So, Kim Gardner resigns instead of waiting around to get fired. She announced her resignation, effective June 1st, yesterday afternoon.

In a letter addressed to Gov. Mike Parson, Gardner made no mention of the turmoil in her office nor the extensive staff departures in recent weeks. Instead, she said she was stepping down, effective June 1, to prevent the state Legislature from passing a bill that would strip her of most of her power and “permanently remove the right of every St. Louis voter to elect their Circuit Attorney.”

Well, that’s certainly one way to spin it. However, there’s a great deal more to the story than those icky Republicans in the State Legislature trying to force her out. It’s not politics that have people wanting her gone. It’s her sheer incompetence and very progressive policies that support criminals and ruthlessly ignore, or vilify the victims of crime. 

There are multiple cases where the prosecutors should’ve shown up, but didn’t, as prosecutors either weren’t assigned, or were quitting. Further, there were weaponized prosecutions including that of the McCloskey’s after rioters broke into Portland Place and threatened them along with other homeowners. 

But it was THIS case that really drew attention to how incompetent Gardner is, and how her progressive policies are putting lives in danger. 

St. Louis prosecutors came under fire Tuesday for failing to try to put a man back in jail even though he violated the conditions of his bond more than 50 times.

Instead, Daniel Riley was left free, and police say he sped down a downtown street this past weekend, causing a crash that left an out-of-town teenager critically injured.

Janae Edmondson was downtown at the America Center for a major volleyball tournament. She was a multi-sport athlete on her way to a great college career. Riley, because he was free to roam instead of being IN JAIL, caused the crash that led to Janae having to have BOTH legs amputated. 

As it turns out, once people started digging more into the issue, Gardner’s office KNEW Riley was a risk. They KNEW he was violating his bond, had figured out how to ditch his ankle monitor, and ….did NOTHING. 

The more people dug into the issues of the office, the more they found, such as prosecutors (very possibly at Gardner’s direction) were lying to the court about what they did and didn’t know. 

A spokesperson for Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner defended the office on Tuesday, saying the case was dropped and re-filed because the victim died before trial, throwing a wrench into prosecution. The spokesperson also said the final ruling on whether a suspect’s bond is revoked is in the hands of a judge.

But a judge’s order from the day the case was dropped shows the victim was alive and present for the hearing, and prosecutors weren’t ready to proceed. And court officials said they never knew Riley violated his bond, because prosecutors never filed a motion to revoke it.

“Every time a violation was filed, the assigned prosecutor and defense attorney of record received a notification via email according to normal procedure,” said courts spokesperson Joel Currier. “However, the prosecutor, to date, has never filed a motion.”

OH. That’s wonderfully comforting. Then again, those who wanted to actually do their jobs found themselves so hamstrung by Gardner’s progressive policies that they ended up quitting and going elsewhere. 

Gardner’s policies also include arrogantly ignoring lawful orders from judges. There were ten major allegations against Gardner. Including a toxic work environment, refusal to review use-of-force incidents by police, refusing to engage with crime victims and their families, having cases dismissed out of hand, and more. 

Refusing to show up before a judge is a really BAD idea. 

Furthermore, as was just found out in the last few days, it seems Kim Gardner had embarked on a different career path!  

Before becoming a state representative in 2013, Gardner was a registered nurse, and she appears to be furthering her nursing education in that field even as her office has shed an alarming number of staffers. At this point, only two prosecutors remain in the Circuit Attorney’s Violent Crimes unit, according to a document shared with the RFT. Yesterday, the attorney tasked with presenting cases to the grand jury put in her notice.

~Snip

The tipster’s note about Gardner spending 30 hours on campus is unlikely if Gardner is enrolled in the Doctor of Nurse Practitioner program, as the university’s website says that program can be completed mostly through online course work, though it does require “1,050 or 1,125 clinical hours, depending on the specialty” as well as four in-person visits to campus.

I wonder what the judge thought if he was given that bit of info?? However, that information is likely a key reason why she decided to resign before being fired. 

By the way, NONE of the issues are her fault. Everyone else is to blame for the problems in her office and the criminals running rampant across St. Louis 

We see some denial of reality, but the litany of groups to blame really shows how disconnected she is from it – Read Kim Gardner's defiant speech: 'I don't care if I have nobody in my office' https://t.co/sft1j96Bsp via @ksdknews

— Matt Grawitch (@DocGrawitch) May 2, 2023

Unfortunately, her work and her resignation leave an office in a complete state of disarray, and the victims of crimes across St. Louis are left twisting in the wind because of her failures. 

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Feature Photo Credit: Caricature by DonkeyHotey via Flickr, cropped and modified