violence is outcome of CHOP or of our movement,” she wrote.
On Monday, Fox News correspondent Dan Springer and his crew escaped a heated confrontation with agitators in the CHOP after a mob forced them to skip a live report and abandon their vehicle.
Separately, the city announced that it would temporarily close Cal Anderson Park, at the heart of the CHOP, Tuesday at midnight to assess the damage and remove litter after three weeks of occupied protests.
Durkan has seemingly flipped her position on the CHOP protesters, referring to the occupation early on as a “block party” before announcing last week that the city would dismantle the encampment following an outbreak of violence and crime.
Demonstrators derailed efforts to dismantle the CHOP last week when they laid down in the street to block transportation crews and heavy machinery from removing barricades around the occupied zone. Workers returned Tuesday and removed some of the concrete roadblocks.
foxnews.com/politics/seattle-mayor-durkan-city-council-investigate-possibly-expel-socialist-councilwoman
To be chalked up as slime vs slime!
In New York City they are discussing how much the NYPD should be cut:
"Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday the proposed $1.5 billion NYPD budget slash didn’t go far enough.
“Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools,” the self-described Democratic Socialist said in a press release about the budget deal between the City Council and Mayor de Blasio.
“It does not mean counting cuts in overtime as cuts, even as NYPD ignores every attempt by City Council to curb overtime spending and overspends on overtime anyways. The fight to defund policing continues,” she said.
“If these reports are accurate, then these proposed ‘cuts’ to the NYPD budget are a disingenuous illusion. This is not a victory. The fight to defund policing continues,” she said.
This strikes me as outrageous and unethical slander from a prosecutor. She has no investigation telling her this is what happened, and it seems doubtful that once that investigation is complete, any charges will be filed against the couple. Nevertheless, she has publicly declared these people to have committed a violent crime. The state bar should discipline her and the couple should sue for defamation.
I agree. I thought they showed incredible restraint.
I heard last night that there have been attempts to remove her. Her shield has always been to declare her opponents "racists!"
It has become the most weaponized and derisive word in the English language.
what has ? "woke" ?
Vic, I hate to break it to you, but "racist" is supposed to be a derisive word.
I hate to break this to you - I said it had become the most derisive word. In no way did that challenge the word being derisive.
And the left has weaponized it and used it on just about everybody and anybody!
Yeah, we don't have it much better in Michigan. Nessel, our AG and another Soros backed candidate, has effectively tried to weaponize her office to attack groups simply exercising their constitutional rights.
She's our "Thought Police" as it were ...... Meanwhile real hate groups are actually looting and burning our cities down and are largely left untouched by the AG's office.
It's a pretty amazing reality. Never thought i'd see anything like it here in my time.