According to the Washington Free Beacon, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office has dropped charges against 33-year-old Amber Booker, a black woman who shot two people during a Cinco de Mayo festival. Despite a photograph shared by police clearly showing Booker aiming a gun at someone from the incident in question, Gardner’s office falsely claimed a “lack of evidence” in its decision to drop the charges.
Gardner announced her resignation last week after widespread backlash against her soft-on-crime approach, culminating in bipartisan calls for her resignation and a formal effort by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to remove her from office. Despite Gardner’s initial resistance, she changed her mind and decided to give up, resigning her office effective June 1st.
related: Two Days After Winning Leadership Award, Illegal Immigrant Student Suggests Celebrating Cinco De Mayo By ‘Beating The S*** Out Of White People’The case that finally ended Gardner’s career involved a female teenage volleyball player named Janae Edmonson, who was visiting Missouri from Tennessee with her team for a tournament; Edmonson was struck by an out-of-control driver while crossing the road, and although she ultimately survived, she had to have both of her legs amputated. The driver was a man named Daniel Riley, who was out on bond as he awaited trial for an armed robbery charge; despite having violated his bond terms dozens of times, Gardner’s office refused to send him back to jail.
Despite numerous such cases, which led to official reprimands by judges and other officials, Gardner insisted that her firing was due to racism and sexism, claiming in a public statement that “since the time I took office, as the first black, female prosecutor in the state, people outside of the city have targeted me and, to advance their goals, have also targeted the fundamental rights of...
