JUSTICE DELAYED?

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | Uncategorized

St. Louis County has finally gotten around to filing charges relating to last August’s town hall assault of an African-American man:

Six people arrested in August outside a raucous town hall meeting in south St. Louis County have been charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations.

The six, including a Post-Dispatch reporter, had attended a demonstration outside an Aug. 6 forum called by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville to discuss health care reform.

The charges were filed Tuesday by the St. Louis County counselor’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor ordinance violations in unincorporated areas. All are to appear in court Jan. 21.

The maximum penalty upon conviction would be one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Some bloggers have been writing for months about the lag between the arrests at the politically-charged event and the filing of charges.

Yes we have.  But County Counselor Patricia Redington insists that politics wasn’t involved.

County Counselor Patricia Redington insisted it had nothing to do with politics, influence or pressure from any official.

“These charges are like the 90,000 other charges we file each year,” she said.

Ordinance violation charges are usually filed within four to six weeks of an incident, Reddington said, but this case involved interviews with dozens of witnesses and review of many videos posted on the Internet.

I think that’s probably reasonable.  This was a complicated case with lots and lots of video evidence to look over.  And I suppose that a great many statements were given to the police that night.

Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman, 30, of University City, was charged with interfering with a police officer. The charges allege that he failed to obey repeated commands “to leave the site of an ongoing disturbance.”

Elston McCowan, 47, of St. Louis, and Perry Molens, 50, of De Soto, each were charged with assaulting a person and interfering with police. They are accused of scuffling with and injuring Kenneth Gladney, a demonstrator with the Tea Party, a group generally opposed to Democrats’ universal health care proposals.

Javonne Spitz, 51, of O’Fallon, Mo., and Brian Matthews, 34, of Glendale, also were charged with interfering with an officer. Cheryl Johner, 55, of Arnold, was charged with assaulting a person and destruction of property for allegedly pushing another woman and breaking her cell phone.

The Post is going to fight the charges against their guy.

Post-Dispatch Editor Arnie Robbins issued a statement Wednesday that said, “Jake was covering a newsworthy incident. He was not in the way or interfering with the police. His press credentials were fully displayed. The charge is unfounded and will be challenged in court.”

What will happen?  No idea.  But stay tuned.

11 Comments to JUSTICE DELAYED?

Katherine
November 25, 2009

‘Bout time. I was afraid they were going to end up charging Gladney with something. There were confusing accounts, and it’s good that they have waded through it and charged these people.

Smurf Breath
November 25, 2009

Cheryl Johner, 55, of Arnold, was charged with assaulting a person and destruction of property for allegedly pushing another woman and breaking her cell phone.

Even the women are being conditioned to behave like beasts in this brave new world of ours. How sad. I thought we were supposed to be evolving.

Allen Lewis
November 25, 2009

“I thought we were supposed to be evolving…”

It was all the Neanderthal protester’s fault, don’t you know. The evolved beings were having a love fest – celebrating the potential to be able to mind the lower being’s business for them, since they are too stupid to take care of themselves.

uberVU - social comments
November 25, 2009

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by editor_mcj: @JTlol @kshaidle. Charges filed in Gladney case. http://themcj.com/?p=8149…

diane in nc with a small d
November 26, 2009

Totally off-topic, but I simply have to alert y’all (and everyone else on the planet) to The. Best. Article. Ever. about Palin Derangement Syndrome:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_wilding_of_sarah_palin.html

As a former leftie (like Robin of Berkeley, the article’s author) who has had first-hand experience of the utter creepy sexist jerkiness of leftist men, I can only say, “Hear hear!” to every point Robin makes. She is so spot-on it’s scary. She articulates what I had been rather inchoately intuiting WRT the astonishingly savage, rage-filled sexism fueling the Left’s orgy of Palin-bashing.

Whether or not you believe Palin is POTUS material, you can’t help but be struck by the out-of-all-proportion intensity of Palinoia. Robin ‘splains it all to you…or, at least, much of it. I hope this incredibly insightful article goes viral. Totally! ;-)

Diane

Jim McNeely+
November 26, 2009

Let’s be extremely clear: The left contains more violent racists, bigots, homophobes, and classless morons than anything the right can conjure. This was a hate crime…and should be prosecuted as such.

The thugs from SEIU get protection from the Dinosaur Media and the current executive branch of the federal government. Might does not make right, however, and the emergence of the new media will highlight this outrage.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was right: justice delayed IS justice denied.

-Jim+

FW Ken
November 26, 2009

A great article, diane. This particularly caught my eye, being a positive, almost sanctified paganism:

Because as a mother and a fertile woman, Palin is as close to the sacred as a person gets. She is not just politically pro-life. Her whole being emanates life, which is a stark contrast to the darkness of the Left, the life-despoilers.

St. Louisan
November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Allen Lewis
November 26, 2009

Great article diane! Thanks for the link!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Hope you all ate plenty of tasty animals!! :-P

Amy P.
November 28, 2009

Even the women are being conditioned to behave like beasts in this brave new world of ours. How sad. I thought we were supposed to be evolving.

The goal of feminism for years has been to remove anything even remotely feminine or womanly from us ladies. Hence encouraging us to act like beasts will, by their logic, make us equal and better than men.

Yeah…that makes no sense to me, either.

It’s good to know where conservatives – black or white – stand in the pecking order of equal protection under the law…right at the bottom with Christians.

Steynian 399 « Free Canuckistan!
November 28, 2009

[...] JUSTICE DELAYED? — St. Louis County has finally gotten around to filing charges relating to last August’s [...]

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