Riverfront Times, March 9, 2021 by Chava Communications

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THE LEDE

“I would just want them to see the nature in it. See the beauty in it. See the simplicity of it. Just taking that time. Taking that time off for yourself to listen to your insides and to give it a chance to all marinate. Just like a breath. Breath in the good stuff, and you exhale all the bad stuff. It’s an inner exchange.”

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

DOMINIQUE LIGON, PHOTOGRAPHED IN TOWER GROVE PARK ON MARCH 6 riverfronttimes.com

MARCH 10-16, 2021

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The Child Killings of St. Louis

America’s #1 comedy club Delivering Laughs for Over 35 Years

JOSH WOLF

e didn’t know just how timely this week’s cover story about child murders would be, but we sadly weren’t surprised. The number of kids shot dead in St. Louis had already been on the rise for years when freelancer and former RFT staff writer John Tucker returned last year to the city to begin reporting on the issue. Tragically, the problem has only grown worse. One of the young teens Tucker interviewed in 2020 was killed last month. And as we were making final edits, we had to adjust the death toll twice to account for more killings — a nine-year-old struck when gunmen opened fire on his family’s car on Sunday and a teen shot in the back of the head on Monday. It’s hard to comprehend that kind of carnage. Tucker dug into the numbers, traced Missouri’s barely there gun laws, examined the lack of resources devoted to the problem and conducted dozens of interviews. It’s a painful story, but it’s one we need to hear. Now, is not the time to look away. — Doyle Murphy, editor in chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MARCH 11-13

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 Editorial Interns Jack Killeen, Riley Mack

Chelsea Lately • Last Comic Standing My Name is Earl

MICHAEL YO MARCH 26-27

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 Dead Last

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

Why does St. Louis have the worst child murder rate in America?

Joe Rogan Experience • America’s Got Talent “Blasian” Comedy Special

Cover photo of Nunu Swan and above photo of Nunu with brother Donald and mother Trina provided

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HARTMANN Police Board Bungling Hiring police Chief Mary Barton was only one of the board’s mistakes BY RAY HARTMANN

he best defense for beleaguered St. Louis County Police Chief Mary Barton is that she had nothing to do with hiring Police Chief Mary Barton. On the job for slightly more than ten months, Barton’s tenure can charitably be described as a no-good, dirty-rotten experience for all concerned. But it’s the St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioners — not Barton — that owns the curious decision to miscast her in a role for which she’s so obviously ill suited. Last spring, the board inexplicably passed over an obviously more ualified candidate in Lt. Col. Troy Doyle, widely viewed within the department (and on the outside) as the likely successor to retiring Chief Jon Belmar. Doyle is suing the county for race discrimination over having been snubbed for a white candidate with less rank and experience in Barton. Most of the fallout of the police board’s curious move landed upon County Executive Sam Page, whose taped voice made the news — courtesy of Doyle’s lawyer Jerry Dobson — proclaiming to Doyle “the police board will do what I tell it to do” by hiring him. Page could only have wished that he might have dictated “the media will do what I tell it do” in not airing the tape. Sadly for him, the tape aired. For police board members the publicity wasn’t such a bad break at the time, because it de ected attention from their own dubious actions. Now, however, some spotlight might return to the unacceptably reclusive board with the sudden resignation of its chairman, former Judge William Ray Price Jr., halfway through his three-year term. Price was not only appointed by Page, but apparently has been

offered a starring role in Doyle’s lawsuit. Price and fellow Page appointee Michelle Schwerin, a local attorney, were put on the board in November 2019 after taking a meeting with Doyle — at Page’s request — to pre-screen his candidacy for chief, the lawsuit suggests. If that’s true, it was both inappropriate for Page to arrange such a private meeting and for the two of them to take it. Aside from the obvious unfairness to other chief candidates, it suggests a fundamental lack of understanding — or perhaps acceptance — of the police board’s public mission and public accountability. Setting up meetings with business leaders or other allies is one thing; arranging them with incoming members of the official governing board is quite another. Herein lies the problem that is much larger than Barton’s performance, or lack thereof. At a time when there’s no greater need than regaining public trust and providing a sense of accountability to the conduct of the police department, the board is collectively trapped in a loop of secrecy and de ection. The operative word is “collectively” because there’s no evidence that, individually, the police board members are anything less than ualified and honorable good citizens giving of their time for the greater good. But as anyone who understands the dynamics of governing boards can relate, it’s not uncommon for the whole to be far less than the sum of its parts. The good intentions of the commissioners are not in question, but if there’s any commitment to transparency and accountability, not even the shrewdest police detective could uncover it. The most recent example came from Price himself about a month ago in an encounter with Christine Byers, KSDK’s star reporter, over why the board had inexplicably given Barton a $12,000 raise just seven months into a stormy tenure. “Price was unwilling to discuss the board’s reasons for giving Barton a raise with a reporter, or comment on the board’s opinion of her performance as chief,” Byers reported. “ That’s personnel, and I’m not at liberty to discuss it publicly, and that’s something we can’t comment on so thank you very much,’ Price said

before hanging up on a reporter.” That’s right Price hung up on Byers for asking an obvious and proper question. In a nutshell, that tells you all you need to know about the arrogance of this guy, and by extension, a board that would select him as his chairman. No, the reasons behind hiring a police chief are not “personnel” and somehow off limits to the public. Nor are decisions to grant that person a whopping 8 percent raise less than a year after hiring her, in stark contrast to the 2 to 3 percent raises (or none) given to members of her department. In case the good judge forgot, the salaries of police officers are a matter of public record, just like those of all county employees, and decisions regarding raises are very much the public’s business. Just like the people of St. Louis County are entitled to an explanation better than “personal reasons” for the chairman of its police board resigning abruptly for no stated reason halfway through his term in office. Oh, and by the way, multiple sources are telling us that Price’s decision to resign was very related to the department’s ongoing soap-opera drama over “personnel” issues that the public doesn’t get to know about. We’ll get back to you on that one. At least give the police board credit for consistency. This is very much in keeping with its decision to outsource accountability to the business community, and in particular Centene, a company that is far and away Page’s largest campaign contributor. It’s also a company that hired as its security chief former County Police Chief Jon Belmar, widely known in police circles to have had a mutual non-admiration society with Doyle. What could go wrong with any of that? Perhaps the remaining members of the board should take to heart the top-line findings of the report that the business interests had delivered to the county by the private consultants at Teneo Group “In terms of immediate areas of opportunity for improvement, Teneo Risk has identified three major findings 1. The department must improve its crime-fighting methods, and it must better coordinate with

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the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to collaboratively reduce violent crime. 2. There is a racial divide among the department’s employees. While deeply troubling, this divide provides the chief with an opportunity to lead positive organizational and cultural change. . The department must improve its engagement with the community it serves, the government entities it works with, its own employees, and the many and varied media that portray what the department does day-today to serve the public.” Of particular interest here are items 2 and 3. Of course, Barton made her infamous public debut in June by making the jaw-dropping statement that there was no systemic racism in the county police department. Even setting aside the detail that she was empirically wrong — and that her statement came at the height of racial tensions and protests over the murder of George Floyd — Barton’s self-unaware whiffing on an empty net was breathtaking. Rather than own up to the unforced error, Barton responded by largely hiding from the media, pretty much the opposite of “community engagement,” to borrow Teneo’s phrase. But in fairness to her, she is following the lead in this regard of the commissioners who appointed her. Barton achieved the near impossible by making matters worse in a clumsy, belated St. Louis PostDispatch interview last week in which she acknowledged that the community was unreceptive since she uttered her never-retracted initial gaffe. Still, Barton isn’t the real problem, long term. Far more consequentially, St. Louis County has a runaway board of police commissioners that doesn’t know or care about who’s the boss. It isn’t Page or his administration. It isn’t the business community. It’s the people. 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).

MARCH 10-16, 2021

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NEWS

Tishaura Jones addressing supporters on primary night. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

The Primary’s Big Winners — and Losers Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ishaura Jones and Cara Spencer will face each other in the April 6 general election to be St. Louis’ next mayor, but last week’s unprecedented primary was bigger than just the candidates’ individual victories. The election was also an experiment: As the RFT detailed previously, St. Louis’ rollout of approval voting has been shadowed by measures of both anticipation and concern, and no one could predict how voters would behave

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when given the option to approve of “as many” candidates as they wished. One researcher described the March 2 primary as simply “a big unknown.” But as the dust begins to settle, some of those doubts are now clear — a cause for celebration to some, and, for others, a disaster. Winner: Approval Voting The first big uestion of the primary — would St. Louis voters actually “approve” multiple candidates? — was answered shortly after 8 p.m. with the first batch of results released by the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners. At the time, Patrick Lynn, campaign manager for Lewis Reed, was inside S Wires Restaurant Annex in Lafayette S uare, where the campaign’s watch party was just getting started. Standing at a computer set up next to a projector at the front of the room, Lynn pulled up the early results from 3,934 absentee ballots: They

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Cara Spencer easily outpaced Lewis Reed to advance. | COURTESY CARA SPENCER CAMPAIGN showed Tishaura Jones ahead of Reed by less than two percentage points, with Cara Spencer comfortably in third. But what stood out to Lynn was total votes, the “approvals,” numbering some 5,400 — far more than the number of ballots. Working the math out in his head, he said the numbers suggested that about 40 percent of voters were approving multiple candidates. “I’m actually surprised it’s this high. I was thinking it was going to be more like one-third of the people would vote for more than one,” he said, scrolling through the numbers. “I think there’s probably a lot of people who showed up at the polls on primary day and had no idea that you could vote for more than one.” Whether or not voters knew about the new system beforehand, they appeared to embrace it. The final, unofficial results show voters approved an average of 1.56 candidates per ballot.

It was a major victory for the approval voting system, which has never been tested in a city of St. Louis’ size or political complexity. Aaron Hamlin, executive director of the nonprofit Center for lection Science — which has backed local efforts, including those in St. Louis, to institute approval voting systems — tweeted joyfully primary night as the results made it more and more clear that voters had indeed responded to the new system. Hamlin noted that “the progressive vote in St. Louis was not split,” seemingly in reference to the progressive candidates’ performance, with 57 percent of voters approving Tishaura Jones and 46 percent approving Cara Spencer. This wasn’t 2017 all over again. “No voting bloc should have to suffer from vote-splitting,” Hamlin’s tweet continued. “Good luck doing that under the crappy choose-one voting method. More cities need to use approval voting!”

It was a major victory for the approval voting system, which has never been tested in a city of St. Louis’ size or political complexity. Loser: Turnout How bad was St. Louis’ turnout for the primary? With just 22 percent of registered voters showing up, the 44,358 ballots cast in the primary notched a drop of more than 11,000 votes compared to 2017. While this may have been expected given the pandemic, having less than a quarter of your voters show up to choose the city’s next mayor is a bad look. It could also make it more difficult for a future mayor to cite a mandate of the city’s voters if only a sliver of the city can get themselves to the polls. Perhaps, with the mayoral race now simplified to two candidates, the turnout could look very different on April 6 after an additional month of campaigning and public interest — though that doesn’t do much for voters worried about catching COVID-19. Despite vaccine efforts, the virus isn’t going to disappear by the general election next month, but Missouri’s election laws have already moved on: Thanks to the Missouri General Assembly, residents are no longer able to qualify for absentee voting by citing their status as “at risk” for infection, as they were able to do during the November presidential election. Who knows, St. Louis could surprise us with a massive showing. But right now, the prospects for a healthy turnout are not looking great for the next pandemic election. Winner: Virvus Jones On primary night, as a crowd of

off are single moms currently reporters waited for a raising school-age sons — a press conference outside perspective that’s never before Tishaura Jones’ camoccupied the mayor’s office. paign headquarters, VirSpencer and Jones already vus Jones, a former city share policy priorities and comptroller, emerged broadly agree on the city’s need from the interior with a to address public safety, but the joking request for those overlap in this role means that, assembled there. whomever voters choose, the “Is there a Tod Robbernext mayor will be tapped into son here?” he asked the the region’s education system crowd, referencing the in a way that’s familiar to thoueditor of the St. Louis Postsands of families. Dispatch’s editorial page. Kids the same age as Spen“Anybody?” he called cer’s and Jones’ sons are countagain. “Anybody seen ing on schools to ourish and Tod Robberson?” function into the future, and Robberson was not for a city whose government there, but Virvus was is institutionally absent from clearly enjoying the moits school district, having an ment as a vindication active parent arrive on the for his daughter: For years, Tishaura Jones St. Louis voters told Lewis Reed they still don’t want him to be scene couldn’t have happened has sparred bitterly with mayor. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI at a better time. the Post-Dispatch’s editoLoser: Lewis Reed rial page, accusing it, and Robberson in particular, of de- board awarded its endorsements There’s no charm in losing an ploying racism in commentary on to Cara Spencer and Lewis Reed, election, and for Lewis Reed, the multiple controversies involving though not without adding a jab latest defeat marks his third failed her office. irvus has waded into at Tishaura Jones for refusing to run at the St. Louis mayor’s office. this fight as well, spending the participate in the paper’s candi- Yet, whoever the next mayor is, they will have to deal with him as 2021 election repeatedly blasting date forum. As the city’s largest police union, Board of Aldermen president for Robberson on Twitter. For Virvus, however, the vic- the SLPOA endorsement has long at least the next two years. Reed is a skilled and successful tory is about more than just the been seen as a dubious mark satisfaction of seeing his Twitter among the city’s progressives, public official, and you’d have to targets lose face. He is a commit- who revile the association’s ex- be to spend more than two deted cheerleader of his daughter’s tremely revile-able business man- cades in city government, includcareer, and it shows: It’s not often ager, Jeff Roorda. In the associa- ing four terms in the top job above you have a public official’s father tion’s endorsements, featured in the city’s legislative body. In his concession speech, Reed hop on Twitter to wryly debunk its latest newsletter, it described the perception that his daughter Tishaura Jones as an “anti-police urged St. Louisans to come tois “aloof, smug or standoffish” by mayoral candidate” and offered gether and “put aside some of the explaining “she got her wonkiness a guarded endorsement of Lewis differences that constantly divide honest” through an upbringing in Reed. The endorsement gushed at us.” He vowed that he would work the candidacy of Andrew Jones, with the future mayor to improve a politically active household. Quoted in a February 22 Post- describing him as “a breath of St. Louis: “I’m going to work with them Dispatch retrospective on the fresh air” and “unwavering in his just like they were my best friends, “baggage” of old St. Louis politics support of rank-and-file cops.” In the end, though, voters re- and I’m going to support them like in the 2021 election, Virvus said his daughter’s victory wouldn’t jected Reed in favor of the race’s they were my sisters and brothtwo progressives, and Andrew ers, because that’s what we’re gochange his role in her life. “I will do as I have done all my Jones finished with 1 percent ing to have to do, because this is life,” he said. “Whatever I can do of approvals, miles behind both greater than all of us.” Reed’s political future is a crossto help my daughter to be success- Reed and Spencer. It suggests that few voters followed the endorse- roads. While he’s won election ful in whatever she wants to do.” ments’ proposed pairings — if after election for president of the they were even aware of them to Board of Aldermen, his 2019 victoLosers: Endorsements and ry was a nail biter, with less than begin with. Third-Party Candidates 2,000 votes separating him from In light of the doubt swirling in the his two opponents. lead-up to the primary, it’s notable Winner: Single Moms Reed’s performance in the 2021 that two major endorsements, St. Louis is facing a historic educafrom the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tion crisis and calls for a morato- mayoral race doesn’t bode well and St. Louis Police fficers’ As- rium on new charter schools. With for a fourth attempt. According to sociation, appeared to make little that focus on students and young the unofficial results, he failed to people, it shouldn’t go unnoticed win the majority of approvals in difference in the outcome. n The Post-Dispatch’s editorial that both candidates in the run- even a single ward.

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Blunt Bowing Out in 2022 Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

en. Roy Blunt announced on Monday that he’s not going to run for re-election. “After fourteen general election victories — three to county office, seven to the United States House of Representatives and four statewide elections — I won’t be a candidate to the United States Senate next year,” Blunt said in a video. Missouri’s 71-year-old senior senator gave no reason for hanging it up, but the bombshell announcement is sure to open a wild campaign to replace him. Former Missouri state senator Scott Sifton, a Democrat, had already announced plans to challenge Blunt, and ex-Missouri Governor Eric Greitens has been following some sort of weird, multistep plan to resurrect his reputation — most recently suggesting he might challenge Blunt. But Blunt’s exit means the race will be wide open, ensuring more will join the field. In the hours after his announcement, prospective successors began releasing vague statements, just non-committal enough to easily abandon if donors don’t bite. Include Congress-

Search for Jesus Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

ave you seen Jesus? A bronze statue of the sleeping son of man was sawed off its base in front of New Life Evangelical Center and hauled away in a crime that played out in a bizarre series of events this past week. “It was a real shock,” the Rev. Ray Redlich tells the RFT. The caper began on the night of March 2. As the city was tallying votes in the mayoral primary, a resident of the Terra Cotta Lofts on Locust Street in Downtown West spotted someone with a power saw crouched at the base of the sculpture known as “Homeless Jesus,” which features the deity sleeping beneath a blanket on a park bench. With funding from donors, New Life installed the sculpture, a replica of the original by Canadian artist Timothy Schmaltz, about five years ago outside

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Sen. Roy Blunt appeared in front of a dairy barn to announce he’s hanging it up. | SCREENSHOT woman Ann Wagner, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Congressman Jason Smith on the Republican side and Kansas City Mayor Quiton Lucas for the Democratic. Former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, who came within 80,000 votes of upsetting Blunt in 2016 tweeted a polite hell no after Democrats immediately began lobbying for him to make another run. More are expected, given that the 2022 could be a once-in-a generation opportunity for whoever wins. what was then an active overnight homeless shelter. Police say the caller described seeing the suspect and a black pickup truck in front of the statue in the 1400 block of Locust. When officers arrived, they found the 57-year-old man and pickup in the next block. Inside the truck was a gaspowered saw, police say. The man was taken into custody and later released pending the application of a warrant. Three of the bench legs had been sliced, but a rod that bore most of the weight was still in place, Redlich says. It seemed a would-be thief had been thwarted. “We thought that was the end of it,” Redlich says. It wasn’t. On the morning of March 5, staffers were checking the perimeter of the building when they discovered that the sculpture had been completely severed from its base and hauled into the street. Redlich says they tried to drag it back, but it was too heavy. They went inside to figure out what to do next, and when they returned less than fifteen minutes later, it was gone. Redlich says they’ve made a new re-

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An establishment Republican, Blunt was virtually unbeatable, as he modestly noted while recounting every victory. In recent years, he’d played the straight man to Sen. Josh Hawley’s insurgentsummoning careerism. Blunt managed to give enough support to Donald Trump to keep the exPresident from targeting him, but not so much as to earn the full fury of the left. In his video address, Blunt spoke in front of a dairy barn where he said his parents milked cows,

spooling out a parable about hard work and finishing the job. “In almost 12,000 votes in the Congress, I’m sure I wasn’t right every time,” Blunt said, forcing a chuckle. “But you really make that decision based on the information you have at the time.” He wrapped up by thanking his family and supporters. “Most importantly, thanks to Missourians, whether you voted for me or not, for the opportunity to work for you and a better future for our state and our country.” n

The Homeless Jesus sculpture was sawed off its base and stolen. | COURTESY REV. RAY REDLICH port to police. He suspects the March 2 sawing is connected to the subsequent theft, but he can’t say for certain. In fact, police on Monday released surveillance camera images of white truck (as opposed to the black truck described in the initial report) that detectives suspect is tied to the theft. Redlich remains hopeful Homeless Jesus will be found and returned. The

sculpture was meant as a message to anyone who saw it. “We felt that this would be a real witness to the community as far as who Jesus is, what he stands for and that he identifies with the homeless,” Redlich says. New Life is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the return of an intact sculpture. Anyone with information can call the center at 314-421-3020. n

THE BIG MAD The Melania Cup Bad pastors, overpaid unemployment and a law enforcement bill of rights Compiled by

DANIEL HILL

pring has sprung! Following a brutal freeze, the sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them — as is our understanding, anyway. So why are you pacing back and forth in a fury, peering through your window at the brightly lit outside world with your fists clenched tight? Welcome back to the Big Mad, RFT’s weekly roundup of righteous rage. Let’s dive in: Money, then misery: Missouri Governor Mike Parson often invokes the values of “personal responsibility,” but when the state screwed up and overpaid $150 million in unemployment benefits, that well-worn platitude made a sudden heelturn and flipped both middle fingers at people who had the least responsibility for the blunder. Instead of forgiving the payments, Missouri sent more than 46,000 letters demanding hundreds and even thousands of dollars, all while acknowledging the recipients had been given the funds through “no fault of your own.” The Missouri legislature has become, somehow, the only adult in the room, but its proposed legislation would forgive only some of the debts — and as the process of lawmaking progresses through its usual dithers, people are already seeing their wages garnished. It’s amazing what a small conservative government can do when it wants to be a huge jerk. God’s house: In just the latest example of Church: What Are We Even Doing Here, a Malden, Missouri pastor is on leave and in counseling this week after a sermon he delivered in which he chastised the women in his congregation for not being hot or putting out enough went viral on social media. “Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump — I’m not saying that at all,” First General Baptist Church Pastor Stewart AllenClark says in the video. “Most women can’t be trophy wives, but you know, maybe you’re a participation trophy.” He then goes on to refer to women from Mexico as “taco belles” before busting

out the good book in order to promote some good old-fashioned spousal rape. “The wife has no longer all the rights over her body, but shares them with her husband,” he says, quoting a verse from Corinthians. “So whenever she’s not in the mood, dig out your Bible.” Man of God, or Hypeman of the Patriarchy at an open mic night hosted by an incel forum for little league dads? It’s getting hard to tell the difference. The entire boot: Missouri lawmakers are so gung-ho about backing the blue that they’re gunning to add more protections for officers under investigation for misconduct. For indeed, these vulnerable officers, like babes in the woods, wearing naught but flannel sacks and gun belts, are in grave danger — of having their actions scrutinized by their own departments! Senate Bill 26 would alert officers accused of misconduct and force complainants to submit “sworn affidavits” — two details noted by none than St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief John Hayden, who penned a two-page letter to lawmakers eviscerating the bill and concluding that its aim “significantly interferes with our ability to meet the expectations of Missouri residents with respect to holding officers accountable for sustained allegations of misconduct.” The proposed legislation, whose protections have been dubbed a “law enforcement bill of rights” by supporters (apparently the one in the U.S. Constitution just doesn’t cut it anymore) has already been passed by the Missouri Senate and is now in the House’s court. Failure to deliver: In 2019, Missouri officials tried really, really, hard to shut down the state’s sole remaining abortion provider, the Planned Parenthood clinic in the Central West End. Graded by effort alone, they did a great job of terrorizing the clinic’s staff and doctors — they even tracked patients’ periods to expose a non-existing spree of “failed abortions” — but tragically, these totally good faith efforts only managed to trample reproductive rights for most of a year before an administrative judge ruled the state had improperly withheld the clinic’s abortion license. Last month, on February 26, the judge issued a new ruling: Missouri taxpayers will be paying $140,000 in legal fees to Planned Parenthood. Which seems fair! Still, think of what we could have done with that money instead: Why not throw a few bucks into fixing some potholes, or hire military contractors to modify the Blues’ Zamboni with a toasted ravioli launcher? Heck, what if we did something really crazy and hired a public defender or two? The mind reels. n

6 locations in the St. Louis metro area – book an appointment by phone or online. www.plannedparenthood.org/stlouis 1-800-230-PLAN (7526)

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DEAD Why does St. Louis have the worst child murder rate in America?

LAST By John H. Tucker

e was just thirteen, but Clifford “Nunu” Swan III was afraid of death. Three of his cousins had been murdered in the past two years, and, unwilling to be next, Nunu told his older brother Donald about plans to obtain a gun. An ex-weed dealer who’d spent his teenage years dodging northcity trouble, Donald, then twenty, rebuked him. “You don’t need a gun,” he counseled. “You got your hands. ou can fight.” Donald always strived to protect Nunu, the soft-hearted prankster of the family. Neither of their fathers was around, and the older boy helped raise the younger, orchestrating bowling and go-kart outings. When Nunu had questions — like when he wanted to mess around with a girl for the first time or needed a new joke for school — a conversation in Donald’s bedroom ensued. As his kid brother’s rapping skills developed, Donald pledged to be his manager. Their mother toiled as a nurse to support the boys and three

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siblings, but the family rotated through about ten homes, propelling Donald into robbery, a source for clothes and other sundries. He did his first stickup at age twelve with a BB gun before graduating to handguns. After another family funeral, Donald retired his bulletproof vest and abandoned street life. At nineteen, he felt he’d beaten the odds of St. Louis adolescence. That attitude might seem hyperbolic, if not for the realities surrounding him. Since 2012, St. Louis has led America in per-capita child murders by county, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Put another way, Americans under the age of eighteen are eight times more likely to be killed in St. Louis than in the rest of the country. In 2019, the city witnessed thirteen child homicides, the most in a decade — until the tally spiked to seventeen last year. And though it’s only March, eight St. Louis children have already been killed in 2021, including a nine-year-old boy gunned down in a car on Sunday

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in LaSalle Park and a teen shot in the back of the head less than 24 hours later in the West End neighborhood. In St. Louis County, where Nunu’s family recently moved, the situation is similarly grim; the percentage of Black kids killed there ranks twelfth in the country. The local situation mirrors an alarming national pattern: Youth homicides in America have stubbornly risen each year between 2013 and 2019, the last year on government record, save for a slight dip in 2018. And according to the Gun Violence Archive, a well-regarded if less-official national database, child gun killings surged last year. A sense of consternation befell St. Louis two summers ago, after seven children younger than twelve were fatally shot, including a two-year-old and three-yearold. All were Black. Mayor Lyda Krewson offered $25,000 rewards for information on child killings,

while presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke tweeted his concern about dead St. Louis kids. The collective mourning reached another crescendo this past January when a seven-year-old girl was fatally shot while sitting in a parked car in the Central West End. None of the 30 child murders in 2019 and 2020 has been prosecuted. Despite that bloody backdrop, Donald’s reassuring message seemed to resonate with Nunu during their sober conversation in the summer of 2019. “As long as you got me, you safe,” Donald promised. “You’re not gonna die.”

hree weeks later, Nunu’s mother, Trina Houshmand, got a call from her panicked daughter: “There was a shooter. Can’t no one find unu.” Houshmand was confused; her eighth-grade son had just called from her mother’s Spanish Continued on pg 14

Nunu’s mother Trina Houshmand and older brother Donald lean on each other. | JOHN H. TUCKER

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his house after getting shot twice in the stomach. “That ain’t nothing no kid want to grow up around,” he said. “Every little noise had me jumping. It shows you how fast you could straight be gone.” Asked if it was normal for thirteen-year-olds to have guns, he seemed astonished by the question. “Half of St. Louis have guns! It’s so pitiful how anyone can get a gun. And it ain’t no little guns. It’s assault ri es.” Eric Harris of the Urban League, who became Teshawn’s mentor, called him a kid “with a good head on his shoulders” who was forced to adapt to the “war zone” surrounding him. Not long ago, Teshawn purchased a Glock 17 and a Taurus 40 from friends. “I used to play sports,” he re ected. “ ow I look over my back every five or ten minutes. I’m only fifteen. Why do I have to look over my back?” Teshawn’s interview with the RFT occurred last year. Last month, while trading guns with another teenager, he was shot dead.

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Village apartment complex asking permission to walk to the store for a cupcake. But there had been gunshots, her daughter explained, and Nunu wasn’t answering his phone. By the time Houshmand arrived at the complex, police had cordoned off the pavement. Later, at the hospital, a doctor appeared with grave news: Nunu had been fatally shot in the head. Houshmand’s blood pressure rose to dangerous levels, prompting medical staff to sedate her in a room next to Nunu’s. Just beforehand, Donald was speeding to the hospital. If Nunu can just see me, he’ll stay alive, he thought. Upon hearing the news, he dropped to the ground. For months afterward, he had ashbacks of Nunu lying lifeless on a hospital bed. It wasn’t supposed to be my little brother. I grew up protecting him. Two days after the murder, St. Louis organizers staged a Mothers March, honoring the local children killed so far that year. When Nunu’s name was read aloud, Houshmand wailed as her body quivered on the ground. When he died, Nunu became part of a numbing national narrative. Not only are child killings rising across America, but the ages of victims are trending younger. Between 2015 and 2019 there was a 19 percent increase among thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds compared to the previous four-year period, according to an RFT analysis. For Black Americans, the increase was 35 percent. (Black children are eight times more likely to die from homicide than white children.) After decades where the leading cause of death for American kids was a car crash, gun deaths (including suicides) eclipsed them in three out of the last four years on record. Assessing the root causes, many experts cite a lack of national research funding. In the decade beginning in 2008, the U.S. government spent just $597 per death in child firearm injury prevention research, through a paltry 32 grants, according to a recent Health Affairs study. “A thirtyfold increase … or at least $37 million per year, is needed for research funding to be commensurate with the mortality burden,” the study concluded. “We’ve abandoned children to this disease,” says University of Michigan Professor Rebecca Cunningham, a physician and the study’s lead author. “We spend billions of dollars on cancer funding for children, which has led to

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Teshawn Ford (left) with his mentor Eric Harris of the Urban League. | COURTESY ERIC HARRIS cures, but we have chosen not to address this problem, and that’s led to devastating consequences.” Last year, St. Louis Children’s Hospital treated 150 kids for severe gunshot wounds — far exceeding recent history’s previous record of 97 in 2008, according to Dr. Martin Keller, the hospital’s trauma medical director. The situation, he says, has led burnt-out colleagues to quit. “The number seems to be rising each year. It’s frustrating, it’s exhausting, and in our minds it’s something completely unnecessary. “These are not children getting cancer or being born with a defect that can be fixed,” he adds, noting that female victims are increasingly common. “We’re just fixing holes that bullets are creating. We’re not preventing anything.” Just as gun victims are getting younger in St. Louis, so too are kids who possess firearms, through purchase, trade or diversion from a legal owner — a clear cultural shift that’s occurred within the last decade. “The youngest I had contact with was ten years old,” recalls Andre Smith, a former St. Louis police detective who retired in 2018 to become a political science professor at Harris-Stowe State University. In poorer neighborhoods, he adds, “it’s easier for these young kids to get a hold of a gun than a computer.” Most often, children obtain guns out of simple fear. James Clark, vice president of public safety

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and community response for the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, sums things up with an anecdote. While guest lecturing in a fourth-grade classroom, he asked how many students heard regular gunshots at night. “All their hands went up without hesitation,” Clark recalls. “I might as well have asked, ‘Who here likes ice cream?’” One child told Clark, “When I hear shooting outside, my mama come lay on top of me.” Then two other students said their mothers did the same. The day before Clark recounted that story, a thirteen-year-old boy’s body had been discovered in East St. Louis. “If you’re a thirteen-year-old boy,” Clark says, “you look at that and say, ‘I’m thirteen. I could get killed. I gotta get me a gun.’” Judge Sandra Farragut-Hemphill, who presides over juvenile cases for St. Louis County, summarizes the sentiment succinctly. For many thirteen-year-olds who come through her courtroom on gun charges, “their childhood in many ways has been stolen from them.” That observation applies to north-city resident Teshawn Ford. Four years ago, when he was eleven, a cousin was locked in a car and murdered, Teshawn recalled in an interview. That led to a retaliation, which prompted another retaliation, and Teshawn’s house was riddled with bullets. At age twelve, he watched one victim stumble inside

n the days following Nunu’s murder, police charged local eighteen-year-old Jabari Lowery with the killing. According to Houshmand, Lowery mistook Nunu for another teenager with whom he had a beef and Nunu was an innocent bystander. Lowery pleaded not guilty. (In a phone call from jail, Lowery confirmed that unu was innocent, but he maintained that he wasn’t the killer. His next court date is April 12.) Inside Houshmand’s home four months after the killing, her five-year-old daughter, Jasmine, bounces around the kitchen wearing pink stretch pants and a giggly smile. Jasmine was at the scene of the murder, and her brother’s death confused her. During meals, she’d set a plate of food in front of Nunu’s empty chair — “We gotta call God and tell him to wake him up.” Once, Jasmine summoned Houshmand to the TV, where a video portrayed a scene of a mother crying over a dead son. “Mama, you’re on TV,” she declared. Houshmand explained to Jasmine that her brother was living with angel wings in Nunuland. On an afternoon last spring, Houshmand, who is 39, is preparing for a visit from Valarie Dent, the leader of a support group called St. Louis Mothers in Charge, which she founded after her two sons were fatally shot in 2014. Her organization provides outreach to mothers grieving murdered children, found through news reports and law enforcement referrals.

She makes house calls to help women communicate with family members find therapists manage prosecutors, detectives and court delays schedule nail-salon appointments and simply get out of bed. “We can explain there’s life after losing a child,” she says. Dent and a co-member, Sharon, arrive at Houshmand’s house wearing Black “Mothers in Charge” T-shirts. Dent had prepared a gift bag containing bath sponges and bombs, body wash, foot pads, a scented candle, a resource directory, a journal and a therapeutic eye mask. “What a cutie ” says Sharon as the women pass around photos of unu. When Houshmand begins to cry, Dent sits next to her, hip to hip, and rubs her back. “ our body just goes numb,” says Dent, dabbing her own eyes. The women discuss minute details only they can know the daytime apparitions the still-hanging clothes in their sons’ bedrooms the misplaced guilt they put on themselves the emptiness of holidays the small, daily reminders of lives lost. “I could go up to the third oor and still smell Steve’s scent,” says Dent. “ h my God, exactly,” says Houshmand, noting that when-

ever she sees a boy on a bike, she thinks it might be unu. As the women chat, Donald appears through the front door. Since his brother’s killing, Donald has adopted unu’s dream of becoming a rapper, hibernating in unu’s room to scribble lyrics. “When I rap,” he says, “I feel like I’m in a box with my brother.” His

And yet, as Donald watches the screen, a tear streams down his own cheek.

he issue of child killings is complicated by the fact that there are two categories of victims those who are targeted, and those who are innocent bystanders. The latter

“Half of St. Louis have guns! It’s so pitiful how anyone can get a gun. And it ain’t no little guns. It’s assault rifles.” first video, “ ot Alone,” garnered a million ouTube views in days. Donald offers to play a couple of his videos for the visitors on the living room T . “I hold my mama when she cryin’,” he raps in “ ot Alone.” “Some say she trippin’, she see visions, unu in that kitchen.” Donald composed his second song, “Die Today,” specifically for Houshmand, with hopeful lyrics meant to ease his mother’s sadness “Heaven my home, so y’all be strong ain’t gotta cry no more.”

category, which incites more collective outrage, might be the result of higher firepower of guns on the street, resulting in errant bullets fired through barriers like walls and car windows. Semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity maga ines “are becoming distressingly common,” says University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld. “They can spray an area of bullets in a matter of seconds. And children in the area become collateral damage.”

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Alderman Jeffrey Boyd, a military veteran who represents the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood, echoes that assessment “Kids have AR-1 s and semi-automatic ri es with 0 and 0 rounds in a clip. If you got a nine-round clip, you’re gonna be deliberate with your aim. If you got 0, all you’re gonna do is spray. And that’s why these kids are getting killed. They get caught in the spray.” But it’s the other category — the targeted victims — that some have become inured to, opening a debate on the root causes of youthon-youth shootings. Steven hmer, chief juvenile judge of St. Louis, believes many of these shootings are impulsive, perhaps even accidental. Some incidents might begin as common disputes between teenagers, “But put a gun in that scenario, and it fires, well, there’s no tomorrow,” he posits. “I don’t think kids reali e this. My gut feeling is that they don’t really know what a gun can do. I doubt they’ve shot it. They might not even know it’s loaded. They think, h, I just got to point a gun at someone and that’s all I got to do.’” Another driver of youth gun crime is the underlying trauma of community violence, says Sarah Johnson, director of juvenile

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defense and policy for the Missouri State Public Defender System. Many of her clients, she says, “recount examples of being victims of gun violence themselves, or witnessing gun violence perpetrated on their friends or family members. This trauma oftentimes goes unaddressed.” (Teshawn Ford had said as much in an interview last year. “At first I was doing good. Then at eleven I started getting traumatized.”) All that said, experts say the number-one reason children are shot in St. Louis is the same reason adults are shot: Missouri gun laws, which are among the most lax in the nation. In the past fifteen years, the state legislature has dropped requirements for permits, safety training and background checks. In the three years following the 2007 repeal of license requirements, Missouri gun homicides increased 25 percent. Now, the state owns the third-highest gun death rate in the country. Every ten hours, a Missourian is killed by a gun, a reality concentrated in St. Louis, where in a recent year 40 percent of the state’s homicides occurred. “St. Louis is always on our radar.” says Michael-Sean Spence, director of community safety initiatives for Everytown for Gun Safety. The data become more dire when accounting for race. From 2014 to 2017, the rate of Black Missourians killed by guns increased 64 percent. Black Missourians die from homicide at triple the national average among their American peers, far outpacing every other state. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner calls the combination of gun access and systemic racism “a perfect storm for hopelessness.” In the most cutting assessment of Jefferson City, Alderman Boyd adds, “I think it’s a conspiracy. I think they want Black people to kill each other. White people aren’t doing it in their communities. But the more guns you put in the inner cities, the more carnage. I think it’s a social engineering plot against Black people by the state of Missouri general legislature.”

ach time Donald steps into a recording booth, he prays for unu’s guidance. In the year following his brother’s death, his music has exploded; he’s already released nine songs under the stage name Head, and “Not Alone” has eclipsed 6 million

ouTube views. In the process, Donald has learned the concept of universal truth. In the immediate aftermath of Nunu’s killing, he felt like no one understood his pain. But in the months that followed, acquaintances told him that they, too, had been haunted by deathdispatched demons. “Not Alone” thus became an elegy on loss and empathy. “You can be surprised how many lives you can save by saying something they were going through,” he says, recounting a story of a suicidal thirteen-yearold from Australia who messaged him to say that his verses helped him persevere. Houshmand, too, is doing better, though George Floyd’s murder last summer — the image of a Back body lying on the pavement — triggered emotions. Throughout last year, she yearned for a new chapter, in another city, one with lots of palm trees. “I feel like everyone in St. Louis got a gun,” she says. A few months ago, she made good on her quest, moving with her husband and two daughters to California. Donald, too, is tired of St. Louis, a place where he feels he’s eyed with suspicion, where guns are drawn on him, where his car is searched by police and life is “a punch in the face.” Inside their old kitchen, where Nunu liked to feed his kid sister Jasmine extra-large portions of Fruity Pebbles, Houshmand comments on the emotional tug of Donald’s songs “I can feel his pain and scars,” she says. She launches into a verse: “Tomorrow not promised …” Donald, seated next to her, joins in unison “ ow I see progress ” “You can help heal people,” Houshmand tells him. It’s unclear whom she’s referring to. Is it her ther St. Louisans Suicidal teens in Australia r is it Donald himself — a vehicle for his own reconciliation During an earlier conversation, Donald summarized solemnly his thoughts on death and fraternity. “I was the one doing all the bad stuff that could have gotten me killed. But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. It was my little brother. He was a good kid.” Even after death, Donald has preserved his instinct to protect Nunu, a fact evidenced during the house visit by Mothers in Charge leader Valarie Dent. After Donald played his music video honoring his brother, Houshmand began to cry. At this, Donald walked over to his mother and embraced her. “I know he K,” he assured her. “He safe.” n

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AWARD-WINNING FLAVOR

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CAFE

Originally designed to lure diners inside, The Banh Mi Shop’s sandwiches turned out to be perfect to-go meals when the pandemic hit. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

Breaking Bread The Banh Mi Shop dazzles with thoughtful and delicious Vietnamese cuisine Written by

CHERYL BAEHR The Banh Mi Shop 567 Melville Avenue, University City; 314390-2836. Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (Closed Monday.)

rowing up, Jimmy Trinh ate banh mi almost every day. His parents, Vietnamese immigrants who also owned a restaurant, made sure that his lunchbox was always packed

with pate-stuffed and pickled-vegetable-adorned baguettes before they sent him off to school each morning. Sometimes, they were topped with his mom’s fragrant lemongrass chicken or leftover beef stew they’d had the night before — a meal that, by today’s standards, would make him the envy of every little gourmand in the cafeteria. He hated it. Trinh laughs when he recalls unwrapping his sandwich and being perpetually disappointed that it wasn’t bologna on white bread, remembering a desire for American-style processed meat that had little to do with his food’s taste and more to do with wanting to fit in. However, that negative perception of his family’s cuisine would change after Trinh graduated from high school and took what was supposed to be a threeweek trip to Vietnam — one that turned into a yearlong sojourn into the food of the homeland he left when he was a baby. There,

he gravitated to the banh mi and developed a passion for the sandwich that he hasn’t since shook. After returning to the United States from his trip, Trinh was determined to open a banh mi shop of his own, even as his parents attempted to dissuade him. As he saw it, the food business was in his blood, having grown up sleeping on the rice bags at his parents’ restaurant. Though his mom and dad hoped that experience — and watching them work seventeenhour days — would persuade him to take another path, Trinh jumped into the industry at the now-shuttered Tani Sushi Bistro, where he found success for a decade as its sushi chef and general manager. Trinh left Tani in late 2019, determined to make his dreams of opening a banh-mi-focused restaurant a reality. After searching neighborhoods throughout the St. Louis area, he found the Delmar Loop to be the perfect fit for the fast-casual

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concept he wanted to run and secured a spot on Melville in a small storefront that was most recently the Indian restaurant Taj Mahal. He freshened up the space with a coat of soothing gray paint, blackand-white photographs of Vietnam and some bright red stools (a nod to the typical street-food stall seating he noticed throughout southeast Asia), then opened the doors to the Banh Mi Shop on February 25, 2020, prepared to shake hands with passersby and welcome guests into his restaurant. What he wasn’t prepared for was a global pandemic. As Trinh explains, his vision for the Banh Mi Shop was of an old-school, mom-and-pop-style quick-service spot where he would get to know his guests through in-person interactions. He didn’t have a phone or a website — he didn’t want them. Instead he hoped his restaurant would be a place that people would wander into and learn about by word of mouth.

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The restaurant’s signature sandwich, the “Saigon Classic,” should be the standard by which other banh mi are judged.

BANH MI SHOP Continued from pg 19

For a few weeks, that’s exactly what he had. Business was robust, and Trinh was busy but settling into the rhythm of running the shop. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit St. Louis, his world was turned upside down, and, like every other restaurateur in town, he had to quickly adapt. He set up an online ordering system, got a phone and readied himself to serve his guests the food he was so proud of, even if he had to do so differently than he’d intended. The outside observer would have no clue that the Banh Mi Shop, in its current form, was not how it was originally intended. Trinh absolutely nails the takeout experience this moment in time calls for, beginning with his seamless online ordering system. Clear, and with every option and modification laid out so that the simple click of a button can customize your order, it’s a pleasant ordering experience that puts you at ease, before you even get to the restaurant, that he’s going to get things right. That feeling is confirmed by his equally user-friendly curbside pickup experience, the Banh Mi

Banh mi come on a toasted baguette with pickled daikon and carrots, cilantro, jalapeños, cucumber and housemade aioli. | MABEL SUEN Shop’s only option for grabbing its food at this time. When you order online, the platform prompts you to enter in your vehicle information so that, when you pull up to the designated pickup point, Trinh can quickly get your order to you. On my visits, he was at my car window for an initial greeting within a minute, and I had my food in less than five. Trinh is equally thoughtful about packaging, presenting his food as if it is a special gift to be

unwrapped and enjoyed, rather than simply torn into — and when you bite into it, you realize that this is indeed the case. His Vietnamese croissant is wrapped up like a gorgeous bouquet of buttery pastry, head cheese, pate, ham, housemade aioli and pickled vegetables. He leaves the top open so the cone-shaped sandwich can be enjoyed on the go without the impossibly buttery croissant’s aky layers crumbling all over the place. It’s as carefully thought

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out as it is delicious. The restaurant’s namesake sandwiches are also well packaged for takeout. Instead of simply wrapping them in butcher paper secured with tape, he forms the paper so that the top is open and places a rubber band around the middle, so that his guests can comfortably eat while walking down the street. It’s a nice touch, considering how perfectly aky the bread is. Trinh worked with Vitale’s Bakery to develop a baguette that is soft and chewy in the center and encrusted with crumbly golden layers on the exterior. It’s a wonderful canvas

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BANH MI SHOP Continued from pg 21

for such fillings as savory, soygla ed grilled beef, which lights up the back of the palate with just a whisper of heat, or his mom’s special lemongrass chicken, its oral and warmly spiced rub a delightfully perfumed accent to pieces of succulent chicken thigh. The restaurant’s signature sandwich, the “Saigon Classic,” should be the standard by which other banh mi are judged. Head cheese, pate and ham are slicked with creamy aioli pi uant pickled carrots, daikon and jalapeno cut through the richness like a built-in Wet- ap for your mouth. Though sandwiches were the inspiration for the Banh Mi Shop, Trinh hits the mark with other dishes as well. His noodle bowls are just as well executed for takeout as the sandwiches, with vegetables and noodles layered in the to-go box in a deconstructed fashion so that you can assemble it when you are ready to eat. Curry chicken is rubbed in warm but not overbearing spices, and the barbecue pork version had just a suggestion of lemongrass. Both were served with a funky and

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Chef-owner Jimmy Trinh’s post-high school trip to Vietnam ignited his love of banh mi. | MABEL SUEN sharp sauce made with citrus, lime and fish sauce that is served separately in a to-go ramekin so that it doesn’t spill out everywhere. His knack for details is matched only

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by his skill in cooking. Spring rolls, tailor-made to be handheld, are another hit. The rolls are so massive and overstuffed with jumbo shrimp and

barbecue pork that they are almost bulging out of their rice paper wrapper. The accompanying sauce — a hoisin and peanut concoction — hits the perfect balance of sweet and savory, with the peanut offering more of an undertone than taking over. Trinh is frank about the perils of opening the Banh Mi Shop during the pandemic. Though he has social media tools at his disposal, the whole point of the restaurant was to be a word-of-mouth place that students and Loop pedestrians could stumble upon. He had visions of standing at the open door, engaging with people as they passed by and encouraging them to wander inside where they might chat as they waited for him to prepare their food. He laughs when he thinks about the year, saying that he is almost done crying himself to sleep at night. Hopefully, that will get better. The only tears that should be shed at the Banh Mi Shop are ones of joy at that stunning croissant.

The Banh Mi Shop BBQ pork and shrimp spring rolls ........ $5.95 Vietnamese croissant ........................... $7.95 Saigon Classic ...................................... $7.95 • Carryout only / curbside pickup

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

Cool Under Pressure Brasserie by Niche’s Catlin O’Toole thrives in the chaos of COVID-19 Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

hen Catlin O’Toole talks about her love for hospitality, the conversation quickly turns to her dad. As a kid, it was the norm for her to watch as he generously entertained guests and welcomed people into their home for food, drink and conversation. It made a lasting impact on her. “My dad was the ultimate giving, home-hospitality kind of guy,” O’Toole says. “He’s just the kind of person who puts a drink in your hand once you get two steps in the door he’d keep filling your plate with food and give you some to take home. He always cooked a lot, too, so I grew up cooking with him and loving food. He really loves food, and I do too, so it was a way to connect with him.” As assistant general manager at Brasserie by Niche (4580 Laclede Avenue, 314-454-0600), O’Toole draws upon those foundational experiences to take care of her guests, something that has been equally challenging and rewarding over the past year. It’s a huge change from the environment she worked in when she started out in the business at her uncle’s restaurant and bar. There, she cooked, washed dishes, worked the cash register and fell absolutely in love with the energy of a packed room. She knew that this was where she belonged. O’Toole did not immediately pursue the restaurant business as a career, however. Instead, she went to college for psychology, not quite clear on what she wanted to do with her degree. She traces one part of that uncertainty to her free spirit and the other to her genuine love of the hospitality industry.

When COVID-19 came to St. Louis, Catlin O’Toole sprung into action. | ANDY PAULISSEN One thing that was clear was that she wanted to be in restaurants. While in school, she worked at places like the storied Jimmy’s on the Park, and she could not shake the feeling that this was what she was meant to do. O’Toole left St. Louis to live with her aunt in California, where she continued to make her living in the hospitality business. After she returned home to St. Louis, she stayed on that track before landing as a hostess at Brasserie. For seven years, she worked her way up at the restaurant, jumping at every opportunity to go above and beyond her regular job tasks to prove her mettle. That spirit would serve her — and the restaurant — well when the COVID-19 pandemic upended St. Louis’ service industry last March. Though she had not yet been promoted to her current role, O’Toole sat in on management meetings where it was clear, even well before the March shutdown, that things were going to get bad. O’Toole sprung into action. “We were all like, ‘Oh no. This is happening,’” O’Toole recalls.

“When it all went down, I was helping people get on unemployment and trying to do everything I could to figure out how to help. I was asking everyone, ‘What can I do, how can I help, and what do we need?’ I thrive in chaos, and that side of me just took over. I guess it’s a fight or ight response We need to survive, so what are we going to do?” In the course of the pandemic chaos, O’Toole was promoted to assistant general manager, a role that has allowed her to help guide the Brasserie ship through this tumultuous, pandemic-induced moment. As the restaurant slowly reopened for carryout, then inperson dining, she’s been mindful of her role that balances safety and service. She works hard to create an environment where people can feel like they have a momentary escape from the outside world, because they feel safe with Brasserie’s protocols. Moving forward, she see’s that as her ongoing role — and the ongoing role of service, in general. “I feel like hospitality is all about empathy, but also intuition

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too,” O’Toole says. “I think it’s just being able to read people’s boundaries. Some people want to come out and celebrate whatever occasion they are celebrating, but they are still scared. You can feel people being more tense, and our job is to try to meet them where they are. Every table and guest has different expectations, so having a strong, empathetic staff that you can trust to tell you what’s going on is super important. We’re trying to make people feel as comfortable as possible. When they are coming in they are trying to escape whatever is going on on the outside, and, for the most part, people are just happy to be there. It’s given people a little more gratitude that they are able to come out.” O’Toole took a moment to share her thoughts on the state of the St. Louis food and beverage industry, her love for music and why a little kindness — and a lot of mac and cheese — will go a long way. What is one thing people not many people know about you that you

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wish they did? Maybe some people do know this, but I also write music, play guitar and sing in a band called O’Ivy. The other is that I’ve been alcohol free for over two years! What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? Drinking hot tea in the morning, cuddling my cats and soaking in a warm bath. Who is your St. Louis food crush? So many. Melanie Meyer, owner of Tiny Chef, is one of my best friends and also happens to cook for me on a regular basis. I love so many restaurants though. Banh Mi So, Pho Grand and Cafe Mochi will forever be my favorites. I love Yaqui’s pizza, too. Indo is incred-

ible for a fancy date night. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? I would say rice because it’s a great supporting dish that can highlight the main ingredient but versatile enough to be great on its own. Plus, like me, it’s best when cooked under pressure! If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing? Playing music, but since it doesn’t always pay the bills, probably voice-over acting or pet grooming. As a hospitality professional, what do people need to know about what you are going through? It’s very tough. Working with the public in a pandemic can be risky and stressful, so a little extra kindness and appreciation from guests goes a long way. What do you miss most about

the way you did your job before COVID-19? Needing to be extra mindful of COVID safety protocols at all times adds an extra layer of stress to the job. I miss the days when everyone’s health and safety didn’t have to be so forefront in my mind. What do you miss least? I don’t miss the super late nights. The 11 p.m. curfew has been nice! What have you been stress-eating/drinking lately? My comfort food is deluxe boxed mac and cheese, and let’s just say I’ve been needing lots of comfort lately. I also love binging on salty stove popped popcorn with olive oil and nutritional yeast. What do you think the biggest change to the hospitality industry will be once people are allowed to return to normal activity levels? Although it’s not nearly the

same experience as dining in a restaurant, I think people still really enjoy the convenience of picking up a nice meal curbside. With so many restaurants having to pivot to those business models, I imagine take-out will likely continue to be a more normal practice even after more restrictions are lifted. What is one thing that gives you hope during this crisis? I think there is a lot to be hopeful about. It was remarkable to watch so many kind people donate to our employee relief fund when everything was so uncertain. Also, seeing more politicians elected into office that align with empathy and the way I think makes me very hopeful. And more recently, talking with people that have received the vaccine and feel safe again is truly uplifting. n

[SHORT ORDERS]

The Extra Mile 9 Mile Garden food-truck park reopens with live music, movies and more Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

ast year, Missouri’s first foodtruck park, 9 Mile Garden (9375 Gravois Road, Affton; 314-390-2806), launched on July 3, smack-dab in the middle of the pandemic summer, its season defined by shutdowns, ever-changing local guidelines and a dining public not quite sure how to navigate even an outdoor gathering spot. Still, under chef and restaurateur Brian Hardesty’s steady hand, the venue was able to find its footing. This month, 9 Mile Garden launches its second season with the goal of again providing the St. Louis region a pandemic-friendly entertainment option. Benefiting from the COVID-19 safety protocols Hardesty and company have developed over the course of the last year, the food-truck park will offer everything from live music to movie nights — and, of course, delicious eats. “We are excited to kick off our 2021 season with a killer lineup

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9 Mile Garden’s new season will feature plenty of entertainment options alongside its delicious offerings. | COURTESY 9 MILE GARDEN of food trucks and special events planned out,” says Hardesty in a press release announcing the new season. “There has never been a better time to get outside, in a socially distant environment, and enjoy the incredible features we have in the garden, like our 26-foot jumbo screen, live music and family-focused entertainment.” This season’s lineup of trucks includes Doggie Mac’s, Havana’s Cuisine, Sugarfire 6 , This That, Truck Norris, Truckeria Del Valle,

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Wayno’s International and Zacchi Truck, with more names likely to join the roster as the year progresses. The venue will also offer entertainment every night of the week, such as Monday and Thursday evening trivia nights, Wednesday and Friday night live music and a Sunday brunch-time artisan makers’ market. In addition to the outdoor activities, the garden includes a modern draft house, the Canteen, where guests can enjoy beer, wine, cocktails and complimentary games

like air hockey and cornhole. 9 Mile Garden is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. Food-truck service typically runs from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. for lunch service and from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. for dinner. Sunday brunch is offered from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sanitation stations are located throughout the facility, tables are spaced a minimum of twelve feet apart, and all patrons and staff are required to wear masks. For the latest information, visit 9milegarden.com. n

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[SHORT ORDERS]

High Spirits The Gin Room’s Natasha Bahrami has been inducted into the Gin Hall of Fame Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

he international spirits spotlight is focused on St. Louis, thanks to Natasha Bahrami. The acclaimed bar professional has been named to the Gin Hall of Fame, the highest honor bestowed upon anyone who works in the category of gin. Bahrami was presented with the honor on February 25 at the annual Gin Magazine World Gin Awards, which were held virtually this year. She is the first and only American to have ever been inducted into the Gin Hall of Fame and is one of only nine people in the world to hold the honor. The three other inductees who received the recognition alongside Bahrami are Lesley Gracie, mas-

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Natasha Bahrami is the toast of the international spirits world. | COURTESY THE GIN ROOM ter distiller at Hendrick’s Gin; Jean Sébastien Robicquet of France’s Maison Villevert; and spirits writer and judge David T. Smith. “I find such joy working to ex-

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pand the knowledge and experience of the gin spectrum, and I am absolutely humbled by this accolade,” Bahrami says in a press release announcing the induc-

tion. “For the past seven years it’s been my privilege to help ignite a movement for gin appreciation. The EU and UK are rightfully considered powerhouses of the gin world, but the United States is one of the most powerful consumer markets for gin, and that’s growing every day.” Bahrami got her start in the hospitality business at an early age, growing up in her parents’ beloved restaurant, Cafe Natasha’s. After leaving St. Louis to pursue a career outside of the industry, she returned to her hometown with a passion for gin and a determination to make her city a major player in the international gin scene. She founded the Gin Room (3200 South Grand Boulevard, 314-771-3411), a gin-focused bar adjacent to Cafe Natasha’s on South Grand, in 2014, and launched Ginworld, the largest gin festival in the United States, as well as an educational platform for the spirit. She was also recently named as director of gin curation at the Museum of Distilled Spirits. Currently, the Gin Room is offering to-go cocktails as it prepares to reopen its dining room and patio. Bahrami is also offering in-person service, with limited hours and by reservation only. To book a time, head to bit.ly/3qlTQdV. n

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CULTURE [IN MEMORIAM]

For Those Who Paved the Way St. Louis is naming a street in honor of local blues icon Kim Massie Written by

JAIME LEES

im Massie was a true queen of St. Louis soul and blues. When Massie passed away last fall, an already-devastated St. Louis music scene was brought to its knees. At the time, everybody swore that her life and legacy would continue to be celebrated, and that promise has been kept: The city is naming a street after her. Kim Massie Way will be unveiled during a presentation on April 17. Massie’s birthday, April 19, has been declared Kim Massie Day. The new Kim Massie Way will begin at the intersection of South Broadway and Cerre Street and will run through the stretch

[SPLITSVILLE]

At the Crossroads The Bottle Rockets, Americana torchbearers for 28 years, have broken up Written by

DANIEL HILL

he Bottle Rockets, the Festusborn, St. Louis-based band of alt-country stalwarts some 28 years running, have broken up. The news came via a statement

Kim Massie, who passed in October, lives forever in our hearts. | PRESS PHOTO

award-winning karaoke queen before scoring legit gigs singing with St. Louis blues icon Oliver Sain,” we wrote when she passed. “She hustled and struggled for decades to become one of the most respected and trusted artists in town. You knew if you hired Massie for a show that she would give it her all.” Mayor Lyda Krewson will present the proclamation to Massie’s family during the sign unveiling and proclamation ceremony at 2:30 p.m. April 17, a Saturday, at the intersection of South Broadway and Gratiot Street. The ceremony will be open to the public, with the city’s COVID-19 guidelines and restrictions in place. “We know that she would deeply appreciate this honor, love and above all else the respect she always desired and ‘dreamed’ of,” Autumn Massie, daughter of Kim Massie, says in a statement. “The entire Massie family are so thankful and grateful for this honor that helps her legacy live on in the beautiful city she called home forever.” Massie joins a proud collection of musical luminaries who have had streets named after them in the places they called home, including Bob Dylan Way in Minnesota, Flaming Lips Alley in Oklahoma, Sam Cooke Way in Illinois, Dave Grohl Alley in Ohio, Joey Ramone Place in New York and Run-DMC JMJ Way in New York. n

of South Broadway where Massie performed for years in St. Louis’ legendary “Blues Triangle” — an area with a trio of blues clubs that ruled the scene for decades, including Beale on Broadway (which closed in 2019), Broadway Oyster Bar, and BB’s Jazz, Blues and Soups. Massie was a legend in St. Louis

and beyond, able to harness both her unrivaled singing voice and her magnetic charm to thrill any audience in front of her. In addition to hosting intimate bimonthly gigs at small local clubs, she’d also play parties and headline music festivals. “Through her years, Massie morphed from church singer to

on social media. According to the post, guitarist, frontman and cobandleader Brian Henneman has decided to retire, and the group simply can’t go on without him. “Although he’s in good health, he’s been feeling the passage of time and has lost interest in anything that distracts from or takes him away from home,” the post reads. “Unfortunately, this means the Bottle Rockets can’t continue as we know it. This is a difficult and emotional outcome for the band, and we share the sense of loss over this ending, but it can also be framed as an opportunity for new directions.” Accompanying that post is a statement from Henneman himself that makes clear the decision was not made lightly. “Been thinkin’ about it this entire time off,” Henneman writes. “I’m more certain of it than any-

“Some go on into their 80s, some quit in their 20s ... . Ol’ Number 60, that’s me. 60 o’clock, that’s quittin’ time for this guy. Kickin’ off my travelin’ shoes and slippin’ on my house shoes.” thing I’ve ever been certain of before. I’m turning 60 this year. Including my time with Uncle Tupelo, I have been doing this recording/touring thing for 30 years. I don’t consider myself too old to do it anymore, but I do consider myself too old to want to. “Every musician has their own shelf life for doing what they do,” he continues. “Some go on into their 80s, some quit in their 20s and never look back. Ol’ Number

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60, that’s me. 60 o’clock, that’s quittin’ time for this guy. Kickin’ off my travelin’ shoes and slippin’ on my house shoes. Home is where my passion lies these days. That excites me now the way the band used to.” The Bottle Rockets formed in 1992 out of the ashes of outlaw country act Chicken Truck, and following a stint for Henneman as a guitar tech and additional musi-

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BOTTLE ROCKETS Continued from pg 29

cian for Uncle Tupelo. Henneman’s fellow Chicken Truck members Mark Ortmann (drums) and Tom Parr (guitar, vocals) would join him as founding members of the Bottle Rockets, alongside bassist Tom V. Ray. The band’s most recent lineup consisted of Henneman, Ortmann, guitarist John Horton and bassist Keith Voegele. The Bottle Rockets released their self-titled debut record in 1992, following it up two years later with 1994’s The Brooklyn Side, which would catapult the band onto the airwaves and into the public consciousness. The band was soon picked up by Atlantic Records, which re-released the album, and the single “Radar Gun” hit No. 27 on Billboard’s rock chart. But the Bottle Rockets would part ways with Atlantic within a few short years as relations between the band and label soured. The Bottle Rockets would go on to a career releasing albums through revered indie labels including Doolittle (now New West Records), Sanctuary Records and Bloodshot Records in the years since. The band’s latest album, 2018’s

After nearly three decades, the Bottle Rockets are packing it in. | CARY HORTON Bit Logic, saw it proceeding down a more traditional country path than previous offerings. As RFT’s Roy Kasten noted, the record is “driven by phase-shifted guitars (an homage to outlaw hero Waylon Jennings) and its fullest embrace of straight-ahead country music.” In an interview with Henneman and Ortmann, Kasten also noted

that the band had seemed to have found itself a comfortable touring niche, which saw it sharing the stage with the likes of Marshall Crenshaw, Chuck Prophet and James McMurtry, popping up regularly on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country station and even landing a slot on 2017’s sold-out Outlaw Country Cruise. But in the end, it’s just not what

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Henneman wanted for himself anymore. “It’s all about where I’m at on the walk of life,” he writes. “I no longer want to travel, don’t really have any burning desire to write songs anymore either. I just want to be a good husband. A good neighbor. A responsible homeowner. A little dog’s daddy. A guitar repairman. A guitar player in my kitchen, and in some local country cover band whenever that scene comes back around. That’s how I want to spend the rest of my days.” Fans may mourn that the COVID-19 health crisis robbed them of the chance for a proper farewell show, but to hear Henneman explain it, that’s partially by design. “With a year off, and nothing on the books, this was the perfect intersection of time and timing,” he writes. “There would never be a time when leaving would disrupt less. That’s why I did it now. Didn’t wanna make a big deal outta my big deal. Wanted it to be as painless as possible. “So this is where the cowboy rides away. Goodnight now ladies and gentlemen. It’s the end of the show, now it’s time to go,” he adds. “Maybe I’ll see ya at Home Depot or somethin’.” n

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SAVAGE LOVE CUTTING REMARKS BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m having a problem advising a friend. She’s been through a divorce and now the breaking off of an engagement. To put it simply, both relationships ended because she was cheated on and she has a zero-tolerance policy around infidelity. To complicate matters, in each relationship we — her friends — have witnessed her being very cutting to the point of being downright insulting to her former partners. She has a tendency to tease her partners about their deepest insecurities in public and to express her extreme disdain for their family members openly. I had a chance to speak to each of her former partners after the breakup and they expressed to me that they felt emasculated by her and that their self-esteem was shot and they had essentially “had enough.” However, neither have given her this feedback directly. My friends and I have hinted to her about this pattern in the hopes of helping her see what her role might be in these breakups. But she takes extreme offense to any criticism and insists she’s the victim. I’m sympathetic to her plight but her unwillingness to accept any responsibility makes it difficult to offer her any useful advice. I’ve been there for her, calling her daily and stopping by when I could in a COVID-safe way. But every conversation turns into a three-hour-long rehashing of these relationships with all blame assigned to her exes. I’ve let a few weeks go by without reaching out because I don’t want to have another one of these conversations. I’m curious what you would do here. Our entire friend group is now debating whether we should share our actual opinions with her at the risk her being angry with us. The other option is to leave it alone and hope she comes to her own conclusions. I wish her exes had the courage to tell her their true feelings. No Brainpower For Clever Signoff Your friend must be one scary asshole — I mean, that would explain why her former romantic partners won’t tell her she’s an asshole and why her friends won’t tell her that

her assholery has consequences. Like getting dumped. And while her exes should’ve broken up with her before cheating on her, NBFCS, it sounds like both opted to slam their hands down on the self-destruct button instead. And who can blame them? Maybe they thought cheating would help them masc back up after enduring your friend’s emasculating abuse — and that would be pretty fucked up if they thought that — or maybe they wanted to punish your asshole friend by engineering breakups every bit as painful for her as these relationships had been for them. But why they cheated isn’t the question. You’re wondering what, if anything, you should say to your friend about this pattern, i.e. that she’s an asshole who emotionally abuses her romantic partners and it makes you and the rest of her friends uncomfortable. If you want your friend to know she’s an asshole and needs help, NBFCS, you’re going to have to say something. Assholes rarely have epiphanies. If you can’t bring yourself to say what you need to say to her asshole face, put it in a letter, ask your mutual friends to cosign, and email it to her. You might never hear from her again, NBFCS, but would that really be so terrible? Do you wanna be friends with someone who expects you to sit there silently while she verbally abuses her romantic partners and then expects you to sit and listen while she complains about her exes for hours? We both know the answer to that question, NBFCS, and it’s fuck no. You’ve already started to cut this woman out of your life because her good qualities, whatever they might be, don’t compensate for her assholery. You’ve got nothing to lose by leveling with this woman except for her company, which you do not enjoy. You can’t condemn her exes for not having the courage to share their true feelings with her if you don’t have the courage to do the same. Hey, Dan: How do I know if a guy is a player or if he has feelings for me? This guy goes to my university and we had our eyes on each other for more than year. I made a move and sent him a friend request on FB and we started spending a lot time with each other. The problem is, I am constantly finding him with other girls. He got to know my fe-

male friends and started talking them up too, and he says the same things to them that he says to me. This made me really upset, and I told him I wanted some space and asked him to stop contacting me, but I couldn’t tell him the real reason. Instead I told him he was suffocating me with his attention (partly true), but he kept reaching out to tell me how much he misses me. He even told me he has feelings for me but that he isn’t sure what they are and so can’t put a label on them, and says I’m special to him and he gets insanely jealous whenever he sees me with other guys. Feel free to ask for more details about our story if you’re interested. Parsing Love And Yearning No more details. Please. While I’m sure every last detail is fascinating, PLAY, what you need to do here is obvious — it’s so obvious you’ve already tried to do it. Zooming out for a second: “He’s a player” is just another way of saying, “He’s a liar.” A player is a guy who tells someone what he thinks she wants to hear (“you’re so special to me”) to get into her pants. If a little play is all a person wants — if some sexual attention and a whole bunch of compliments you know to be bullshit are what you want — then it doesn’t matter if the guy is a player. His lies can go in one ear and out the other at the same time his dick goes in and out of you. But if you want something serious with this guy and you know you’re being played, that’s going to be painful. So, PLAY, do that thing again, that thing you already did, but stick to it this time. Tell this guy to stop contacting you, unfollow him on FB, block his number and encourage your friends to do the same. Hey, Dan: Heterosexual, 30-something female here. For all of my sexual life, until recently, I really enjoyed having my nipples played with by my partners — during sex, as part of foreplay, fingers, clamps, lips, tongue, just about anything touching of my nipples was a turnon and an orgasm-enhancer. But something changed after witnessing my boyfriend’s sister breastfeeding her child. Something about seeing nipples being used for, well, what they’re meant to be used for, has really squicked me out. Now, when my boyfriend touches my

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nipples in the slightest way, I find it irritating, a little gross, and a huge turn-off. I think maybe this was the first time I’d seen breastfeeding in person? Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was my boyfriend’s sister? I don’t know! I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, seeing nipples in a different light has left me repulsed by the idea of using mine in a sexual way. If I’m close to orgasm, I can stand a little bit of nipple attention but nowhere near the amount I used to like. I want to enjoy nipple play again, Dan! Any advice for getting my nipples back? It’s been months! Breasts Out Of Business Suddenly P.S. I don’t mean any offense whatsoever to those who breastfeed. It’s not the breastfeeding that I find squicky. It’s the idea of using my own breasts in a sexual way that has me suddenly feeling all conflicted and weirded out. I don’t wanna ruin dick for you, BOOBS, but you do know men don’t just ejaculate out of those things, right? Dicks serve more than one purpose. Dicks and nipples both have specific non-sexual purposes (peeing and breastfeeding) as well as specific sexual functions ejaculating and, um, erogenous zoning). There are a lot of sensitive nerve endings and erectile tissues in and around our nipples, both the male and female varieties, and our nipples — like our assholes and our throats — don’t just have a sexual use, they have a sexual purpose. Considering that we have more sex than we do children, BOOBS, you could argue that their sexual use is their highest and best use. Which means you aren’t misusing your nipples when you derive pleasure from having them licked, sucked, clamped, etc., BOOBS, you are enjoying your nipples just as nature — natural selection and spontaneous mutation — intended them to be enjoyed. And if thinking about breastfeeding squicks you out, don’t think about it — just like you don’t think about piss when you suck your boyfriend’s dick and I don’t think about shit when I eat my boyfriend’s ass. mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savagelovecast.com

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SWADE

CANNABIS DISPENSARY Swade is Missouri’s premiere luxury cannabis dispensary created to restore and enliven mind, body, and spirit. SWADE takes a holistic approach to cannabis, creating a premium experience from our elevated dispensaries to the lasting sensory impression of our products. Step inside and feel instantly at ease. SWADE dispensaries are designed to present the country’s best cannabis products. From the serene surroundings informed by nature, to our first-of-its-kind Bud

Bar showcasing loose SWADE flower hand-selected for your order, we’ve examined every detail to make your experience inside SWADE both memorable and enlightening. SWADE offers an inviting atmosphere, informative approach and a love for precision in premium cannabis. Learn More: www.beleaflifesoils.com Contact Us: (314) 209-0859 info@beleafco.com

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recommendation and certification, it’s the only thing we do. We also now offer secure Telemedicine (Video), that is HIPPA compliant. If you can’t leave home due to transportation, disability or health issues, you can call us or email to make a Telemedicine appointment. Once the restrictions are met, certification will be issued immediately. Please inquire for more details. Learn More: cannabisdoctorsus.com 314-222-7760 or 888-420-1536

Riverfront Times, March 9, 2021

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