Institutionalized racism is an unfortunate reality of life in America. Luckily, there are those like Kim Gardner who are willing to fight back against it.
CBS News reports that St. Louis chief prosecutor, Kim Gardner, has filled a suit against the city and it’s primary police union saying they violated a little known law called the Ku Klux Klan act. She alleges that the city engaged in coordinated and racially driven efforts to block her attempts at criminal justice reform. Her lawsuit states that the city and the police union made a concerted effort to “intimidate, silence, and sideline” her from pursuing meaningful attempts at criminal justice reforms like “an independent team to investigate all police-involved shootings.”
Her suit further alleges that the police union had “gone out of it’s way to support officers accused of perpetration acts of violence...against African-American citizens.” The suit stated that this included the 2014 murder of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson police. The suit also pointed to a watchdog report that detailed over 400 “racist and offensive” Facebook posts by current and former St. Louis police officers. I have to ask, is being racist on Facebook now a police policy?
In the wake of the Ferguson uprising, Gardner was elected as the first black circuit attorney in St. Louis. She is joined in this suit by several black women who are prosecutors in other states and have ran into similar problems when trying to enact reforms.
Local police union leader Jeff Roorda, who is named in the suit and sounds like every corrupt police chief in a Batman movie, has said “This woman needs to go, she’s a menace to society. By force or by choice.” Roorda, mind you, is the man who said Ferguson protesters wanted “dead cops,” that the Rams should’ve been disciplined for their “Hands up, don’t shoot” protest and was actually fired from the Missouri police department in 2001 for misconduct.
Additionally, he looks like a racist ham.
I’m just saying if I was a court and I had to take the word of Kim Gardner or the Ku Klux Ham, I’m going for Gardner. If Gardner’s case is a success one would hope this could help lead to some positive reforms in St. Louis law enforcement.