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Sanctuary But No Solutions for Alex Garcia Written by DOYLE MURPHY

Since the day Alex Garcia took sanctuary in a Maplewood church nearly two and a half years ago, his family and supporters have tried a little of everything to persuade federal immigration officials to let him stay in this country.

They have gone to Washington to meet members of Congress at their offices. 7hey’Ye collected hundreds of signatures from people liYing in the family’s former hometown of Poplar Bluff. 7hey’Ye marched and organi]ed, hired lawyers and prayed.

$nd yet, they still couldn’t get past the front door of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in 6t. /ouis last weeN.

“Obviously, something is broken here,” Maplewood Mayor Barry Greenberg said. On February 25, Maplewood issued a proclamation in favor of allowing Garcia to remain in the 8nited 6tates. 7hen, on February 27, Greenberg went with 6t. /ouis $lderwoman $nnie Rice and Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green to hand deliver an application to delay an immigration Mudge’s order from  to deport Garcia to his native Honduras.

The idea was that maybe three elected officials would succeed where his family had failed in attempting to get ICE to at least review their latest application. *arcia’s wife &arly had tried in 6eptember  to submit forms but was told to go away. A contingent of a do]en pastors tried again in 2ctober . ,&( officials locNed the doors to the office and sent Department of Homeland 6ecurity officers who handle security for the Robert A. Young federal building to cut the pastors off before they arrived. After a tense standoff, during which the pastors were threatened with arrest,

Carly Garcia’s eyes well with tears aer she learns ICE won’t even look at her husband’s application. | DOYLE MURPHY

Alex Garcia has been living in Christ Church for more than two years. | DOYLE MURPHY

an ICE supervisor agreed to take the paperwork for review. The application was rejected three weeks later.

/ast weeN, ,&( officials again refused to accept the paperwork, telling the three that accepting the earlier application from the pastors in  had been a mistaNe. As far as ICE is concerned, Garcia is an uncooperative fugitive. An agency official told the 0aplewood mayor and two 6t. /ouis alderwomen that they would need a supervisor in Chicago to review the paperwork.

7hat’s a difficult maneuYer, giYen that the 6t. /ouis officials won’t even receive the application to pass along, says Rice, who is also an immigration attorney. Another avenue would be for Garcia to come in for an interview with ICE agents, the immigration officials suggested. Ȋ+e’d be immediately deported to Honduras,” Rice says.

*arcia’s deportation order is from an early attempt to enter the 8nited 6tates after leaYing +onduras. He was caught and deport

ed in  but returned four years later and settled in Poplar Bluff. ,n the fifteen years since, he has built a life as a tireless construction worker, father and husband. He and Carly have been married for a decade, and they haYe fiYe Nids between them. 6he and the Nids are all 8.6. citi]ens.

In the past, the family worked with an attorney in hopes of securing citi]enship for *arcia as well, but the deportation order from  effectiYely cuts off that path. He would have to return to Honduras and restart the process from there. That would take ten years under normal circumstances, immigration attorneys say, but the Trump administration has not only sought to toss out people like Garcia, it has choked the pathway to legal entry as well. If Garcia was forced to leave, his family worries he might be kept from ever returning.

Under the Obama administration enforcement policies that prioriti]ed Yiolent criminals rather than people '+6 had screened and determined were not a threat, Garcia was granted year-long delays of the deportation order in  and . %ut his annual reTuest was denied in  after 7rump’s Continued on pg 10

Ex-Prosecutor Deploys ‘Carrot Boob Sweater’ Defense Written by DANNY WICENTOWSKI

Jerrod Mahurin, the former elected prosecutor of 6t. Francois County, is attacking the credibility of a fired employee whose newly filed lawsuit names him in multiple allegations of sexual harassment. 3art of 0ahurin’s defense is the argument that the employee wore raunchy sweaters.

0ahurin’s remarNable retort came during an interview last week with the Daily Journal, the paper of record for 6t. )rancois County, a mostly rural region located about an hour’s driYe south of 6t. /ouis.

'uring the  midterm elections, citi]ens in 6t. )rancois County voted Mahurin out of office. (arlier that year, a Riverfront Times investigation revealed that some county employees and attorneys had long felt alarmed by the prosecutor’s behaYior, particularly toward his female office staff. 6ources who spoNe to the RFT claimed Mahurin had, among other things, made a habit of hitting on employees, offering suggestive remarks about their bodies and commenting on their sex lives.

One of those sources, who was named in the RFT story, was an employee with eighteen years serYice named /isa 'aYidson. 0ahurin fired her on -une , , one day after the prosecutor met with RFT for an interview in his office. 'uring that interYiew, he maintained that he’d neYer mistreated his employees or sought sexual relationships with them.

Those allegations resurfaced last weeN, as 'aYidson’s lawsuit features many of the same details first reported by the RFT, including that Mahurin had sent a picture of his penis to a different female employee on the office’s clerical staff.

,n 0ahurin’s response to 'aYidson’s lawsuit published in the Daily Journal, the former prosecuFormer St. Francois Prosecutor Jerrod Mahurin. | FILE PHOTO

tor appeared to not only misconstrue the circumstances under which he’d fired 'aYidson, but he also accused Davidson herself of being sexually inappropriate in the workplace — via a shirt that, Mahurin said, “had carrots where her breasts would be.”

In the interview, Mahurin slammed 'aYidson’s lawsuit as “outrageous.” His remarks are more than a little misleading. +ere’s how the Daily Journal Tuoted him

“On one occasion, Mahurin recalled that Davidson wore a sweater to work that contained a box on with a fake penis inside.

ȊȆ6he also wore a shirt that had carrots where her breasts would be, in the office and , had to instruct her not to have any contact with the public while she was wearing that, and to never wear that again,’ he said. Ȇ6o, this is retaliatory because she was fired and, again, has no basis in fact and Must completely fictitious.’ȋ

)irst, let’s address the sweaters ,n a preYious interYiew with the RFT, Davidson answered Tuestions about those Yery outfits, and while she acNnowledged that she did wear them, she clarified that she’d worn them only to an office ugly sweater party ȃ a key bit of context omitted by Mahurin in his comments last week. Mahurin also appeared to omit key details about his decision to terminate Davidson, which is notable as those details do not support his suggestion that DaYidson’s lawsuit is Ȋretaliatory because she was fired.ȋ

In fact, Davidson had begun the process for suing Mahurin months before her firing ,n 0arch , she’d filed a complaint with the Missouri Human Rights Commis

sion ȃ the first step in obtaining court approYal for filing a lawsuit — which alleged workplace discrimination and retaliation for failing to humor 0ahurin’s adYances. 6he also fa[ed a copy of the complaint to Mahurin.

%ut on -une , , before the commission ruled on 'aYidson’s complaint, 0ahurin fired her. Davidson provided RFT with an audio recording she’d made that day, which captured the moment Mahurin informed her that her career as a county employee was over.

In the recording, Mahurin told 'aYidson that he’d receiYed the human rights complaint and demanded to know “how that document got in my office.ȋ 'aYidson answered that she sent it by fax, but Mahurin said he believed the complaint was not authentic and “this appears to be a false document that you tried to provide me with.” He then told her she was “terminated immediately” and to collect her things.

,n a subseTuent interYiew with the RFT in , 0ahurin denied firing 'aYidson in retaliation for her discrimination complaint.

As for Davidson, her attorney, MaryAnne Quill, told the RFT that 0ahurin’s statements to the Daily Journal — including the claim that he’d once had to reprimand Davidson for hanging “a giant stuffed penis in one of the attorney’s officesȋ ȃ were false. Ȋ6he worNed there eighteen years without incident,” Quill wrote in an email, Ȋuntil she filed the charge of discrimination.”

5eached by phone, current 6t. Francois County Prosecuting Attorney Melissa Gilliam declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. n

election, and he was sent a letter ordering him to report for removal. Instead, he took sanctuary in Christ Church in Maplewood and has lived there ever since.

,n -uly, 8.6. 5epresentatiYe /acy &lay '6t. /ouis introduced legislation that would give Garcia status as a permanent, legal resident. *arcia’s supporters are hopeful the “private bill” will be adopted, but they’Ye continued to push on as many fronts as they can.

While Rice, Green and Greenberg were at the ,&( office, *arcia’s wife and supporters held a news conference in 6t. /ouis &ity +all.

Ȋ7his is an ama]ing family, and Alex is — this is no hyperbole — he is the hardest worNer ,’Ye eYer met,” said the Rev. Rebecca Turner, pastor of Christ Church. “He is a contribution to the community.” $t first, the group was hopeful that ICE would respect the three elected officials enough to taNe the application. 6ara -ohn of the 6t. /ouis ,nter)aith &ommittee on /atin $merica, an organi]ation that has led efforts to help Garcia, said it was easy for ICE to turn Carly and her kids away, and they wanted to see if a different approach would change the outcome. Ȋ7he Tuestion is how much power and authority will it take until they do the right thing and say Ȇyes’"ȋ she said. 7hroughout the morning, she traded text messages with Rice and read the updates to the group. 6hortly before  a.m., she deliYered the bad news. ,&( officials had taNen the inch-thick stack of papers for about 45 minutes but then handed them back, refusing to accept and pass them on or even stamp them as a reMected application. 2fficially, ICE never even received them. &arly’s eyes welled with tears as the group circled up. ,t wasn’t completely out of the Tuestion that ICE would accept the paperworN, and there’s still the occasional case that leads to a stay of deportation, even under Trump. An immigration judge recently ordered a stay for another Honduran immigrant — a woman seeking asylum after she was stabbed in the stomach by her partner — who had been living in sanctuary in 1orth &arolina. %ut last weeN’s refusal to eYen reYiew the reTuest was another blow. 2n the first ȵoor of &ity +all, 7urner began to sing and was joined by the group. “We refuse to let hatred in,” they sang. Ȋ:e rise up. :e won’t bacN down.” n

Guilty Plea in Cop-on-Cop Killing Written by DOYLE MURPHY

E[6t. /ouis cop 1athaniel +endren pleaded guilty on Friday to involuntary manslaughter in the killing of a fellow police officer and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

7he yearold was supposed to be on patrol with his partner on -anuary , , but they went instead to +endren’s apartment in the Carondelet neighborhood where they hung out with 24-yearold Katlyn Alix, who worked in the same south-city district but was off duty.

7he night tooN a bi]arre and deadly turn when Hendren and Alix started to play around with their guns, dryfiring them inside the apartment, according to an account laid out in the plea agreement. Hendren then loaded one round in his revolver and twirled the cylinder. He aimed down a hallway and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber.

Alix then took the gun, pointed it at Hendren and pulled the trigger. Again, the hammer clicked. Hendren took the gun back, pointed it at $li[ and sTuee]ed the trigger. 7his time, it fired a bullet into $li[’s chest.

Hendren and his partner, Patrick 5iordan, droYe $li[ to 6aint /ouis University Hospital, but it was too late. In police records, Hendren reportedly told a supervisor after the shooting that he and Alix, who was married to another police officer, were in a relationship and had planned to move in together.

“The reckless behavior that took place that early morning has left an unfillable Yoid for her grieYing husband, her parents and a host of loYing family and friends,ȋ 6t. /ouis &ircuit $ttorney .im *ardner said in a statement.

$long with firstdegree manslaughter, Hendren pleaded guilty to a felony count of armed criminal action. He was sentenced to seven years on the manslaughter charge and three years for armed criminal action, but he’ll be allowed to serve the sentences simultaneously for a total of seven years in state prison.

$li[’s mother $imee :ahlers has a pending federal civil lawsuit e killer: Ex-St. Louis police ocer Nathaniel Hendren. | COURTESY SLMPD

e victim: Ocer Katlyn Alix. | COURTESY SLMPD

against the city, Hendren, Riordan and their superYisor, 6gt. *ary Foster. It alleges Hendren had a “complicated psychiatric history” after leaving the military and had forced “previous girlfriends to play Ȇ5ussian 5oulette,’ and engage in other sexual activity that inYolYed firearms.ȋ

The suit claims Hendren was drinking that night even before going on duty and drank more when he returned with Riordan, skipping a burglary alarm call so they could go hang out at +endren’s apartment at  'oYer 3lace.

$t 6/8 +ospital after the shooting, Hendren and Riordan dragged $li[’s body inside, the suit says. :hen another officer escorted Hendren outside shortly after, Hendren smashed his own head through the window of a police 689. +is mug shot showed him with a black eye and a scrape or bruise over his eyebrow.

He was arrested and charged shortly after. He has been on house arrest for the majority of the time since. n