Prosecutor hated by the right convicts a cop killer for murder – so she’s left out of the story

A St. Louis jury has found a man guilty of murdering a retired black police captain during rioting after the George Floyd verdict. It was a big win for one of the most controversial reform prosecutors in the nation.

That combination didn’t suit the tired talking points of right-wing media, so the solution was obvious: Just leave the prosecutor – Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner – out of the story.

Defendant Stephen Cannon was convicted by Gardner’s office of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, stealing $750 or more, unlawful possession of a firearm and three counts of armed criminal action – all felonies.

The case had drawn much national attention. The retired officer, David Dorn, 77, was shot when confronting looters at a friend’s shop in response to an alarm. Dorn was widely respected in St. Louis – there’s part on an interstate highway named for him now – but the national angle emerged when his widow, Ann Dorn, was brought into 2020 GOP National Convention to speak on behalf of Donald Trump.

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Dorn’s speech was criticized by her daughters who disagreed with her support of Trump and argued that their father’s legacy should not be politicized, as CNN reported.

None of that was mentioned by the National Review today – nor was Kim Gardner’s name in the story even as it reported that Ann Dorn praised the prosecutor employed by Gardner after the trial: “I want to thank Marvin Teer for doing a phenomenal job in prosecuting the case,” she said.

Instead, the National Review headlined its coverage, “BLM Rioter Found Guilty of Murdering Black Missouri Police Captain.” It also included the following untruth in this editorializing at the end of its report:

“While certain high-profile cases from the 2020 street mayhem, such as that of Kyle Rittenhouse, received disproportionate media attention, Dorn’s case, of a black cop killed by rioters in cold-blood for TVs, was largely forgotten by the mainstream press.”

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In fact, Dorn’s murdered was widely reported at the time by CNN and other mainstream news networks. And there was the widespread coverage of his widow’s brief moment on the national stage.

Meanwhile, at Fox News, the story was the same. A search of “Kim Gardner” at its website yielded more than 100 stories involving her, all negative. But as with the National Review, she didn’t rate a mention today when successfully prosecuting Dorn’s killer.

To the contrary, Fox News went with this editorializing to suggest that the BLM riots were the only story that mattered two years after the fact:

“I’m very glad that justice was served for Capt. Dorn," said Paul Mauro, an attorney and former NYPD inspector who has been closely following the case. "But make no mistake – the conditions that allowed his killing should never have occurred."

One can only imagine the major headlines and outrage that would have ensued on the Right had Gardner lost the case. Gardner has been the source of constant attack from the Right – including an unsuccessful effort to have her disbarred – ever since she opened two prosecutions of disgraced Missouri ex-Gov. Eric Greitens, now a candidate for U.S. Senate in the state.

Gardner had hired Teer – a retired judge -- as her chief trial assistant and this was his first trial of any kind in 22 years. Had Teer lost, rest assured Gardner’s name would have been in the headlines – not just the stories – to fit the narrative of right-wing media.