Mass vaccinations mark one year of COVID
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St. Louis American See page A12
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CAC Audited MARCH 18 – 24, 2021
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Stakes raised in mayoral election As news of $500 million federal allocation to be distributed to city Alderwoman Cara Spencer and St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones — instead of one Democrat (essentially guaranteed to win the general election) and one Republican. This means the April 6 election is either candidate’s to win.
is distributed to the city beginning in mid-May as part of the American Rescue Plan Act passed by Congress With less than three weeks until last week. St. Louis elects its next mayor, both St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson Alderwoman Cara Spencer and St. said Monday that her office is “develLouis Treasurer Tishaura Jones are oping a framework of areas of potencampaigning like never before as they tial investment” that include the revehead into one of the most competinue deficit, the housing crisis, derelict tive mayoral elections in the city’s buildings, public safety upgrades Tishaura O. Cara history. and the 2030 jobs plan released in Jones Spencer Federal With the new voting system in the December by the Greater St. Louis, COVID-19 funding primary, the two candidates with the Inc. largest vote totals, regardless of party affiliaJones said the things that will be top of Whoever assumes office will have unprection, moved on to the general election. mind for her if elected mayor are renter and edented monetary resources at her disposal Because of this, April’s mayoral ballot when around $500 million in federal funds now features two democratic candidates — See ELECTION, A6 By Dana Rieck Of The St. Louis American
Vol. 92 No. 51 COMPLIMENTARY
Physician driven by grandfather’s advice By Sylvester Brown, Jr. Of the St. Louis American “Don’t ever say you can’t do something until you’ve tried.” Dr. Angela L. Brown said those words of wisdom from her grandfather, Alex G. Brown, stays with her. Brown is Vice Chair for Health Equity and Professor of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. As an internal medicine physician who restricts her practice to hypertension, she directs the Hypertension Clinic at the medical school. Adhering to her grandfather’s guidance, Brown is continuously persuading her patients to engage in healthier lifestyles that can decrease the risk of developing hypertension or diabetes, risk factors for COVID-19 infection. This means boosting the immune system, exercising, eating healthy, reducing stress, getting plenty of sleep and other Dr. Angela efforts to ward off or boost Brown heart health if someone has contracted the coronavirus. Research has shown that COVID-19 can damage the heart of individuals who’ve had even mild cases and have recovered from the virus. When asked about the guidance she received as a child that fueled her trajectory in the medical field, Brown immediately credited her late grandfather: “He believed that you don’t know you can’t do something unless you try it. That was his attitude.” The simple but meaningful lesson came when Brown was about 12 years old. One day, while her mother and grandmother were away, Brown was tasked with making her grandfather lunch. There was no sandwich bread in the house that she could toast so her grandfather told her to put
See PHYSICIAN, A7
Photo by Bill Greenblatt / UPI
Rally for Rosie
A volunteer hands out balloons prior to a End Domestic Violence rally in Clayton, Missouri on Saturday, March 13, 2021. The rally was being held in honor of Roseann McCulley and her children, Kayden Johnson, and Kaylee Brooks. Police say Bob McCulley III is responsible for killing his wife and her two children then taking his own life on March 4, 2021.The woman was 34-years-old and the two children were 13 and six years old.
Garner takes ‘injustice’ fight nationally Tells ‘60 Minutes’ ‘I’m not going to back down’
By Derwin Johnson Of The St. Louis American St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, in a CBS News “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday said she’s not backing down or kissing the “ring of the status quo” in her pursuit to make good on her campaign promise to rebuild the justice system. Correspondent Bill Whitaker opened the segment with, “St. Louis has one of the highest rates of police shootings in the country and Black mistrust of police runs deep,” So when an African American woman won the top prosecutor’s job, first in 2016 and again this past November, many hoped for change. Gardner, a Democrat in a red state promised to hold police to account. Instead, she has run into relentless opposition from the police union and its powerful allies.” “We as law enforcement have to hear the cries for help in the community and deliver. That’s why I’m not going to back down,” said Gardner.
n “We as law enforcement have to hear the cries for help in the community and deliver. That’s why I’m not going to back down.” – St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner
She described the battles she’s fought with the St. louis Police union. She described what she called the differences between police and the police union. “We work well with everyday police officers, every day. But what we have is a police union who basically injects fear and misinformation in the police department,” she said. However, Jeff Roorda, a spokesman for the union described Gardner as not being a “partner with law enforcement.” Roorda, a former police officer, was fired in 2001 after
Task force finds many issues with City Justice Center City seeks to fill 72 job vacancies
By Dana Rieck Of The St. Louis American
falsifying a police report. He said, “She’s a prosecutor that wants to second guess everything law enforcement does and find fault when there is no fault to find.” “The people of St. Louis overwhelmingly voted me in to do my job to reform a system that we all know is beyond repair,” She said. “It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt.” The 60 Minutes segment also included interviews with former police Sergeant Robert Ogilvie and Alderwoman Megan Green. “We’ve been arresting people and locking them up…for decades and it hasn’t worked and it’s not working, so it’s time to do something different,” said Green. Green reportedly said that when she questioned the police budget the union mounted a campaign to unseat her. “It was to send a message to other elected officials, like don’t you dare. Don’t you be talking about how much money goes into the police department, because if you do, this is what we’re going to
As inmates threw burning furniture out of broken windows on the fourth floor of the City Justice Center on Feb. 6, the city had 72 jail guard vacancies and 100 pending applications for those jobs. The interviews for those positions are now underway and the task force created by St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson to investigate the jail’s conditions presented a list of recommendations on Friday — over 60 in total, but 13 they consider matters of urgency. The task force’s chairman is The Rev. Darryl Gray, a local criminal justice activist. He says the task force was allowed into the City Justice Center and found that one of the main issues facing inmates is that they are only allowed out of their cells for one hour a day to shower, make phone calls and participate in other activities. “We were able to talk to detainees that represented the various wings, and we visited every floor,” he said. “I think that the concerns they registered in the media after the uprising were the same things that they told us. Their concerns were consistent across the board — no movement and no visitation, they simply felt isolated,
See GARNER, A6
See JUSTICE CENTER, A7