Riverfront Times, February 17, 2021

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MARCH 6-12, 2019

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THE LEDE

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING “Just try to enjoy life. Be happy. When you get knocked down, just stand back up. Eventually, things are gonna turn.

That’s all I can say for anybody. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve been knocked down. I’ve lost it all. But I’m not bitter or anything. I’m just trying to survive like everybody else. I’m doing my best. “

KIRK RUSSELL, PHOTOGRAPHED SELLING FLOWERS AT JEFFERSON AND GRAVOIS AVENUES IN SOUTH ST. LOUIS ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10

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Criminal Sentences

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n Missouri, an outdated law designed to hammer people convicted of drug crimes has led to some of the most lopsided sentences in the country. Defendants with a few busts on their record are serving decades more than those who’d shot or stabbed people. In 2017, legislators repealed the law that designated people as “prior and persistent” offenders for drug crimes, but they didn’t make the changes retroactive. That has left more than 200 people locked into no-parole sentences for crimes that now carry only a fraction of the time. For this week’s cover story, RFT staff writer Danny Wicentowski talks to men newly sprung through pardons handed down

by Gov. Mike Parson — and to those still waiting for mercy in a system where justice remains arbitrary and unpredictable. Danny’s story is perhaps the most complete accounting of the ongoing toll of one of the harshest drug laws in the United States.

Please read it. While the inmates affected took full weight of bad sentencing laws, they often get the least amount of attention.

— Doyle Murphy, editor in chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

E D I T O R I A L Digital Editor Jaime Lees Interim Managing Editor Daniel Hill Staff Writer Danny Wicentowski Contributors Cheryl Baehr, Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Theo Welling, Ymani Wince Columnist Ray Hartmann A R T

& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Editorial Layout Haimanti Germain, Evan Sult Production Manager Haimanti Germain M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Advertising Director Colin Bell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Chuck Healy, Jackie Mundy Digital Sales Manager Chad Beck Director of Public Relations Brittany Forrest

COVER

C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers

“Don’t Stop at Me” Jason Norman is one of six drug offenders pardoned by Gov. Mike Parson. He hopes hundreds more follow.

JASON NORMAN

The Riverfront Times is published weekly

by Euclid Media Group | Verified Audit Member

INSIDE

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HARTMANN Wrong Page Lawsuit lays bare county exec’s mishandling of police chief selection

BY RAY HARTMANN

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could not serve as an impartial juror in police Lt. Col. Troy Doyle’s race discrimination lawsuit against St. Louis County.

The searing allegations put forth in the suit released last week by attorney Jerome Dobson are just that — allegations — and the absence of the defendants’ response isn’t an implied concession. That’s why there’s a judicial system.

But if you know lots of the players and background — either personally or through the news — it’s impossible to pretend to have an unbiased view. What happened to Doyle is more than believable: It’s both a confirmation and indictment of systemic racism in the county in general and the police department in particular.

And it demonstrates that County Executive Sam Page is not at all what he claims to be as a politician. At best, Page has betrayed all the talk about pay-to-play being a thing of the past in St. Louis County. At worst, he’s not up to his job.

The overarching facts are pretty clear. Doyle was eager to become chief of police to follow the failed stewardship of Chief Jon Belmar.

Doyle had a proven track record of competence and leadership over nearly three decades with the county police. o his fleeting credit, Page understood this.

The lawsuit lays out Doyle’s incredible resume, including four promotions, experience with elite FBI task forces, a strong record in police-community relations and much more. If anything, it understates what is widely known about Doyle: He has been the goto guy for multiple chiefs in handling some of the county’s most vexing police challenges, from Jennings to north St. Louis County to the jail.

So Page deserves credit for his initial inclination to advocate for Doyle to become chief. It was the obvious call. Page’s support was documented on a recording re-

leased last July by Dobson. Page’s words, that “the police board will do what I tell it to do,” were unambiguous.

But that was just the early part of a compelling timeline laid out in oyle’s court filing. If anything, Page advocated for Doyle to a fault: If, as alleged, he truly arranged meetings for Doyle with prospective police board members William Ray Price and Michelle Schwerin before he had even appointed them, that would have been grossly inappropriate.

I suppose you can’t blame Doyle for visiting with Price and Schwerin at Page’s direction, but you can certainly fault Price and Schwerin for taking such a meeting and Page for doing the arranging. It’s the sort of thing that Page’s predecessor Steve Stenger might have done. And had he done so, Page would have gone ballistic as chairman of the county council.

Even though it’s common knowledge that county executives traditionally have influenced the selections of police chiefs — and no chief has been known to have gotten hired over a county executive’s objection — the Board of Police Commissioners is still an independent entity. Page doesn’t seem to think so.

It’s one thing for Page to have arranged meetings with members of the business community or other influencers. aving wellconnected advocates is a far cry from attempting to lobby board members — or prospective board members — with secret meetings with candidates. That’s a far cry even from the county executive cajoling the members himself.

The greatest irony is how unfair that was, initially, to Chief Mary Barton when she was chief candidate Mary Barton. All candidates for a post as important as police chief should have some expectation of fairness and impartiality on the part of the police board.

But as it turns out, Barton wasn’t such a victim after all, because something seems to have changed Page’s mind. That’s where the lawsuit gets especially intriguing, with its allegations that Page was desperate to raise campaign funds for his 2020 election race, leading him to turn to funding sources who in turn weren’t good with hiring Doyle.

Doyle’s lawsuit attempts to con-

nect the dots between Page’s need to please influential donors and his ensuing difficulty in getting oyle “across the finish line.” hat brings us to the St. Louis Police oundation, a not-for-profit dominated by business elites supporting law-enforcement efforts in the region. Here again, whether you buy the lawsuit is colored in no small part by whether you can imagine business elites in St. Lou-

At best, Page has betrayed all the talk about pay-toplay being a thing of the past in St. Louis County. At worst, he’s not up to his job. is pushing back against the idea of a Black police chief. I can.

Now they wouldn’t say so publicly, nor would they oppose the idea in the abstract. But the combination of having a Black prosecuting attorney (which the county has in Wesley Bell) and a Black police chief and a growing crime problem with sharp racial overtones and an ongoing concern about white flight to surrounding counties based on race, well, yes, I can see someone in power having asked, “What are you going to do about the Black guy?” and having said, “We don’t need a Black police chief.”

I can also see Page having played both sides against the middle like the politician he is. I can see him being fine with acceding to the wishes of corporate benefactors and turning around to tell Doyle that he was appalled by the horrific racism of it all. oth might well have happened.

That’s the stuff that will have to be sorted out in the legal process.

Perhaps the case will get settled, although Dobson told me that County Counselor Beth Orwick had previously “batted away” an offer to settle. But Dobson is one of the top employment attorneys in town, so he could just be negotiating.

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What’s not negotiable is this: St. Louis County ended up with the wrong police chief. Barton apparently was a fine police officer and might possess the best of intentions. But to describe her as unsuited for her current position would be a grave understatement. his is a woman whose first big moment on the stage was to swing and miss at a softball question about systemic racism in the police department just weeks after the George Floyd murder. Her denial that it existed — rather than maybe saying it’s a problem everywhere and she was committed to addressing it — was a sure sign that messaging wasn’t her strength.

By contrast, Doyle is remarkably skilled in communication, as anyone who follows his work knows.

He not only outranked Barton and had dramatically better police credentials, he also is strongest where she is weakest, which is in representing police to the community.

That key element of a police chief’s job — whether in the media or in the Black community or elsewhere — is in Doyle’s sweet spot. And it’s above Barton’s pay grade.

So we’ll have to wait and see how the lawsuit plays out. But the returns are already in with regard to Page having still another terrible moment in his relations with the Black community. He really blew this one.

Among the most amusing asides in the lawsuit is the allegation that Page asked Doyle to ask state Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin, if his campaign donors might help Page.

Dogan, one of the best and brightest Missouri legislators (and the only Black Republican), issued a statement saying that hadn’t happened.

Turns out, Dogan is seriously considering a run against Page for county executive. If the election were tomorrow, he would be the easy choice on his own merits.

But stated another way, if Page’s record on race and policing gets put on trial, I could not serve as an impartial juror. n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhar tmann1952@gmail.com or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on the Nine Network and St. Louis In the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

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City, Inmate Advocates Clash Over Jail Conditions Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

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t. ouis officials say the city’s jails are well run and that, no, an incredulous group of civil rights attorneys can’t visit to investigate do ens of accounts to the contrary. ollowing an hours-long jailhouse revolt on ebruary that involved more than inmates at the City ustice Center, the group of seven attorneys wrote to the city with concerns about “inhumane” conditions and reports of retaliation against detainees. he lawyers called for immediate improvements and asked to be allowed in to investigate. “ his ongoing crisis demands immediate action,” read the letter sent last week by attorneys from the C , ffice of the Missouri Public efender, rchCity efenders and the Roderick olange Mac rthur ustice Center.

In response, City Counselor Michael Garvin flatly rejected any suggestion that inmates are being mistreated and ridiculed the attorneys’ allegations. “ lthough your letter is clearly intended to spread a false narrative, I will indulge it with a response in order to set the record straight,” Garvin wrote. he city counselor argued that any problems experienced by those incarcerated were of their own making, and even then jailers worked to correct problems as soon as possible. hat has included, Garvin wrote, temporary water shutoffs that resulted from inmates who clogged up toilets and flooded the floors. “ he incarcerated rioters referenced in your email committed felony crimes when they attacked a Corrections officer and vandal-

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Men incarcerated in the City Justice Center took over units on February 6. | DOYLE MURPHY i ed portions of the Criminal ustice Center on ebruary ,” Garvin wrote. “ he rationali ations suggested by your group for this criminal conduct are simply false.” ttorneys and advocates for people incarcerated in the City ustice Center and the city’s Medium ecurity Institution, known as the Workhouse, say they’ve received a surge of calls since mid- ecember from their clients and their clients’ families who described inade uate C I - protocols, harsh treatment by staff and dangerous living conditions. “ hese concerns have only escalated, and conditions worsened, since the protest this weekend,” the attorneys wrote in their letter. n ebruary , inmates jimmied the locks on their cell doors and took over two separate units on the fourth floor of the City ustice Center. hey were then able to get into adjoining hallways where they smashed windows and threw stools, video monitors, clothing and whatever else they could find onto the street below.

Images of the inmates, framed by the shattered windows as they burned bedding, made national news and drew scrutiny of jail practices. t. ouis Public afety irector immie dwards told reporters on ebruary it began with a oneon-one scu e with an inmate and corrections officer, and additional

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inmates jumped in. he guard escaped and was later examined at a hospital and released. In dwards’ telling, the ensuing uprising was no more complicated than inmates taking advantage of a spasm of violence. “ o this was not a situation where there were demands being made by anyone,” dwards said. “ hese were just very angry, defiant, very violent people that we house at the justice center.” ut advocates for the incarcerated men say inmates have lodged complaints for weeks, including two protests within days of each other in late ecember and early anuary. he ebruary uprising was an act of desperation after being ignored, advocates say.

“We have received first-person reports of some people in C C going over hours without being provided with food or water, the very most basic necessities of life,” the attorneys wrote. “ ther floors are receiving limited, but insufficient, food. thers have had access to showers, commissary, and calls to family restricted or entirely withheld.” ther complaints included being forced to sleep on sewageslimed floors without mattresses, or mattresses without bedding. fter aturday’s revolt, inmates were shipped over to the Workhouse where they’re held in cells with little to no heat, according to

accounts relayed by the attorneys. ast week, Mayor yda Krewson announced she was appointing a task force to investigate what’s going on at the jail. he chair of the task force, former Chief ustice Michael Wolff, backed out of the role just two days later. e told K K that, with a mayoral election looming this spring, he thought it was better to wait to see what the new administration wanted to do. he remaining members of the task force met for the first time on riday, and Krewson has said she hopes an independent investigation by the group will determine the facts and provide credibility. s they await the findings, city officials continue to insist the jails are operated in a professional, humane manner and that any problems are the fault of inmates. Garvin said in his letter that the jails follow strict C I protocols, including thrice daily rounds by nurses, easy access to masks and the isolation of new inmates for fourteen days to ensure they don’t bring in the virus from the outside. “ hese are just some of the measures taken at C C,” Garvin wrote to the attorneys. “ our careless accusations are an insult to the Corrections officers, nurses, and doctors who have worked diligently and successfully to protect the health and safety of detainees at C C and M I.” ut the attorneys say they’ve heard do ens of accounts that consistently contradict the city’s claims. “ he people of the City of t. ouis deserve to know that a jail funded by their tax dollars treats people in its custody humanely,” the attorneys wrote. “ oved ones of people detained in the city jails deserve to know that their children, siblings, or cousins are safe. bove all, the people detained by this city deserve to not have their constitutional rights trampled on.” hey ask the city to verify jailers are providing regular meals, clean water, bedding and mattresses. hey also want to be able to visit common areas and housing units, as well as speak with detainees. o far, the city has said they’re not getting in.

“C C staff is currently focused on assessing and repairing the damage caused by the rioters,” Garvin wrote. “We do not plan to provide tours of the facility.” n

St. Louis County Police Commander Files Racism Lawsuit Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

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n a new lawsuit, t. ouis County police t. Col. roy oyle claims County xecutive am Page bent to racists and major political donors in reneging on a promise to make him police chief. oyle was considered a favorite to take over the department last year. In the suit against the county, he claims Page invited him to his house in and told him he was

St. Louis County police Lt. Col. Troy Doyle could have been chief of police. | OFFICIAL PORTRAIT “the right person for the job,” and making him chief would be “historic” and the “right thing to do.”

-year veteran of the department, oyle was the only lack

candidate to replace former Chief on elmar, who retired in pril . oyle has an impressive resume with the county, working his way up through the ranks to hold a variety of leadership positions, including commanding the divisions of patrol, operational support and special operations at different times. fter the conversation at Page’s home, the lawsuit claims, the county executive began trying to smooth the way for oyle to become the next chief. Page told him to seek the blessing of t. ouis merican publisher onald uggs and also to meet with his campaign manager Richard Callow and chief of staff Winston Calvert, the suit says. he charm tour also included meeting with former t. ouis police Chief am otson and om Irwin, who was a political consultant for the Centene Corporation, according to oyle. nd, Page instructed oyle to meet with former Chief ustice of the Missouri upreme Court William Ray Price and with attorney

Michelle chwerin, whom Page confided that he planned to appoint to the oard of Police Commissioners, the suit says.

It is the commissioners, not the county executive, who appoint the county police chief, but Page assured oyle he was working to “pull this across the finish line,” the suit says. ut as Page was stage managing the lieutenant colonel’s rise through political circles in late and early , oyle says he was being undercut by then-Chief elmar. oyle claims elmar rebuffed his recommendation in ecember to promote t. ames Morgan, who is lack, to command the tactical operations unit, announcing shortly after that he was suspending all transfers. ut not all transfers were suspended. he suit says elmar forced oyle and a lieutenant colonel in anuary to trade places, moving the lack commander into a less prestigious post and elevating his white colleague in Continued on pg 11

Funeral Home Van, Body Stolen Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

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funeral home’s van was stolen on Thursday, kicking off a frantic search for not only the van, but the body of a dead woman who was inside.

St. Louis County police were called at 10:26 a.m. after the van was taken from the parking lot of QuikTrip in Spanish Lake. Police say a worker left it running while he went into the gas station. By the time he returned, a man and woman had climbed inside and driven away.

Police circulated a description of the white Nissan, which was emblazoned with the wreath logo of William C. Harris Funeral Home.

On Thursday afternoon, the van was spotted in Godfrey, Illinois, but the thieves had gone by the time officers arrived. Police distributed surveillance camera images of the van at a gas pump along with pictures of the two suspects inside a gas station.

On Friday morning, police received another tip. A witness had spotted the miss-

Brian Schaake was charged with stealing a motor vehicle. | ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE

The stolen funeral van was caught on camera at a gas station. | COURTESY ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE ing van in the parking lot of a Walmart in Festus. This time, the van was still there when officers responded. They found the suspects inside the store and took them into custody.

The body was still in the van. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the dead woman had been a nursing home resident who was being transported to be cremated.

Police identified the suspects as 38-year-old Brian Schaake and Christina

Kalb, 31, of Springfield, Illinois.

Schaake was charged with a felony count of stealing a motor vehicle and jailed on $40,000 cash-only bond. In court records, police wrote that they considered him a danger to the community because he continued driving the van even after he noticed there was a dead body in the back.

Kalb was charged with a misdemeanor count of tampering with a motor vehicle and released. n

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Christina Kalb was charged with a misdemeanor. | ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE

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POLICE RACISM Continued from pg 9

his place. Around the same time, a white lieutenant was tapped to take over the post Doyle had recommended for Morgan. Normally, the chief would have followed the advice of someone in Doyle’s position, the suit says, but Doyle had run afoul of the chief by raising concerns about biases and discrimination.

By the time Belmar announced in February 2020 that he would retire in two months, Doyle says, Page’s enthusiastic support for the lieutenant colonel’s path to chief had begun to show cracks. The county executive was in the midst of campaign season. In January, he said he was getting “push back” to the prospect of a Black chief, according to the suit. Doyle claims Page on another occasion told him he had met with the St. Louis Police Foundation and was “shocked” by what one or two members said, likening the conversation to “living in the ‘60s” when the prospect of Doyle as chief came up.

The police foundation is an influential nonprofit, and the suit asserts that Page was struggling for campaign donations and needed its help. In February 2020, the county executive asked Doyle to try to persuade state Rep. Shamed Dogan, a member of the Missouri Black Caucus, to hit up donors to support Page, according to the suit.

Less than a month later, on March 19, 2020, the Board of Police Commissioners picked Capt. Mary Barton, who is white, as the department’s first female chief. In years past, Barton wouldn’t have been eligible, because her rank wasn’t high enough, but the ualifications changed in 2020, the suit says.

“Plaintiff was more ualified, and continues to be more qualified, than arton for the Chief of Police position,” the suit says.

Doyle is accusing Page of bowing to pressure from the police foundation and another heavy hitter — what was then called Civic Progress and is now Greater St. Louis Inc. — to help select a white police chief. After Barton was announced, Page’s fundraising got a boost from large corporations, according to the suit.

After Doyle was passed over for chief, he alleges that Page tried to “buy him off” with various job offers, including a new director of public safety position that would oversee the police department.

Doyle declined.

Page spokesman Doug Moore said the county executive wouldn’t

County Executive Sam Page. | LEXIE MILLER comment on the lawsuit. The police foundation and Greater St. Louis released statements to St. Louis media denying Doyle’s allegations.

Doyle later agreed to serve as liaison to the consulting group Teneo, which was conducting a review of the department’s operations. Doyle says Page had urged him to take the position and, when he accepted, said he couldn’t “wait to see the faces of the two Civic guys” who asked the county executive what he was “going to do about the Black guy” and didn’t want to see him as chief. oyle first announced plans to sue the county in July, taking the first step by filing with the Missouri Commission of Human Rights. He alleged racial discrimination and retaliation.

The move triggered a sharp reaction from the county at the time. Page’s spokesman released a letter from the county counselor, accusing Doyle’s attorney Jerome Dobson of trying to extort $3.5 million in exchange for not filing a suit that could potentially damage Page’s election hopes. Dobson denied the accusation.

The Ethical Society of Police, which primarily represents Black officers in the county and city, has highlighted instances of racism in the county and criticized Chief Barton for her “remarkable ineptitude and lack of commitment to lead against racism.” Last week, the organization urged county residents to hold Page and the Board of Police Commissioners accountable.

In a statement, Ethical said, “This lawsuit by Lt. Col. Troy Doyle and the allegations within exemplify systemic racism at its highest levels leveraged by corporate backers and their foot on the neck of progress.” n

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Next in Line, Left Behind Gov. Parson has pardoned six inmates trapped by Missouri’s harshest drug law.

Hundreds are still waiting B Y

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t was December 21, 2020, and things were finally looking up for Jason Norman. The 45-yearold inmate was settling in at his new home in the lgoa Correctional Center, a minimum-security state prison on the outskirts of the capital in efferson City.

His recent move from the state prison in Boonville meant more than a change in scenery: He’d been selected to join the prestigious “inmate trustees” who worked in the governor’s official residence, an opulent Victorian mansion overlooking the Missouri River, just a few minutes’ drive from the prison.

Being a trustee involved a rigorous selection process, and if chosen, Norman would earn $2 an hour.

Norman had come a long way since his 2003 arrest. Now, more than seventeen years into a twenty-year sentence for drug trafficking, he’d earned a chance at a kind of freedom, if only within the mansion’s kitchen or as a maintenance worker on its grounds. rriving in lgoa in ovember, Norman was told to wait while prison officials made their final review of the incoming trustees.

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our days before Christmas, he was still waiting.

“I was there 30 days,” he recalls, “and that day I was in my cell, locked down for the count, and an officer came to my door.”

The guard told him that he was needed “upstairs” in the prison’s probation office. It was a strange request: Norman wasn’t eligible for parole, the result of a uniquely harsh Missouri sentencing law that targets drug offenders with prior felonies. he meeting with the parole officer lasted only minutes. When Norman left the office, he knew one thing: He wasn’t going to be working in the governor’s mansion.

Governor Mike Parson had gotten to him first. hat day, while Norman was killing time in his prison cell, Parson was signing his commutation papers. One week later, Norman was released from prison on a modified house arrest, technically a “partial commutation” that allows him to serve the rest of his sentence as he works to rebuild his life in the small town of Marshall. His movements are monitored by a GPS device on his

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W I C E N T O W S K I

ankle. He spends his days driving a tow truck and his nights at home.

It may not be a mansion, but, he notes, “It ain’t prison.”

“I thought it was a done deal, that I’d have to serve out the rest of my time,” he adds. He points out the obvious, that without Parson’s action, he was facing at least two more years of prison before he could qualify for conditional release. Those were years he couldn’t afford to lose. s he enters middle age, he’s already spent most of his adult life in prison.

“I’m just thankful,” he says.

“I’m very grateful that the governor chose me. It’s like hitting the lottery.”

Norman wasn’t the only inmate surprised on December 21. That same day, Parson ordered commutations for two other drug offenders, both trapped in long sentences through the same “no parole” sentencing enhancement that affected Norman.

But the issue is much bigger than three cases. ccording to recent prison records, Norman is just one of more than 200 drug

offenders serving no-parole sentences under an unusual state drug law that for decades has skyrocketed sentences and barred legal avenues for early release.

For those still in prison, freedom isn’t like a lottery. Their odds remain static, frozen at zero.

That’s not true for most Missouri prisoners. The vast majority of inmates — including prior offenders and felons — are eligible for parole after serving about 25 to 50 percent of their sentence. In fact, of the roughly 84,000 people under the oversight of the Missouri epartment of Corrections, only 24,000 are in prisons. The remaining 60,000 people, all convicted criminals, are on probation and parole, serving their sentences as productive, if restricted, members of society while saving the state money on prison costs. nd yet hundreds of Missouri drug offenders are serving sentences so long that their punishments rival those of murderers.

The cause is a criminal statute defining “prior and persistent drug offenders,” a sentencing law so extreme that in a bipartisan

Darrell Harris, shown with his daughter Reanna, was serving a 42-year sentence for drugs when a commutation freed him. “I about cried,” he says of Parson’s clemency. “It had been such a long time.” | DANNY WICENTOWSKI group of lawmakers successfully repealed it — but only partially.

The repeal, which went into effect January 1, 2017, doesn’t cover drug offenders already convicted under the old “prior and persistent” sentencing laws.

Since 2013, in multiple investigations and cover stories, the Riverfront Times has documented the devastating impact and strange aftermath of this particular drug law, revealing the stories about the prosecutors who wielded it, the offenders sentenced by it and the people who have devoted years to fighting its hold.

What remains true in 2021 is that the repeal left out those most affected by the massive prison sentences, creating a segment of Missouri’s prison population for whom punishment is set in stone.

The impasse has left inmates and their families struggling to find hope. s it turns out, it’s a problem that Missouri’s governor can fix with the flick of a pen.

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n his December 21 announcement, Governor Parson, a former sheriff, managed to invoke the generosity of the holiday season while still appearing to draw a hard line on crime.

“This is the time of year for forgiveness,” the statement noted.

“There must be serious consequences for criminal behavior, but when individuals demonstrate a changed lifestyle and a commitment to abandoning the ways of their past, they should be able to redeem themselves in the eyes of the law.”

Parson remarked on his decision to commute “three prior drug offenders,” noting that the law that made them parole-ineligible had been repealed. The “limited commutation” documents he signed ordered them restricted to house arrest, subject “to any terms and conditions imposed by the Parole Board.”

Buried among more than 3,600 clemency applicants, it’s not clear why these three cases wound up

on Parson’s desk. nd while the governor’s office did not provide details on the selection process, it’s notable that two cases, including Norman’s, were represented by attorney Kent Gipson. Gipson tells the RFT he submitted a list of more than a dozen names to the governor’s chief legal counsel in early December, highlighting “egregious cases where nonviolent people got excessive sentences.”

Gipson suggests that the selection may have had something to do with the three inmates’ history of rehabilitation; all three provided long resumes of treatment and education programs, along with “spotless disciplinary records.”

“I think that might have been it,” he offers. “It was like picking the head of the class.”

Whatever the process, Parson is starting to make his priorities known. fter being appointed governor in 2018, he inherited thousands of unaddressed applications for clemency. Now, three years into his administration, he’s

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used the commutation power of his office on a total of seven cases.

Parson’s selections show focus.

Including orman, six of the governor’s commutations involved inmates sentenced under the same draconian drug law.

Before December, Parson had issued just one commutation, awarding former drug dealer Dimetrious Woods a “partial commutation” that prevented him from being sent back to prison. Woods, the subject of a March 2020 RFT cover story, had been “erroneously released” on parole in 2018 after he successfully challenged his parole status, arguing in court that the repeal of the old “prior and persistent” sentencing law now gave him the right to appear before a parole board. hen things got messy. t first, a circuit judge agreed with Woods, ordering his release, but the same judge went on to reject identical arguments filed by drug offenders who tried to replicate Woods’ success. Into this mess came Josh

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Hawley, who was the state attorney general at the time before being elected to the U.S. Senate.

Hawley insisted that everyone involved belonged in prison. That included Woods, who had used his two years of “erroneous” freedom to start a window-tinting business and food truck in Columbia.

The case eventually went to the Missouri Supreme Court, which sided with the attorney general: The 2017 repeal of the “prior and persistent drug offender” statute was not retroactive. For hundreds of inmates, parole remained out of reach.

That’s when Parson stepped in.

In April 2020, Woods stood in the governor’s office in efferson City and watched Parson sign his commutation, which effectively saved Woods from being sent back to prison to serve the remaining twelve years of a 25-year sentence for drug trafficking.

What Parson didn’t announce at the time, and which the governor’s office only now confirms, was that Woods wasn’t the only prior drug offender Parson saved from going back to prison in the spring of 2020.

As noted in later appeals, Parson quietly commuted the sentences of two additional inmates, Berry Livingston and Kevin Riley, both convicted drug traffickers who had independently used Woods’ argument to gain parole in 2018.

In 2020, when Missouri wanted to drag them back to prison along with Woods, Parson intervened.

James Norman had tried the same tactic. Years before his transfer to Algoa, he and Woods shared a housing block in the Jefferson City Correctional Center. They’d bonded over their shared predicament, trapped by Missouri’s unyielding drug laws. After watching Woods win early release, Norman had filed his own petition to restore parole eligibility .

But he was too late. The window had already closed.

“They gave me an immediate ‘out’ date, within 30 days,” Norman recalls. “I’d already switched my mindset to going home, and two days before my release, the attorney general stopped it.”

“That was horrible,” he adds.

And if not for Parson, it’s a horror that Norman would still be living in the Algoa Correctional Center. Asked what he’d tell the governor today, Norman says he would thank Parson “for giving me a chance to start my life again.”

But there’s another thing Nor-

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Tim Prosser is Missouri’s only inmate currently serving a life sentence solely for drug charges.

Sentenced in 2004 as a first-time felon, he is not eligible for parole. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI man wishes he could bring up to the man who saved him: “Please, don’t stop at me.”

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ou don’t need to live in a governor’s mansion to appreciate the difference between the comfort of your home and the grim, restrictive existence of prison. But inside prison walls, the difference between those who have access to early release through parole, and those who don’t, is no less devastating.

As of February 2020, data provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows 233 drug offenders serving no-parole sentences in state prisons. The details of these cases range widely across substance and quantity, from homemade meth labs stashed in duffel bags to a few grams of crack to pounds of cocaine.

The 2020 count is substantially higher than the cases first reported in a 2016 RFT investigation into Missouri’s harsh sentencing laws. The 2020 data, obtained through an expanded Sunshine request, reveals the most complete picture of the law’s reach so far: Along with cases involving trafficking and possession, it added dozens of cases where prosecutors used charges for distributing drugs in public housing or near schools to invoke the punishments reserved for prior offenders.

On analysis, it’s impossible to say whether every one of the 233 cases

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contained in the new dataset is a nonviolent offender. The records include Pierre Davis, sentenced in 1992 for a no-parole drug charge for distributing near a school — but the reason Davis is still in prison in 2021 isn’t because of the drug charge. It’s because he was convicted on multiple counts of murder and arson he committed in 1993.

But for years, attorneys, reporters and criminal justice activists have highlighted numerous cases of nonviolent drug offenders serving the equivalent of killers’ sentences, all because they had been caught up in addiction or smallscale drug trade.

Take the case of Darrell Harris.

On October 31, 2001, the Kansas native fell asleep at the wheel and ramped his pickup truck off a highway median in Platte County near Kansas City. When police arrived, they discovered a variety of drugs, some packaged in baggies, including fourteen ounces of marijuana, seven ounces of methamphetamine and 25 grams of crack.

At a 2003 bench trial, Harris claimed the substances were for personal use. The judge found him guilty and sentenced him on separate counts for each: Fifteen years for the meth, fifteen for the marijuana and twelve years for the crack.

The sentences added up to 42 years. Harris was 42 years old.

He’d be an octogenarian by the time he could qualify for release.

Jason Norman entered prison in 2004 for charges related to a DIY meth lab. He served more time than the average sentence for a violent felony or sex crime. | COURTESY OF JASON NORMAN “I remember hearing the judge tell him, ‘I’m going to give you day for day,’” Harris’ daughter Reanna says. “And then he handed down the consecutive sentences.”

Seventeen years later, just before Christmas 2020, Harris’ was among the commutations signed

by Governor Parson. In an interview in arris’ attorney’s office last month, the former inmate acknowledges that he had been using drugs “quite a bit” at the time of his arrest, but says he got sober before his sentencing.

He has a lot to catch up on. Since his release, he’s obtained a commercial trucking license and attempted to reconnect with his family, a challenge during a pandemic.

“I had four grandkids when I went in,” he points out. “I came out with twelve.”

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n Missouri, a “life” term is defined as years, and if one searches the criminal statutes for “life without the possibility of parole,” it appears listed as punishment for first-degree murder. Harris’ case, in which a prosecutor stacked multiple charges for the same incident, demonstrates how Missouri’s legal system enabled the transformation of lesser drug charges into a 42-year, inprison death penalty.

Harris isn’t the only offender to serve an effective life term solely on drug charges. But it’s worth not-

State Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch (R-Hallsville) amplified the cases of two former drug offenders before Parson commuted their sentences. A bill she’s filed could free more. | HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS In 2020, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson used commutations to free six drug offenders, all imprisoned under the same repealed law. | COURTESY OF THE MISSOURI GOVERNOR’S OFFICE ing here that being sentenced as a “prior and persistent” drug offender isn’t just a matter of parole.

In practice, the law behaves like a web of legal triggers tucked into multiple criminal statutes. Judged by its impact, it seems almost tailormade to create extreme sentences.

It starts with the prior drug felonies. If a prosecutor can show a defendant was convicted of two previous drug crimes, of any sort, they can upgrade any new lower-level charges to Class A felonies — mandating a sentence from ten years up to life in prison, without parole.

Prosecutors also enjoy an expansive scope for the definition of “prior.” They can cite any old felony charges no matter how distant in a person’s past, whether they had been busted carrying a joint or manufacturing meth.

These various enhancements gave prosecutors powerful leverage while negotiating plea deals — defendants had good reason to avoid a trial where they could be slapped with a “prior and persistent” designation.

Attorney Michael Reid, who represented Harris on an unsuccessful motion to reconsider the lengthy sentence, points out that sentencing patterns can vary widely between counties and regions.

“It’s greatly discretionary,” Reid says. “The frustrating thing is you’ve got some prosecutors who get it, who say, ‘This is ridiculous.’ And then you get others who say, ‘No. This is it.

We want our pound of flesh.’” nd how much flesh, precisely, is enough to satisfy the appetite of Missouri’s drug

laws? The results are all over the place. In 2014, RFT staff writer Ray Downs reported on the cases of drug offenders Lewis Grant and Michael Mayo. In separate cases, each man was convicted for possessing less than three grams of crack cocaine. Grant was sentenced to ten years. Mayo, who had also been busted with a tiny amount of weed, got twenty.

In 2016, an RFT cover story

opened with the case of Robert Franklin, sentenced to 22 years for transporting one pound of marijuana. The story concluded with the case of Dimetrious Woods, who had been sentenced to 25 years after being busted with nearly 20 pounds of cocaine in his trunk.

It’s not just the disparate sentences that distinguish Missouri’s “prior and persistent” offender law. When owns first began reporting on the cases for the RFT, the American Civil Liberties Union

On average, Missouri inmates spend 43 months (less than 4 years) in prison before release. Meanwhile, “prior and persistent” drug offenders like Jason Norman and Darrell Harris each served 20 years before their commutations, while Tim Prosser is currently the only Missouri inmate serving a drug-related life sentence without possibility of parole.

confirmed that Missouri had done something no other state had attempted, creating “a separate persistent felony law just for drug offenses that ratchets up the extreme sentences more quickly than the regular persistent felony law.”

The results are prison sentences that double and triple the average punishments for most inmates in Missouri. Data from the Missouri Department of Corrections “offender profile” report shows just how far off the chart a 42-year drug sentence really is — or, for that matter, a ten-year sentence.

No other class of prisoner even gets close. In 2020, data show 5,787 offenders leaving Missouri prison on “first release” after their initial conviction, with parole accounting for 85 percent of all releases. The average parolee spent 3.5 years in prison and served 52 percent of their sentence. Among them were 743 parolees who had entered prison convicted of violent felonies (a category that excludes drug offenses), and who were approved for release after serving an average of just nine years.

In fact, in terms of average time served before release, the only class of crime to approach the tenyear minimum served by “prior and persistent” drug offenders are offenders convicted of sex and child abuse — but even then, Missouri released 315 of them in 2020, with each serving just over ten years, on average.

With the exception of convicted murderers, multi-decade prison terms are outliers in Missouri, even for offenders convicted of sex crimes and assaults. This is not the case for the more than 200 drug offenders locked into noparole sentences. They face a separate landscape, a place where time is measured in decades and a prison sentence is an unbroken line.

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n 2013, the RFT’s Downs interviewed one of the fathers of Missouri’s harshest drug law.

Harold Caskey, a former Democratic state senator from Butler, had in 1989 cosponsored the bill that embedded the “Prior and Persistent Drug Offender” statute into the law.

More than two decades later, Downs’ reporting revealed that the legislation had enabled prosecutors to successfully convict and sentence a small-time Sedalia marijuana dealer to a life sentence.

The sentence shocked Caskey.

Source: MODOC OFFENDER PROFILE 2020 Design: EVAN SULT

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Eric Greitens. Now it’s Parson’s turn. Prosser is 53 and long sober, and with Mizanskey freed, he is now the only prisoner in Missouri serving a single life sentence related to nonviolent drug charges.

His is just another example of the flexibility of Missouri’s cruel drug laws, which provided prosecutors the tools they needed to stack charges or confuse a jury; everything they needed to send a smalltime drug dealer to a slow death.

“It continues to trouble me,” Kinsky, now a private attorney, tells RFT in a phone interview earlier this month. “I just hope that I don’t go to my grave with him still rotting in prison.”

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“Looking back at it now,” the retired lawmaker told Downs, “I wouldn’t vote for it.”

Earlier that year, Downs had broken the story of Missouri’s unique “PPDO” statute in a story titled “How a Missouri Man Could Die in Prison for Weed.” Its subject, Jeff Mizanskey, was serving a life sentence without the possibility for parole because of his past marijuanarelated felonies, which had given prosecutors the opening to charge him as a “prior and persistent” offender after he was arrested for his minor role in a drug deal in 1993.

Eventually, a coalition of activists and cannabis reform made Mizanskey a symbol of the state’s legalization campaigns, and, in 2015, Governor Jay Nixon commuted Mizanskey’s sentence. At age 60, after serving more than 21 years in prison, Mizanskey was granted parole.

Two years later, the reform of Missouri’s criminal codes erased the law responsible for Mizanskey’s extraordinary sentence. The tide seemed to shift. In 2018, 65 percent of Missouri voters approved the legalization of medical marijuana.

“The idea that in 2021 you would lock up a 40-year-old for the rest of his life for drugs, we’ve changed our views on this, we’ve come a long way,” says John Ammann, a Saint Louis University law professor and a founder of the Community Coalition for Clemency. Among Ammann’s clemency cases is that of Timothy Prosser, who, like Mizanskey, is serving a life sentence without parole for drug charges.

Prosser’s substance of choice had been meth, which he’d started using as a way to manage an opioid addiction he could no longer feed through legal means.

“We know a lot more about drug addiction, we know more about the opioid crisis,” Ammann argues. “That’s the reason why everybody, including the governor, is saying we need to treat these cases differently than we did ten or fifteen years ago.”

That sentiment echoes that of Carl Kinsky, the Ste. Genevieve County prosecuting attorney who oversaw Prosser’s trial in 2004.

Kinsky had set out to make an example of Prosser, and so he held nothing back at trial, going as far as convincing the judge to withhold a key piece of information from the jury as they deliberated on Prosser’s sentence.

What jurors didn’t know at the time was that Prosser had lost his

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Missouri’s old drug laws allowed prosecutors wide leeway to create extreme prison sentences. The outcome, says former prosecutor Carl Kinsky, was “unconscionable.” | DANNY WICENTOWSKI eligibility for parole. When they returned a verdict for life in prison, they didn’t know they’d sealed Prosser’s death.

Over the years, the case gnawed at Kinsky. A decade later, the prosecutor wrote to Governor Jay Nixon to request Prosser’s commutation.

“Time gives you some distance,” Kinsky first told the RFT in 2016.

“I’ve had cases where I’ve had qualms about the punishment, but this one seems to be in a completely different class.”

In the letter, Kinsky laid bare his 2004 strategy to deny Prosser every benefit at trial. When police arrested Prosser, they’d confiscated and weighed the jars and bottles of precursor chemicals that comprised the “lab” of a smalltime meth cook — but the substance was entered into evidence as fully produced, sellable meth.

The sheer quantity of alleged “meth” allowed Kinsky to invoke a different sentence enhancement woven into Missouri’s drug laws, this one targeting possession of more than 350 grams of meth — far more than Prosser could have produced with his materials.

The jury found Prosser guilty; that was simple enough. But during the sentencing, the jury submitted a question to the judge: Did Prosser qualify for parole? Here, Kinsky made his most devastating move: He argued that the jury had no right to an answer.

It made a sort of sense. After all, under the law, Prosser’s massive trove of meth had enhanced his possession charge and thus erased his opportunity for parole.

The jury only needed to pick a number between ten and life. Parole was, at this point, irrelevant.

The judge agreed with Kinsky, and so the jury made their deci-

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What jurors didn’t know at the time — even though they asked about it — was that Prosser had lost his eligibility for parole. When they returned a verdict for life in prison, they didn’t know they’d sealed Prosser’s death. sion in ignorance. Years later, one of Prosser’s former jury members signed an affidavit testifying that she’d assumed Prosser could be paroled; in fact, she claimed that the jury specifically settled on a life sentence because they were worried a shorter sentence, like 30 years, would allow Prosser to qualify for parole too soon.

Instead, the jury unknowingly condemned him to die in prison. In his letter, Kinsky called it “unconscionable” that Prosser had been denied the rights of even a murder defendant, whose jury would at least know up front that their sentence would carry no parole.

“I do not make this request lightly,” Kinsky wrote to Nixon, concluding the letter. “It is the result of considerable soul-searching.”

Nixon never responded, nor did

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n the wake of Parson’s latest commutations, a cautious hope is rising among Missouri criminal justice advocates. The governor’s actions suggest that, for the first time in more than a decade, Missouri is moving toward addressing its logjam of clemencies — and Parson has clearly shown an interest in the “prior and persistent” drug offenders left behind by the 2017 repeal.

In December, the Community Coalition for Clemency submitted a list of ten names to the governor’s legal counsel, all involving women — and although Parson did not commute any of Ammann’s clients, he says the coalition “is very encouraged that the governor has a systematic approach to addressing clemencies.”

“This is the thing about clemency: The governor is using his power to correct injustice,” Ammann notes. “It doesn’t mean a bunch of people will leave prison tomorrow; it means they have to go through the parole process.”

Parson isn’t the only elected official taking note. In the spring of 2020, the plight of the “erroneously released” Dimetrious Woods caught the attention of Missouri Representative Cheri Toalson Reisch, R-Hallsville.

In April, Reisch had lobbied Parson’s office to commute Woods’ sentence before the state could return him to prison. On April 22, she stood in the governor’s office and watched as Parson gave Woods his life back.

Reisch’s interest didn’t stop at Woods. In December, she had submitted her own list of names for Parson’s holiday-season clemencies. Her list included the case of Gary Mitchell, whose fifteen-year drug sentence Parson commuted along with those of Darrell Harris and Jason Norman in his December 21 announcement.

But with hundreds of drug offenders still locked in no-parole

sentences, the rate of a few clemencies every Christmas provides small hope to those waiting for bigger change. There’s nothing to stop Parson from commuting and restoring parole eligibility at a mass scale — and if he did so, he wouldn’t even be the first Republican governor to go through with it. In November 2019, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt commutated the sentences of 527 people imprisoned for drug possession and low-level offenses, the first of a series of commutations that freed hundreds more. Before reaching Stitt’s desk, the cases are vetted by a special “commutation docket” established by the state’s legislature.

In Missouri, a system that processes mass commutations through the coordination of lawmakers, probation officials and the governor is not on the table.

What does exist is House Bill 504. Sponsored by Reisch, the bill seeks to restore parole eligibility to Missouri’s “prior and persistent” drug offenders who have already served ten years in prison. Their eligibility would be conditioned on parole authorities finding “there is a strong and reasonable probability that the offender will not thereafter violate the law.”

But as with the 2017 repeal, there’s a catch: If passed, the new law would affect less than half of the 233 prisoners serving no-parole drug sentences.

Reisch acknowledges that her bill offers only a partial solution.

Part of the challenge, she notes, is the complexity of the old drug laws. The designation for “prior and persistent” offender had been spread among a total of six drug statutes in the criminal code, among them the crimes for “trafficking” and “drug distribution,” as well as the separate statutes for drug dealing near public housing and schools.

The other part of the problem is Missouri itself. Historically, its political leaders haven’t shown much interest in the plight of drug dealers.

“We do have to remember,” Reisch adds, “our governor was a sheriff. He’s a law-and-order kind of guy.”

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n Missouri, harsh drug laws have produced substantial pain and little order for the men and women still denied a chance at rehabilitation. In an interview with one of them over a shaky prison phone line, inmate Dean Ballentine says the situation is “heartbreaking.”

“Everybody else from 2017 to now are eligible for parole, and I just don’t see how that would not

be retroactive,” he argues. “I’ve taken every class, I’ve got like 85 certificates, been in the dog program for five years now. I’ve got a good prison record.”

In 2013, Ballentine was sentenced to thirteen years on a noparole sentence for a drug trafficking conviction in Camden County. “I had a little bit of meth,” he explains. Court records show Ballentine had no criminal record in Missouri, though he says prosecutors cited his old felonies in Arizona to designate him a “prior and persistent” offender.

Ballentine entered prison three years after a diagnosis for colon cancer. He now uses a colostomy bag and spends most of his time under care in the medical wing of the Boonville Correctional Center. With a compromised immune system, he tries to avoid the COVID-19 risk of gatherings, but it’s impossible to avoid the chow line in the cafeteria or the canteen.

When Parson issued the first of his commutations in 2020, Ballentine confesses he felt a surge of hope. He expected the policy to “trickle down” to the hundreds of other inmates in the same bind as Dimetrious Woods.

Ballentine is still waiting. He’s depressed, and, he admits, more than a little discouraged as he watches drug offenders convicted after 2017 qualify for parole.

“It’s been tough,” he says. “Prison is hard enough, and it gets pretty disappointing.”

Even with Parson’s apparent interest in clemencies, Ballentine and the rest of Missouri’s drug offenders can only hope their names will appear on the next shortlist.

In a statement from the governor’s office, spokeswoman Kelli Jones says Parson “has instructed his legal team to continue working through a review of the backlog of pending clemency applications” and acknowledged that offenders serving no-parole drug cases under a repealed law “present unique circumstances worthy of consideration.”

For Ballentine and the others, consideration isn’t enough. For them, years beat on, grams turned into decades — lifetimes frozen in a ceaseless punishment for their pasts.

Ballentine turned 58 this year.

He’ll be 66 by the time he completes his full sentence in 2026.

By then, Parson will be long gone from the governor’s mansion.

“I just don’t understand,” Ballentine says. “How can Parson can give so few people clemencies and not the others in the same situation? I guess he can do what he wants to do.” n

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SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

Pluck of the Fried Fish Determined St. Louis parishes gear up for a Lenten fish-fry season like no other Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

T

his time last year, Monica Hunyar was up to her neck in cod — or at least it felt that way. s with any fish-fry season at the Epiphany of Our Lord parish in south St. Louis, Hunyar was hard at work months before the first one of the year, assembling her army of volunteers, planning out the schedule and wrapping her head around her budget so she could begin ordering the massive amounts of food needed to pull off her church’s weekly Lenten fried-fish extravagan as. he and her team had six fish fries planned out and were cruising along through the first few, business as usual, until C I made them abruptly change course. “ We only ended up doing three of them,” Hunyar says. “We bought product for all of them.

Fortunately, some of it can carry over, but a lot of it can’t. This year, we’re going week by week to try to be careful of expenses and mindful of how uickly things can change, because we just don’t know what will happen.”

Like Epiphany of Our Lord, parishes around the St. Louis area are facing unprecedented challenges as they struggle to figure out how to carry on their annual fish fries.

Beloved by both Catholics and non-Catholics alike, the enten fish fry has become a t. ouis institution, heralded less for its deepfried cod and catfish than for the community-building, social aspect of the event. ccurring on ridays (and some on Ash Wednesday) during ent, the parish fish fry originated as a way for Catholics to meet their obligation of abstain-

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There will be no packed church halls for fish-fry season this Lent, but you can still get your cod fix to go. | FLICKR/JEFFREY W ing from meat on ridays during the -day season of penance and reflection while supporting their local parishes. However, over the years, the events have evolved into lively social gatherings fre uented by those from all faiths, and even nonbelievers.

“St. Louis is such a Catholic town, with about 500,000 Catholics, so there are a lot of people participating in the enten season,” says Maria Lemakis, a representative of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. “ he food is so good that people flock to fish fries , but it’s really a community-building event. ur parishes have such strong faith communities, and people want to be a part of that. It’s not just about food but about supporting one another, sharing meals and being a part of something that brings people together.”

Fr. Timothy Noelker has witnessed firsthand how the parish fish fry can serve as a communitybuilding event. s pastor of t. Ce-

FEBRUARY 17-23, 2021

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cilia Catholic Church in south St. Louis, Noelker presides over the city’s “ riginal Mexican ish ry,” which draws crowds from all over the area for its fish tacos, tostadas, tamales, margaritas and mariachi band.

“It’s interesting that fish fries started because we don’t eat meat on Fridays as an act of penance and self-denial, so I think we sometimes fulfill the letter but not the spirit; temperance is a virtue,” oelker laughs.

However, the loss of revenue St. Cecilia and other parishes are missing out on this year due to reduced business is nothing to laugh about. s oelker explains, the money raised from St. Cecilia’s fish fries has real impact on the parish community. The primarily panish-speaking parish serves mostly immigrant families who rely on financial assistance to attend the church’s school fish-fry earnings go to those scholarships, as well as other outreach. As im-

portant as that is to the budget, Noelker and his team quickly reali ed last year that they had no choice but to shut down their operation once the reality of COI - set in. “ riginally, we were plugging along full steam ahead, then in mid-March it was, K, no steam ahead and everybody stay put,’” Noelker recalls. “We would have loved to have fish fries, but neither the atmosphere and food nor profits are the ultimate thing. We are at the service of our Lord and the people that our ord brings to us, so safety was first and foremost in everyone’s mind. It seemed like it was the right thing to shut down.”

This year, St. Cecilia, Epiphany of Our Lord and many other parishes around t. ouis are moving forward with their fish fries, though they will look drastically different. hough fish fries are traditionally handled at the parish level, with each individual church having a

Fish fry season will be different this year. | FLICKR/JEFFREY W good deal of autonomy in how they execute their event if they even choose to do one at all — this year the Archdiocese has issued more stringent guidance. nlike city and county restaurants, which are allowed to accommodate indoor diners at reduced capacity, the Archdiocese has mandated that all fish fries must be carry-out or drivethrough only, and is referring its parishes to federal, state and local guidelines on masking, social distancing and other measures meant to slow the spread of the virus.

For Colleen Richmond, a member of the “School of Fish,” which is the nickname given to the organi ers of Christ the King’s fish fry, the current climate and challenge of navigating cumbersome guidelines proved too much. Faced with a setup not ideal for takeout and real concerns about in-person gathering of any sort, she and her team at the niversity City parish decided to cancel for the year. owever, the logistics weren’t the main reason for the decision.

“I think a big part of it is while it is a huge fundraiser for us we earn a significant amount of money — the community aspect is not there,” Richmond says. “This is something a lot of people look forward to every year. They want to come in and hang out in a tent, and we’re not going to have that this year. Honestly, I’m not even

sure how many people would be comfortable coming out even for carry-out some older people want to stay in, which is understandable. I’m a nurse, as is one of the other managers, and the logistics of keeping people safe would not be worth the headache. I don’t want to have to police anybody or put anyone at risk.”

Parishes with larger setups, such as Epiphany of Our Lord, St. Cecilia, St. Ferdinand in Florissant (which only recently decided to move forward with its fish fry this year) and several others, remain confident they can pull off their fries while adhering to pandemic protocols. Still, even as the recipes remain the same and the cod continues to get dunked in the fryer, this year will be much different — and sound much different, too.

“Just the family part will be different,” unyer says. “ sually, we have kids and family running around the gym. We’re going to miss that side of it. It’s good noise, and we’re not going to have it. It’s probably just going to be adults coming in, picking up their orders and leaving very uiet. It’s not going to be forever, though. We will get this under our belts, do what we can do, and next year hopefully we are back to a more normal situation enjoying everybody’s company. his is just the way it needs to be now.” n

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CULTURE

[VIRTUAL EVENTS]

Online Class St. Louis Symphony Orchestra to begin hosting digital concerts Written by

DANIEL HILL

B

y this stage in what at the very least feels like a never-ending pandemic, most people’s opinions on livestreamed music have hardened.

The dalliance with digital events has proven itself a welcome and much-needed nicotine patch of sorts for those whose relationship with live music could fairly be called an addiction. For others, it’s a poor substitute for the real thing, a less-than-immersive facsimile of a formerly favored pastime.

Two factors can cause music fans to swap from one position to the other, though: the caliber of the musicians and the quality of the presentation. And that’s why the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s new foray into digital concerts is welcome news for those in both camps.

In a press release, the SLSO has announced that it will make full concert performances available online for the first time in its year history.

The series will feature six concerts filmed using the ’s high-definition camera system. he first, released last week and available for free, features performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen, Yoshimatsu’s And the birds are still..., and vo k’s Wind Serenade. Subsequent concerts will be made available every two weeks and will cost just apiece.

The concert series is just the latest pandemic-era offering from the SLSO. Last month the symphony launched its SoundLab learning initiative, which aims to teach school-aged kids about the science of music through a series of educational videos featuring SLSO performers. The new digital concerts simply serve to expand the SLSO’s portfolio of online offerings.

“These digital concerts help the SLSO enrich lives through the power of music by making per-

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The St. Louis Symphony is putting world-class performances online. | COURTESY SLSO formances accessible wherever our audiences are,” President and CEO Marie-Hélène Bernard says in a statement. “[Music Director Stéphane Denève] and our exceptional family of musicians and staff — with strong support from our Board of Trustees — have champi-

oned new opportunities to stay connected with our community. We are energi ed by this first step in our growing library of media offerings and we look forward to sharing future plans for our expanding digital portfolio in the coming months.”

Each concert will be available

for viewing at slso.org and will stay online for 30 days. The programs for the first six concerts are currently available at that link as well. ach concert was filmed in front of a (reduced-capacity) live audience between October 22 and November 20.

According to the press release, the symphony plans to make more digital concerts available in the future — hopefully enough to tide music fans over until we can finally once again enjoy the real thing.

“We are so pleased to share these concerts beyond the walls of Powell Hall. Nothing brings us more joy than connecting with people through music,” says Denève. “We hope you enjoy watching these performances as much as we loved creating them for you. We look forward to welcoming audiences back to live concerts as soon as it’s safe to do so.” n

[OPENINGS]

Game On Wheelhouse reopens, Start Bar to follow after city agrees to lift yearlong closure order Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

B

runch for bros is back in business.

The Wheelhouse (1000 Spruce St., 314-833-3653) announced on its social media accounts, as legally obligated, that it has made an agreement with the city, reopening this past weekend.

Just last month, the city health department slapped the “party establishment” and its sister venue Start Bar with an order to shut down until 2022 for what it said were repeated violations of COVID-19 protocols — primarily hosting large crowds of unmasked patrons.

The bars, which have the same owners, had already been shut down twice before during the pandemic. After a third strike, St. Louis Health Department Director Dr. Fredrick Echols brought the hammer down with a yearlong closure.

The bars framed the ban as an attack on business and the personal freedom of its customers.

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The Wheelhouse has reopened — with new restrictions. | DOYLE MURPHY “The City of St. Louis has issued the Wheelhouse and Start Bar a one year business closure for refusing to treat you like children,” read January 22 posts on Wheelhouse and Start Bar Instagram accounts.

In a previous lawsuit the bars filed against the city, owners argued that they couldn’t be the “mask police.” That didn’t turn out to be a particularly persuasive argument as the courts sided with the city. As part of a new consent order negotiated with the city, the bars changed course, agreeing to hire offduty officers to ensure crowds don’t exceed one-third of occupancy.

They’ve also agreed to install additional security cameras so the city can check in on their compliance. If they

break the rules again, the bars agree the city can immediately shut them down for six months.

The bars say they’ll be doing table service only.

“We are asking for your assistance in respecting the City’s orders so that we can continue serving our great customers and to ensure that the 137 employees on our team can continue working to support themselves and their families,” the bars said today in a note to customers.

The Wheelhouse reopened at 7 p.m. on Friday. Start Bar is set to open this week, on February 19. The Midwestern, owned by the same group, also plans to reopen on February 19. It had been ordered shut down for 30 days. n

SAVAGE LOVE PANDEMIC PRESSURES

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a gay guy living in New York in his late twenties. My boyfriend has really been emotionally impacted by the pandemic having been a frontline worker. I think he is suffering from some mild depression or at the very least some intense anxiety so I just want to preface this by saying I completely sympathize with what he’s going through. Before the pandemic we had a really good sex life, but lately he hasn’t been interested in sex at all besides a few assisted masturbation sessions. While I know that these aren’t usual times, I can’t help feeling rejected. Normally, I would suggest opening up the relationship, for the sake of both myself and him, and I think that he might benefit from having sex with some guys where there isn’t an emotional investment. Of course, right now that isn’t an option. I want to be there for him and we otherwise have a solid relationship, but this issue has been making me feel hurt.

I’ve encouraged him to masturbate without me but I do wish he could include me more in his sexual life.

Do you have any other thoughts or advice?

Thanks For Reading As much as I hate to give you an unsatisfactory answer — you aren’t satisfied with what you’re getting at home and you’re not going to be satisfied with what you get from me either — the only way to find out whether his loss of libido is entirely pandemic-related, R, is to wait out the pandemic and see if your sexual connection doesn’t rebound and or if opening up the relationship is the right move for you guys as a couple. ut if you suspect the collapse of your boyfriend’s libido has more to do with what he’s witnessed and endured as a frontline worker than it has to do with you or your relationship, R, therapy will do him more good than sleeping with other guys or masturbating without you. rge him to do that instead.

Hey, Dan: My dad is dying. He had a stroke two days ago and is in a coma with no brain function. My

aunt (his sister) is trying to make me feel guilty for not traveling to see him, even though I’m pregnant and high risk. I would have to take an airplane across the country and multiple public buses to see him. I would have to risk my baby’s life to say goodbye to a man I love with all my heart. She insists that if I don’t, I didn’t love my dad. I’m heartbroken. I keep calling his hospice and they set the phone next to his head so I can talk at him. He was so excited about my pregnancy and I know he would not want me to risk it. But now not only am I grieving my father, I feel guilty and selfish. Am I right to be angry? My aunt’s brother is dying. She’s sad.

Everyone is sad. But this is not the first time she has used guilt to try and control others in moments of trauma.

Crying On My Abdomen There has to be someone in your life who would be willing to step in and tell your aunt to go fuck herself. If there isn’t, C M , send me your aunt’s phone and I’ll do it.

P. . I’m so sorry about your dad who is already gone and I’m sorry your kid won’t get to meet their grandfather. nd you have every right to be furious with your aunt for giving you grief when you have all the grief you can handle right now. on’t get on that plane. nd if your aunt never speaks to you again, C M , just think of all the guilt trips she won’t be able to drag you along on in the future.

Hey, Dan: I am a 26-year-old heterosexual girl. After four years with my boyfriend (and with the pandemic on top of it), we started to experience sex issues. It is mainly from my side — I (almost) never get satisfaction out of sex. I’m always enthusiastic about having sex but I don’t feel “involved” and I could literally be solving math problems in my head while we have sex. As the situation is frustrating, I talked to him and suggested that more foreplay could help me stay engaged and enjoy the sex. He was puzzled by my “need for foreplay” to reach orgasm but committed to trying. However, after minimal initial effort, he stopped trying and the limited foreplay ceased. He probably got frustrated by the amount of time I require to “warm up” and his efforts dried up and he began rebuffing me whenever I attempted to

“Should I feel guilty about masturbating when he turns me down?” initiate sex. Recently after he turned my sexual advances down yet again, I decided to masturbate. The result was him being upset and taking offense at my “unpleasant behavior.”

Should I feel guilty about masturbating when he turns me down? I am hurt and very frustrated by this situation.

Masturbation Alone Turns Harsh llow me to decipher the message your pussy is desperately trying to send you, M , as you lay there doing math problems while your boyfriend treats your body like it’s a leshlight “Wouldn’t you rather masturbate alone and in peace than ever have to fuck this asshole again?” Everyone requires a little foreplay, women re uire more than men do, it takes women longer to get off than it takes men five minutes on average for men, thirteen minutes on average for women , and very few women can climax from vaginal intercourse alone. ny straight guy who isn’t willing to do the work provide the necessary foreplay and come through with the non-PIV stimulation or concurrent-with-PIV stimulation re uired to get a woman off doesn’t deserve to have a girlfriend.

M .

Hey, Dan: I’m a 53-year-old gay man and I’ve never been hornier in my life. I really need to guzzle about a quart of jizz right now. I haven’t been dating anyone and the COVID isolation has intensified my loneliness but it’s the lack of D that’s driving me to distraction. The last time I sucked a dick was the afternoon Los Angeles began its first shutdown. Here’s the thing: I just had the first dose of the vaccine and the second is scheduled in a couple weeks. Is it safe to suck someone’s dick who has also had the vaccine? Everything I found on Google only talks about how the vaccine may affect pregnant women. What about us

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cum whores?

Got The Fever For The Flavor Where have you been I predicted at the beginning of the pandemic based on what little we knew about transmission at the time — that we were entering a new golden age of glory holes. wo months later the ew ork City health department was recommending “barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face-to-face contact,” a.k.a. glory holes and that was the harm-reduction advice given by health professionals long before vaccines became available. eeing as you’re vaccinated, your risks are going to be lower. ut to play it safe uild your own glory hole, invite a guy over, tell him to keep his mask on, and avoid close faceto-face by staying on your knees on the other side of that barrier.

Hey, Dan: I wanted to second something you wrote about kinks last week. You said — I’m paraphrasing here — that kinks are hardwired but some people do manage to acquire them. My husband is into rope bondage. I gave it a try a couple of times at the very start of our relationship and for whatever reason being tied up didn’t work for me. We had great vanilla sex and he had a small stable of bondage boys on the side. A few months after the lockdowns began he started to worry about getting rusty. I offered to let him practice on me. I don’t know what changed, Dan, but when he tied me up for the first time in a decade, I was so turned on! At first I thought it was the pot edible, but we’ve done it a bunch of times since, times when I wasn’t high, and I’ve enjoyed it just as much or more. Now I’m the one pestering him to go get the ropes. I somehow acquired his kink and he couldn’t be happier!

Restrictions Of Pandemic Enables Development P.S. I would’ve called in to share our “pandemic sex success story” for your podcast, but my mom and both sisters all listen to the show and they really don’t need to know. hanks for sharing, R P mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savagelovecast.com

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