While the lawless wasteland of Chicago surged past 700 homicides for the year recently, St. Louis remains at the top of the body count heap in per capita homicides. Congrats to St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones for her fine “leadership.”
Offering more symbolism over substance for the media, the Gateway City executive held a press conference Friday. Cameras captured the sound of nearby gunfire as the mayor lamented the endemic gun gang violence in the city.
Here’s the video from YouTube . . .
The UK Daily Mail has the story…
The mayor of St. Louis did not flinch during a press conference when gunfire erupted nearby, saying she was unfortunately used to it.
Mayor Tishaura Jones was speaking to the press on Friday about her and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’ efforts to reduce violent crime following a roundtable discussion about public safety when what sounded like gunfire went off nearby.
But Jones did not miss a beat and sarcastically responded ‘Oh isn’t that wonderful,’ before getting back to the topic at hand.
Most Americans wouldn’t tolerate this sort of violent criminal behavior in their communities. Instead, they would take action to bring the criminals to justice. And if the police wouldn’t take care of the bad actors, everyday Americans would help police their own neighborhoods.
The mayor’s unflinching reaction to a nearby exchange of gunfire serves as a sad testament to how St. Louis residents have developed a tolerance for criminality in their midst. Of course, it doesn’t help when the local Soros-funded St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner choses to ignore cases brought by law enforcement.
Even the city’s biggest newspaper, the liberal St. Louis Post-Dispatch, savaged her for her ineptitude in a scathing editorial.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner either needs to step up her game dramatically or get out of the way. It pains us to state it so bluntly, but the profound mismanagement on her watch can no longer be ignored. Voters put their faith in Gardner last year despite a lackluster first term, believing she could turn things around and deliver on long-promised reforms. As an exhaustive report by the Post-Dispatch’s Janelle O’Dea and Joel Currier makes clear, Gardner has come up far too short on pretty much every objective performance measure.
Her most experienced prosecutors have abandoned the office, with some citing her mismanagement and lack of prosecutorial vigor as their reasons for leaving. The result is that Gardner now must rely on a bevy of junior attorneys who lack the minimal experience necessary to ensure criminals are brought to justice. When Gardner became circuit attorney in 2017, there were more than 60 prosecutors with a cumulative 500 years of experience. Today, her staff of fewer than 40 attorneys has a combined 150 years of experience in the office.
“Lack of prosecutorial vigor” translates to deciding not to prosecute many crimes, putting repeat-offenders back on the streets to commit still more. That’s how you get a mayor who’s so inured to the sound of gunshots that she no longer even reacts.
St. Louis and Chicago share many of the same examples of mal- and mismanagement from their local political leaders. And the residents who continue to elect them are getting exactly the quality of life they’re voting for.
By John Boch via TTAG and republished with permission.