crystallized bullshit
In our story’s previous installment, William Don Tisaby’s criminal defense attorney announced that Tisaby’s case “will not be pled,” Kim Gardner announced via press release that she had added 22 more SLMPD officers to her exclusion list, and I developed a hunch that Gardner’s chief investigator Anthony “Tony” Box is cooperating with the special prosecutor. That was yesterday.
Today, the Ethical Society of Police [ESOP], an organization predominantly of African-American SLMPD officers, publicly distanced itself from Tisaby & Gardner in a social media post. “We won’t deny the actions of Tisaby and the CAO are very concerning,” ESOP wrote, “but some of those cheering for the demise of the CAO [i.e. SLPOA business manager Jeff Roorda] are rooting for her failure because of her race and gender as well.”
I have no doubt that the latter half of that sentence is true. Some of those cheering for Gardner’s demise are cheering for racist and sexist reasons. (And I won’t protest Jeff Roorda’s inclusion in that particular category of cheerers.)
Also today, the St. Louis American Editorial Board weighed in on Gardner’s mounting legal woes. “Tisaby indictment rooted in Gardner’s public distrust of police,” blares the headline. The American Editorial Board piece then proceeds to turn several cartwheels from one innuendo-laden point to another before landing on its gravamen: “While racism — and sexism — are underlying factors, as it almost goes without saying in St. Louis, we believe they crystallized over Gardner’s unapologetic defense of keeping what is known as a Brady List.” By Brady List, the American Editorial Board is referring to Gardner’s exclusion list, to which she so coincidentally added 22 more SLMPD officers the day after the Tisaby indictment was unsealed.
Yes, it goes almost without saying that racism and sexism are underlying factors in St. Louis politics and government. But if the American Editorial Board believes that the “root” of Gardner’s legal jeopardy and its “crystalliz[ation]” is and was due to Gardner’s keeping of an exclusion list, then the American Editorial Board must believe that we live in a universe where time has no meaning.
Gardner’s legal jeopardy took root on January 28, 2018. That is the day that Gardner emailed Tisaby bullet-pointed notes of her interview of K.S. Gardner’s legal jeopardy crystallized between May 14, 2018, when Gardner was forced to choose between testifying or dismissing the case against Greitens (she dismissed the case), and June 29, 2018, when a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the Circuit Attorney’s Office. Gardner didn’t deliver the first iteration of her exclusion list to SLMPD until August 28, 2018. The American Editorial Board must believe that we live in a universe where time has no meaning, because a conventional understanding of the order of events does not jibe with what the American Editorial Board claims that it believes.
Forgive me if I suspect that the American Editorial Board isn’t relaying their belief so much as their crystallized bullshit.
