Something Rotten in River City: The Gladney Beating and a Prosecutor’s Political Application of the Law

By: John Loudon

The symbol of our judicial system is the blind folded lady liberty holding the scales of justice in her hands.  In St. Louis County it appears she may be peeking.

On October 9th, 2000, Patricia Redington, a newly appointed St. Louis County Counselor showed such dedication to her job, that she opened the office on the Columbus Day holiday in order to file assault charges against Republican candidate Bill Federer.  This is in contrast to the way she handles the, typical case and the way she is handling the case of Democrat SEIU members pounding a businessman.   St. Louis area patriots smell a rat and show no signs of letting up until justice is served.

Realizing that workers can lose their initial zeal for their jobs, we can understand why Counselor Redington now says that despite what she did for Federer, her typical time to get charges written up and filed is six to eight weeks.  That is unfortunate for Federer who had an election in four weeks and might have appreciated a delay.  He lost his election as voters had to choose between throwing out Gephart and voting in a guy under a legal cloud and media scrutiny.   The respected author, historian and family man just might be mentally unstable considering he had in fact, been charged with a crime.  Redington, by the way, is a Democrat.

 

Now Redington is getting some renewed attention for the ordinance violation charges she filed on Thanksgiving “Eve” over three months after she received the police reports.  The timing smells like a “dump” tactic typically used by politicians who dump bad news on Friday afternoon hoping for minimal public exposure.  This action came only after a steady drum beat of pressure by St. Louis bloggers then Andrew Breitbart’s Biggovernment.com, and finally Glenn Beck.  It was not until the Beck coverage that a single major St. Louis media outlet other than our conservative talk radio station, KFTK, picked up the story.  Chalk one up for new media lighting a fire under old media.

This time the accused assailants are Democrat campaign operatives, members of the Service Employees International Union sporting the latest thug fashion, purple people beater SEIU t-shirts.  The victim, Ken Gladney was a black guy just trying to make a buck selling Gadsden flags and buttons to the attendees at a Congressional Town Hall meeting.  The “courageous” Congressman Carnahan was so nervous about what his constituents might say to him that he provided a “union only” entrance and put bussed-in union members in the first 300 seats making his constituents settle for the 200 nose bleed section seats left over.  Hundreds were stranded outside.

Perhaps it was the sense of entitlement.  Did they fancy themselves “made men”?

The President, whose White House was quoted saying of the Tea Party protesters “if they are going to hit us, we will hit them back twice as hard”.  The SEIU thugs have a union president Andy Stern, who is the number one White House visitor with 22 visits which is five times the number two visitor, carbon tax speculator Al Gore.  Stern believes he bought the Presidency for Obama.  So it is no surprise that the union is paying the legal expenses for the accused assailants, one of whom was so convinced that pounding people was official union business that he filed a workers’ compensation claim for injuries he gave himself during the melee’.  The insurance company did not see it that way and refused the claim.   Meanwhile, contributing to the speculation about how far the arm of the SEIU reaches into the Democratic establishment is the way Redington is handling the case.

Redington charged Federer in two days.  Her average is six to eight weeks.  In fact, every single case filed by Redington’s office in August has been filed, and 37% were even adjudicated before she made time for the SEIU thugs.   Worse, for beating Ken Gladney and calling him the “n” word for expressing a political view, the assailants are charged with an ordinance violation.  Victim Ken Gladney, a black man facing justice denied, is in disbelief.  The St. Louis Tea Party is not going to let this story die quietly.

Redington denies that she was sweeping anything under the rug.  Maybe, but waiting over three months to bring pathetically inadequate charges is worse, especially from someone with such a peculiar track record.  According to reports, she brought these charges without ever interviewing the victim or obtaining hospital reports detailing the extent of the injuries.  The black Democrat County Executive Charlie Dooley a union autoworker, could take sympathy with Gladney and remove Redington.  He has remained totally silent.  Democrat County Prosecutor Bob McCullough could file real felony state charges including the application of Missouri’s hate crimes law.  He is ducking.

There is a cynical observation of American politics that is rather crude but thought provoking in defining the difference between a liberal and a conservative.  It holds that a conservative is someone who has been a victim of crime and a liberal is someone falsely accused.  In Pat Reddington’s St. Louis County it appears that “victim” is a status reserved for liberals, and “perpetrator” is a status reserved for conservatives.