Riverfront Times, July 29, 2020

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MARCH 6-12, 2019

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THE LEDE

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING “Historically, St. Charles has been more conservative than St. Louis. So I think it’s important to share your views with those who don’t have the same, because maybe you can get them to understand where you’re coming from … at the least to understand.”

— GRACE FARR, PHOTOGRAPHED OUTSIDE THE ST. CHARLES CINEMA FOLLOWING THE “GOOD TROUBLE” PROTEST ON JULY 24

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The Other Workhouses

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t. Louis’ Workhouse is infamous. A smart, relentless push by activists was so loud that even Ben & Jerrys, Vermont’s socially conscious ice cream makers, got on board with the Close the Workhouse campaign. But what about all those other jails sprinkled across Missouri and the United States? Away from the national spotlight, ruled by virtually untouchable sheriffs, they’re the scene of some of the worst abuses in our country’s criminal justice system.

This week, we partnered with The Marshall Project, the Pulitzer-winning nonprofit news organization, to publish a gripping account of the St. Francois County Jail and the tragedies that spurred a dogged local attorney to fight for its reform. The story, expertly reported and written by Maurice Chammah, is a reminder that it was never just the Workhouse that needs our attention.

— Doyle Murphy, editor in chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS CAN’T

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Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

E D I T O R I A L Digital Editor Jaime Lees Hero In A Hot Dog Suit Daniel Hill Contributors Trenton Almgren-Davis, Cheryl Baehr, Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Judy Lucas, Noah MacMillan, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Christian Schaeffer, Chris Ward, Theo Welling, Danny Wicentowski, Nyara Williams, Ymani Wince Columnist Ray Hartmann A R T

& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Editorial Layout Haimanti Germain 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 Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Jackie Mundy

COVER

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

“The most difficult thing”

E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein www.euclidmediagroup.com

Will Billy Ames’ death, and a tenacious small-town attorney, finally change the St. Francois County jail?

Cover photograph by

MICHAEL THOMAS FOR THE MARSHALL PROJECT

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CORRECTION: Last week’s feature story, “Survival Dance,” should have credited photos of the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities to photographer Konjit Avent. We regret the error.

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HARTMANN Be Selfish: Vote to Expand Medicaid on August 4 Making sure everyone is healthier is in your best interest

BY RAY HARTMANN

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magine walking into a fast-food restaurant with two cashier lines.

Above one, there’s a sign reading, “This cashier has health care coverage.” Above the other,

there’s a sign reading, “This cashier does not have health care coverage.”

Which line would you choose?

I’m going to take a wild guess that you’d select the covered one, unless the line was so long as to take the “fast” out of fast-food.

Public health connects everyone to everyone else. If you’ve followed the news recently, you might have noticed this principle demonstrated by the COVID-19 infection of more than 4.2 million Americans, with more than 147,000 deaths. In Missouri, the corresponding numbers are more than 4,200 reported cases and more than 1,200 deaths.

Hopefully, the realities of the pandemic will be on voters’ consciences next Tuesday, Aug. 4, when they’ll be deciding Amendment 2, which would expand Medicaid in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. Yes, that would be the dreaded Obamacare, which would provide 90 percent funding for expansion, reaping a huge net scal bene t to the state, accord-

ing to a wide range of studies.

It shouldn’t have taken a pandemic to drive home the basic truth that public health matters to everyone. In a kinder world, it would be unthinkable to place state budgetary concerns — especially distorted ones — above the fact that something like 230,000 people in Missouri make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford health care.

Consider this raw reality: In Missouri, a family of four must earn $5,500 or less to qualify for Medicaid and single adults don’t qualify at all. This expansion would cover working people who earn up to a grand total of $18,000 for individuals and families of four up to $36,000. Can you imagine making less than such modest sums and being available to afford health care premiums?

If someone cannot afford health care, they are that cashier in the non-covered line. In turn, this person is the most likely to infect others in some way, pandemic or

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not, which is why everyone has a vested interest in their access to health care.

People with health insurance generally get free annual checkups. People without health insurance don’t. People who have checkups are far more likely to catch and treat an illness than people who don’t. People who stay healthy spread less sickness than people who don’t.

Preventive care saves money and sometimes lives. It also prevents the spread of disease, say, to the insured person (and others) getting their food from the uninsured person. It doesn’t take an expert in health care science to understand the basics here. A lot of this is common sense.

For example, we all know that people without health insurance aren’t left to die in the street.

When they become seriously ill, they go to emergency rooms and receive something known in the world of hospitals as “uncompen-

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HARTMANN

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sated care.” When that happens, either taxpayers are left footing the bills, hospitals get closed down as collateral damage, or both.

The Chartis Group, a Chicagobased rm advising the health care industry, released a national study in February. It reported that a staggering 43 percent of 61 rural hospitals in Missouri were rated “vulnerable,” tied for fourth highest nationally. The report said six rural hospitals had closed here in the past decade, tied for sixth in the U.S. It’s unbelievable, then, that people outstate have been persuaded to believe — purely through political rhetoric — that Obamacare must inherently present them some danger. To the contrary, expanding Medicaid can literally be a matter of life and death for outstate Missouri.

All that said, the economics are anything but simple, and the main argument that Republican legislators have espoused over the years is that a state like Missouri simply cannot afford the luxury of a healthier population. After all, the state has so many more important priorities like, well, whatever.

Their claim is that Medicaid expansion is unaffordable. When presented with the detail that Missouri is foregoing literally billions in federal tax dollars that Missourians pay in, they argue, irrationally, that some time down the road we’ll end up holding the bag when the federal government goes out of business or ends Obamacare, whichever comes rst.

For the moment, in the real world, there are 37 other states that have expanded Medicaid to qualify for their 90 percent federal share of the cost of doing so. That would include our neighboring radical hotbed of Oklahoma, where voters recently voted to expand.

To date, none of those states has chosen to change course after deciding to expand. None of them has declared bankruptcy. In all of those states, “more low-income children and parents, seniors, pregnant women, and people with disabilities are able to see a doctor when they are sick, get check-ups, buy medications, and go to the hospital,” in the words of the Missouri Foundation for Health.

MFFH is a statewide not-forpro t that speciali es in the highly complex world of health care matters, including economics, far above my pay grade. Here’s how it breaks down those complexities:

Preventive care saves money and sometimes lives.

“Research shows expanding Missouri’s Medicaid program, MO ealth et, would bene t our state economy,” an MFFH position paper asserts. “It is estimated the economic output would increase by $2.5 billion and personal income would increase by $1.1 billion every year between 2022 and 2026. Especially as we continue to respond to the economic aftermath caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, any measure to kickstart our economy will be critical.”

MFFH also claims the following: “Research shows Missouri will have given up $17.8 billion in federal funding if we do not expand the Medicaid program by 2022,” it states. “Federal funds would save our state $39 million in the rst year of expansion, bringing tax dollars back home to help Missouri.

“By providing coverage to uninsured Missourians, Medicaid expansion will reduce uncompensated care and bring more revenue to clinics and hospitals, helping to keep them open and recruit new providers.”

It is not clear how the politics of Medicaid expansion will play out Tuesday. In the past, reality has been distorted by politicians cashing in on the visceral unpopularity of all things Obama in outstate Missouri. That was an awful thing six years ago when Medicaid expansion rst became a wedge issue, but at least it had a rational basis politically.

Now, to hold out petulantly is just immoral conduct, a fact magni ed exponentially by the pandemic.

That Governor Mike Parson chose to put Amendment 2 on the August ballot, rather than see it as a political base-driver for November, is a hopeful sign that the issue can no longer be so distorted.

But for those on the fence, those wondering if it’s economically unrealistic to help more poor people get health care, I have a suggestion. Stop thinking about expanding Medicaid as bolstering a welfare program helping the poor.

Think of it as helping yourself. n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann@sbcglobal.net or catch him on St. Louis In the Know With Ray Hartmann and Jay Kanzler from 9 to 11 p.m.

Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

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NEWS It’s Primary Time Four races — and one ballot initiative — to watch for on August 4 Written by

JAMES POLLARD

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hether you’re entering the voting booth masked and saniti ed or lling out a mail-in ballot at home, you’ll nd Missouri’s Aug. 4 primary is packed with rematches and familiar rivalries. For the second cycle in a row, ori Bush is challenging acy lay in Missouri’s rst congressional district.

After a near miss in 201 , Mark Mantovani is running again for t. ouis ounty Executive alongside three others challenging r. am Page. And former mayoral opponents Tishaura Jones and Jeffrey Boyd face off once more, this time for the city treasurer’s seat.

With a summer of protests for racial ustice still rolling, and as the region elects leadership to guide it through the rest of the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath, here’s a rundown of key races and initiatives:

St. Louis County Executive r. am Page, who sei ed the county executive’s post in 2019, seeks to win his rst election to the position in ovember. But rst, he has to win the emocratic primary.

A lot has changed since teve tenger won a tight primary two years ago. In a meeting in April 2019, the county council voted to make Page its new leader ust hours after tenger was indicted in a federal bribery scheme. hus, Page umped into the midst of a contentious debate over the Better ogether plan to merge the city and county. When Better ogether withdrew its proposal the following month, Page praised the decision, saying any future efforts should engage community leaders and the African American community and ultimately be left up to city and county voters, not a statewide vote.

Page, an anesthesiologist, has spent the past four months directing the county’s response to O I -19. From a mask mandate

to youth sports restrictions, he’s taken what have at times been unpopular actions to mitigate the spread in what has become the state’s hotspot.

Page’s three challengers have a critical view of the response.

Mark Mantovani, the former business executive who lost to tenger by less than one percentage point last cycle, said he would have provided clearer benchmarks to area businesses on the speci c case totals that would trigger speci c actions. t. ouis ounty Assessor Jake immerman has critici ed Page for a lack of transparency on decisions to restrict youth sports but keep bars open. And niversity ity resident Jamie olliver, a board member for the niversity ity Education Foundation, has said the county lifted its restrictions too early.

MO-1 Democratic Primary

U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay. | OFFICIAL PORTRAIT Bernie anders and, most recently, Jamaal Bowman, another progressive underdog who last month did exactly what she seeks to do when he knocked out an establishment emocrat to win a congressional seat in ew ork.

Both lay and Bush support a number of progressive policies like Medicare for All and the Green ew eal. But Bush emphasi es her connection to the people of the district through her lived experiences as a single mother who has experienced homelessness.

A ten-term congressman, lay sits on three House committees and represents a district where he or his father have been in office for more than 0 years. upporters point to his tenure as giving him sway in the emocratic caucus, where he’s a reliable blue vote. upporters of Bush say it’s time for new leadership in the district someone who will ght for their constituents as she did in Ferguson.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney

Cori Bush. | PORTRAIT/TWITTER In 201 , . . ep. acy lay beat activist ori Bush by a nearly 20 percent vote margin. his time around, Bush hopes to build on gains from that race lay’s tightest in the two decades he’s held the seat and her growing national pro le.

The progressive nurse and pastor has been endorsed by . . enator and former presidential candidate

his election could be a referendum on t. ouis ircuit Attorney im Gardner’s rst term, which featured several high-pro le cases that have made national headlines.

In Gardner’s rst 21 months alone, she prosecuted then-Governor Eric Greitens on a felony charge of invasion of privacy, which was ultimately dropped. here was also the prosecution of former t. ouis police officer Jason tockley on a charge of rstdegree murder, which resulted in acquittal.

Elected in 2016 as a progressive reformer, Gardner became the city’s rst Black circuit attor-

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ney. he has ceased prosecuting most low-level mari uana charges and battled ercely against the police union after she sent the department an “exclusion list” of officers from whom she wouldn’t accept cases because prosecutors don’t consider them credible witnesses. he business manager for the t. ouis Police Officers Association, Jeff oorda, has gone so far as to call for her removal “by force or by choice.”

Most recently, Gardner led weapons charges against the Mcloskeys, the couple who pulled guns on protestors who marched into their gated entral West End neighborhood last month on their way to Mayor yda rewson’s house. he move has been vili ed by epublicans, including Missouri Governor Mike Parson, . . enator Josh awley, state Attorney General Eric chmitt and even President onald rump, all of whom have defended the couple’s actions. he local prosecution has also prompted death threats and racist messages toward Gardner. er only challenger is Mary Pat arl, who came in a distant second to Gardner in 2016’s more crowded primary. his time around, the city’s former lead homicide prosecutor is campaigning as a more centrist candidate, as she champions being “smart on crime.” he has critici ed Gardner over historically high rates of staff turnover and a low trial conviction rate. arl has proposed a “duty to intervene” policy, which would require police officers to prevent other ofcers from violating the law. till, she claims Gardner’s relationship with the police has worsened the city’s crime problem.

St. Louis City Treasurer he emocratic primary for city treasurer features two familiar — and bitter — foes: incumbent ishaura Jones and Alderman Jeffrey Boyd of the 22nd Ward.

Jones beat Boyd and several others for treasurer in 2012 and ran unopposed in 2016. Both candidates ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 201 , and Jones hasn’t ruled out another mayoral run in 2021. he has some big-name backers in this race. Former presidential candidate and progressive . .

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PRIMARY

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Senator Elizabeth Warren recently endorsed Jones. Boyd has been endorsed by the St. Louis Police Officers Association.

As treasurer, Jones has banned the felon box on job applications and has called on the city to close the Workhouse while battling repeatedly with Boyd — and often the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board — over a variety of issues, including the treasurer’s control of the sizable funds col-

lected through the city’s parking operations.

When announcing his candidacy, Boyd said he would transfer control of parking operations to the city. The matter is the subject of a pending lawsuit, of which Boyd is a plaintiff, that seeks to give more authority over parking funds to the Board of Aldermen and less to the treasurer.

If the suit prevails, Boyd has committed to directing those revenues toward programs that would connect social workers to crime victims, as well as a low-interest loan fund to encourage business

Passed Over for Chief, Top Black Cop Alleges Racial Discrimination Written by

RAY HARTMANN

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top St. Louis County Police commander who was passed over for the position of chief has leveled charges of racial discrimination against the county — and the county’s attorney has responded by accusing his lawyer of attempting a $3.5 million extortion scheme.

The rapid-fire series of events exploded on Friday when a lawyer for Lt. Col. Troy Doyle revealed he had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the first step to filing a lawsuit. The EEOC filing isn’t available publicly, but Doyle’s attorney Jerome Dobson explained the allegations in an interview with the Riverfront Times.

Dobson says County Executive Sam Page had promised Doyle he would see to it that the St. Louis County Police Board of Commissioners selected him to replace then-Chief Jon Belmar, who retired in April.

“Dr. Page told Troy Doyle on a number of occasions that ‘the police board will do what I tell them to do,’” Dobson says.

Over the weekend, the attorney went on Hot 104.1 FM host Demetrious Johnson’s show and played a recording of a call between Page and Doyle, in which the county executive says, “The police board will do what I tell them to do, as long as you tell me it’s the right thing to do.”

Dobson claims Page arranged interviews for Doyle with prospective police board members before Page had named them to the board — but then told Doyle he had received “pushback” from “certain members” of the St. Louis Police Foundation over selecting a Black chief.

The foundation is a private group of police boosters who provide financial support and goods to the city and county police departments. The commissioners

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Lt. Col. Troy Doyle. | OFFICIAL PORTRAIT ultimately selected another longtime supervisor in the department, Mary Barton, as the county’s next chief.

“Troy Doyle was much more qualified than Mary Barton to be police chief of St. Louis County,” Dobson says. “He outranked as lieutenant colonel — she was a captain — and he not only held that rank for seven years but was the leader chosen as the go-to for projects for county police, such as managing a crisis at the Jennings Police Department or overseeing the county jail after four people died there without transparency.”

Dobson specifically singled out Page, quoting what he says his client told him, for having made promises to Doyle that he claims were broken.

“Dr. Page had told Troy in 2019 that he wanted him to be the next chief of police,” Dobson says. “Page invited Troy to his house and told him he was the right person for the job, [that] it would be the right thing to do and it would be historic.”

Dobson says Page told Doyle he wanted him to meet with several influential St. Louisans, including Dr. Donald Suggs, publisher of the St. Louis American, as well as retired Judge William Ray Price Jr. and local attorney and CPA Michelle Schwerin. At the time, Price and Schwerin had not been appointed to the police board of commissioners, but Page indicated to Doyle they were under consideration.

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If Amendment 2 passes, Missouri will join 37 other states in expanding Medicaid eligibility to many low-income adults.

A “yes” vote indicates support for allowing people between ages nineteen and 65 whose income is at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify. More than 200,000 adults could be newly covered under such a program, according to estimates from the

Kaiser Foundation.

The amendment would require Missouri to seek maximum federal funding of the expansion. And the measure would come at no extra cost, according to a February 2019 report by the Washington University Center on Health Economics and Policy, as it would open the state up to more federal funding — potentially saving as much as $1.3 billion by 2026.

Opponents of the amendment, such as Gov. Parson, still argue it would destroy the state budget, leading to cuts in education and social services. n

Dobson says Price or Schwerin indicated to Doyle that he appeared to be a qualified candidate, but it is not known how they voted on the police chief selection. Even more inflammatory is Dobson’s allegation of what Page told Doyle about what happened next.

“Sam told Troy a few times, ‘I’m going to pull you across the finish line,’” Dobson says. “Then this January, after he had a meeting with certain members of the police foundation, he tells Troy he’s getting pushback on appointing a Black police chief.”

According to Dobson, “Troy said Page told him that he was shocked by what one of the foundation members had said of a racial nature. Dr. Page told Troy, ‘I felt like I was back living in the ’60s.’”

Dobson also claims that Page told Doyle he was “having trouble getting large contributions” from corporate donors in his campaign for county executive.

“Within a couple of months after Barton’s selection on March 19, a large corporation made a significant contribution to Page’s campaign,” Dobson says.

He declined to name the donor. A review of campaign records available through the Missouri Ethics Commission show that Page received multiple sizable donations from corporations in the months following Barton’s selection.

Page and the county have denied doing anything wrong. In fact, if anyone was looking for a payday, it was Dobson and Doyle, according to the county. Page’s spokesman Doug Moore on Friday released a letter from County Counselor Beth Orwick to Dobson in which she charges that he was trying to “effectively extort” the county for a $3.5 million settlement.

Her complaint sparked another interesting development: As the RFT reported Saturday, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell referred the matter to the U.S. attorney to potentially investigate Dobson.

“We are aware of the situation involving Mr. Dobson,” Bell’s chief of staff Sam Alton tells the RFT. “The information we received was very concerning, and we have referred this matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

It’s not clear if federal prosecutors will

agree to investigate.

According to Orwick’s letter, Dobson’s leverage in the alleged scheme was the threat of a scandal in the lead-up to the Aug. 4 Democratic primary. Page, who stepped in after former County Executive Steve Stenger was indicted on bribery charges, is facing stiff competition from businessman Mark Mantovani and County Assessor Jake Zimmerman as he tries to hold onto his position.

Orwick writes that Dobson has put forth “a scheme designed to threaten embarrassment and disrupt the upcoming election,” adding that she doesn’t believe the facts support a claim of discrimination. She accused him of having demanded a $3.5 million settlement in exchange for hiding documents “in your desk drawer.”

Along with the county counselor’s letter, Moore released a voicemail Dobson left for Winston Calvert, Page’s chief of staff, in which the attorney says, “It is our intention to file before the upcoming primary.” Moore also sent a copy of an order of the state Supreme Court reprimanding Dobson in a separate case, alleging that the behavior was similar to his handling of the negotiations for Doyle.

Contacted on Saturday, Dobson told the RFT it was the first he had heard about any referral to the feds and he had not been contacted by anyone from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Our request was within normal practice of attorneys seeking to resolve a case,” Dobson says. “If that’s extortion, there are thousands of attorneys committing extortion every day.”

He adds “we stand by the facts” put forth Friday in which Doyle claimed he was racially discriminated against in the March 19 decision by the county board of police commissioners to hire Barton over him.

Page has stated that he had supported Doyle for police chief, but that the board acted independently of his views in its selection of Barton.

“Troy Doyle was my choice for chief,” Page said in an emailed statement. “The commissioners, whose independence is why I nominated them, chose someone else.” n

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“The most difficult thing” Will Billy Ames’ death, and a tenacious small-town attorney, finally change the St. Francois County jail?

By MAURICE CHAMMAH

THE PARENTS

As Bill Ames smoked a cigarette in the predawn dark, he heard his dogs barking and looked outside to see two sheriff’s deputies approaching. It was November 2018, and his 36-year-old son Billy was locked up in the St. Francois County Jail. “What’d he do, break out?” Bill asked the men, inviting them in from the cold. The deputies told him Billy had died.

They didn’t know any more than that.

With the sun still behind the Missouri Ozarks, Bill and his wife Joyce called Billy’s stepdad Joe Braun, who woke up Billy’s mom Laurie with “the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to tell anybody in my life.” A few days earlier, Billy’s four parents had actually been relieved to hear of his arrest.

This article was published They’d spent months worrying about his in partnership with The methamphetamine use, which had begun Marshall Project, a nonafter a friend was released from prison profit news organization and crashed at his house (taking advancovering the U.S. criminal tage, his parents felt, of a brain injury justice system. from his early twenties that impaired his cognition.) Billy grew erratic, delusional, running barefoot through the trees on the mountain next to his father’s house, talking about drones and dead bodies. He scared his stepmother Joyce so badly that she took out a restraining order, which led to this arrest — and, his parents had hoped, rehab.

Joe Braun called the St. Francois County jail administrator, Dennis Smith, who told him the post-death investigation would be handled Continued on pg 14

Vonne Karraker, a lawyer in Farmington, Mo., has become the face of the local resistance against the St. Francois County Jail, pictured here. | MICHAEL THOMAS FOR THE MARSHALL PROJECT riverfronttimes.com

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THE MOST DIFFICULT THING Continued from pg 13

internally. (Smith declined an interview for this story.) Braun was suspicious; he had previously worked as a police officer in exas, where ail deaths are often investigated by an outside agency. he next day, he started making calls to state government offices to push for an independent inquiry, and St. Francois County Sheriff Daniel Bullock formally requested an investigation by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

In the meantime, Billy’s father Bill received a call. “Is this the family of the man who died in the jail?” a woman asked.

She’d been in a cell near Billy’s, she said, and believed he’d been strapped into a restraint chair; she’d heard him shouting for hours, begging to be let out.

Ames’s autopsy listed meth as the cause of death, and in security footage from his booking, he appeared to conceal something in a pocket. he ailers told the investigator they fastened Ames to the chair after he threatened to attack his cellmate, but they had not been trained to use the device safely. (Experts say these chairs, which have led to more than 50 deaths nationwide since the 1990s, can render it more difficult to tell when someone is having a medical crisis like an overdose, and some prisons have banned their use entirely.) An inmate said she told a ailer, “ his guy is dying next to me.”

She said the jailer responded, “I don’t give a shit about that drug addict.” he booking area was lled with the sound of banging, as Ames’s fellow detainees tried to get the jailers to let him out of the chair. hey also heard the chair rattle against the oor which suggested to the family he was having a seizure, meaning the jailers had failed to give him his anti-seizure medication. “ e will not OP screaming and freaking out,” a jailer wrote in an email to the rest of the staff. hree others held near Ames recalled a jailer referring to him as a “piece of shit.”

America’s 3,000-plus county jails, which are usually run by elected sheriffs, hold people awaiting their day in court or serving short sentences. hey receive far less scrutiny than state and federal prisons, even as they have become catalysts for the spread of O I -19. wenty-four states have a government body that regulates jails, according to University of exas researcher Michele eitch, but Missouri is not among them.

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Waking up Laurie, Billy Ames’s mother, left, to tell her that her son died in the St. Francois County Jail was “the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to tell anybody in my life,” says Joe Braun, Billy’s stepdad. | MICHAEL THOMAS FOR THE MARSHALL PROJECT he federal epartment of Justice can also investigate abuses, but this is rare. Occasionally citizens emerge to ll the gap, and Ames’s death has sparked a local reckoning over how the 188-bed jail that Sheriff Bullock has run for more than a generation became mired in violence and neglect.

Over the last six months, 50 former detainees and four former employees told their stories to he Marshall Pro ect. hose now in Missouri state prisons said their hometown jail is known as a “breeding ground for toughass white boys,” and the second worst jail in the state (behind the St. Louis “Workhouse,” which city leaders voted this month to close.)

“I was once a kid with a drug problem,” said one former inmate who declined to be named. “Now I am a violent gang member [and] career crook taking up bedspace in an overcrowded prison system. ... If it was not for my time in the [St. Francois County Jail], I would not be the esteemed member of prison society I am today.”

In the wake of his stepson’s death, Joe Braun met with residents who had been ghting corruption among local officials, often sharing their efforts in a Facebook group about county politics. he most prominent was an elder-law attorney named Vonne Karraker.

Billy’s mother Laurie was a fan of Karraker’s Facebook posts, which veered from humor to outrage, from persnickety questions about

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county funds to venting about a local judge who touched Karraker’s hair because she is Black. he parents felt Karraker was the only lawyer in town who could stomach a public battle with Sheriff Bullock.

Soon after, the families met a man who pledged to run against the sheriff in the 2020 election, and on Aug. 4, in a Republican primary, Bullock will face his greatest electoral challenge in almost three decades. Braun told me that before Billy’s death, he and Laurie felt that onald rump had been called to save America, and they came to feel like people in their own community were similarly called, to help ensure that no other parent loses a child in the local jail.

THE LAWYER

Vonne Karraker had not planned to become the leader of the local resistance. In 2003, after law school and some work in the insurance industry, she followed her husband to Farmington, the seat of St. Francois ounty. he marriage didn’t last, but she fell in love with the town of 14,000 in the former leadmining region south of St. Louis. A municipal official who threatened to prosecute her for not returning a library book became her second husband, and they started a small law rm that catered to elderly clients, listing their dog and two sugar gliders (tiny marsupials) as members of the staff.

St. Francois County was 96 percent white, and Karraker — who

grew up in Missouri’s southeast Bootheel — was almost always the only Black person in the room. his wasn’t new for her. As a child, she had been bullied at a mostly white school, only to go home and have her siblings accuse her of trying to act white. As an adult, she found being an outsider gave her a knack for seeing beyond appearances, into the casual ways people exercise power. “I can hear David Attenborough narrating the way people behave around me,” she told me. She liked letting the liberals think she was conservative and vice versa. “I describe my politics as the golden rule.”

Every community has drama, but St. Francois County seems to have more than its share. Not so long ago, a local KKK leader was murdered by his cat-hoarding wife, and a city councilman was accused of punching a woman in the face at a bar. In 2016, the local grapevine was dominated by the saga of Kristy Cunningham. She claimed in a lawsuit that her husband had an affair with a woman who went on to conspire with local leaders to throw Cunningham in jail on stalking charges. Her small daycare business crumpled, and she was separated from three young children. After three months, she pled guilty just to go home. he defendants denied her allegations and the lawsuit was dismissed, but Karraker found this tale of power abused believable. A few years before, she’d been asked

Vonne Karraker represents Clinton Wheeler, who claims he was denied medical care while in the jail facing murder charges. | MAURICE CHAMMAH/THE MARSHALL PROJECT

According to a state investigation, Billy Ames died after spending more than 24 hours in a restraint chair while suffering an overdose from methamphetamine. | MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL REPORT to meet with a woman who claimed to have witnessed the elected top prosecutor, Jerrod Mahurin, hand out illegal raises to favored employees. At the time, she’d declined to get involved, but now, seeing what happened to Cunningham, she felt guilty for not doing more. So when another woman came to her with sexual harassment claims against Mahurin, Karraker became her con dante. hey once met secretly in a cemetery. “She’d shake, smoke cigarettes,” Karraker recalled. he Riverfront Times and St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered the allegations against Mahurin — which he denied — and while Karraker’s name was seldom in these stories, many in town knew she was behind the scenes. During a radio interview, Mahurin named Karraker and said, “I will certainly have my day to go after these people.” (Her husband Kevan Karraker wrote an open letter in response: “Why wait?”) Mahurin, who was not charged with any crimes but faces

ongoing lawsuits, was voted out in November 2018.

“Vonne is like many people in these situations, who sound like a conspiracy theorist at rst, and maybe she is a little bit, but the stories are just that bad,” said PostDispatch columnist ony Messenger, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a series that included a piece on the St. Francois County justice system. “She has the whole weight of the town on her at times.”

Karraker kept paper and pen in hand, in case someone buttonholed her with some local government woe. “People would come in, tell me outrageous shit, and I would either prove or disprove,” she said.

“If I could prove it, I’d write about it on Facebook.” At one public meeting, as she demanded nancial records from an official accused of overcharging the county for road inspections, a commissioner threatened to have her escorted out and summoned two deputies.

By the time Joe Braun approached

her about his stepson’s death, she was exhausted and ready to step back, but she’d been hearing for years about the jail. She’d met Natalie DePriest, a local activist who had gained national attention after she and her brother were sentenced to fteen years in prison for growing marijuana plants in their home. DePriest told Karraker that when they rst went to the ail, in 2011, she demanded a lawyer and said to a jailer, “I have constitutional rights, you’re not my king,” and that he wrapped his arm around her neck and struck her as he dragged her toward a cell, where a second officer pepper sprayed her. Her brother, David DePriest, saw all of this while waiting in the booking area.

“For hours, I had to sit and listen to my sister scream, asking for a nurse, for clothes, since hers were soaked in mace,” he told me.

In a use-of-force report, officers wrote that DePriest “stepped in an aggressive manner” and moved her hands towards one of their faces, but was “contained with no injury to staff or inmate.” DePriest had photos of bruises, taken several days later.

Karraker interviewed inmates who had heard Billy Ames’s screams and led a wrongful death lawsuit in February 2019.

Once the lawsuit got media coverage, posts to the local Facebook groups swelled with stories about the jail. A resident showed me a meme calling the jail “Missouri’s New Death Row.” Karraker was contacted by family members and friends of two people who had died by suicide in the jail within a few months of Ames’s death. One was Michael Bennett, who repeatedly told officers that he was suicidal and yet was placed in a cell with few precautions.

Sheriff Bullock had requested state investigations after the deaths

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of Ames and Bennett, as well as, years earlier, after deputies were accused of sexually assaulting detainees. (One deputy committed suicide in 2013 while facing indictment for a sexual assault.) But the sheriff didn’t always ask for them. arraker also met Jeffrey upper, a former state employee whose wife abitha had died inside the ail in October 2017, after being arrested for violating her probation, which stemmed from her opioid addiction. uring visits, upper had noticed she was losing weight and looked unwashed. “I took our kids to visit her and she was in a tornup gown,” he said. “She had to hold it together.” She complained of headaches, and her autopsy cited a brain abscess, but because her husband never received word of any investigation, her death remained shrouded in mystery, and Karraker would have to start from scratch.

Karraker was contacted by at least four current and former sheriff’s deputies. One told her that Dennis Smith “overrules and covers up everything” and “is pretty vindictive.” (Another told me Smith, a liberal Democrat, had tried to improve the jail when he was hired in 2003, but “gave in to peer pressure” after deputies called him “hug-a-thug.”) Karraker had once been friends with Smith, attending parties at his house and even taking a tour of the jail with him years earlier.

“Just because someone is nice to you, doesn’t mean they are a good person,” she said.

In her email inbox, Karraker received pictures of a young man’s stomach and hip, covered in a massive infection. He had told his family it came from a spider bite in the jail. At one point, hearing a vivid description of a sexual assault inside the jail, Karraker said

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THE MOST DIFFICULT THING Continued from pg 15

she vomited. “If I slow down to think of the sheer magnitude of the evil that resides here I cower at home under the covers, exhausted and weepy and thoroughly overwhelmed,” she wrote to me in an email. “That’s happened a few times, and [my husband] has dragged me back into the light.”

Many of the stories were likely unprovable but gained credibility through sheer repetition. For instance, Karraker kept hearing three words over and over again: “Friday Night Fights.”

THE DETAINEES

In a small town, the jailers and the jailed often have history. John Rastorfer, who has been in and out on various charges, said he heard jailers say to incoming detainees, “Hey, remember me? You used to pick on me,” and “You fucked over my sister,” and then the jailer would “treat them like shit.” Several men who spent time inside described a dynamic in which jailers who had been bullied in high school took revenge.

Many told stories of seeing people ignored by jailers while detoxing. St. Francois County sits at the center of two American drug epidemics, having had among the highest rates of opioid prescriptions and methamphetamine lab busts in a state known for both.

Farmington is relatively a uent, but in other parts of the county, more than a quarter of residents live below the poverty line. A coronavirus outbreak can literally spread from a jail to the surrounding community, but former detainees described how this jail has long exported less traceable problems, like addiction, violence and trauma. “It’s putting the youth of this county through a grinder,” said former detainee Joel Burgess, “and it’s for nothing.”

They told stories of seeing jailers beat and mace detainees, and of being beaten and maced themselves. They described staph infections and scalding shower water that they let cool in a trashcan before bathing. A former deputy who declined to be named said it was well known that the phrase “take him to the shower” was code for assault, as the shower did not have cameras, and complaints to superiors would fall “on deaf ears.” Ten women, and one former employee, said jailers would withhold sanitary products and then throw them into living areas, to spark a violent scramble. “We had bitches back there bleeding

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in oranges,” said Stefani Rudigier, referring to jail uniforms.

At times, the sheriff made light of the grim conditions. During a period of overcrowding in 2013, he followed the example of Joe Arpaio, the famously punitive Arizona sheriff, and housed people in tents. “We jokingly say around the county, ‘That is the Daniel Bullock’s Bed and Breakfast,’” the sheriff told a reporter. (He told me he did not consider Arpaio’s policies a model.)

The county held a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to house federal detainees, but this stopped in 2017 after an inspection found inadequate nutrition, water leaks, ants and a lack of natural light because cell windows had been covered in black paint. (The inspection was obtained by reporter Seth Freed Wessler, who wrote about such contracts for Mother Jones and Type Investigations last year after suing the Marshals for access.) Bullock told the local newspaper, “I’m not running a Hilton Hotel here.”

Even county residents who had never been to the jail traded sto-

aged by post-traumatic stress after time in the jail, and when Bartlett, who is not from the county, asked others to speak with me, many refused. “My family goes in and out of that jail all the time,” one told him. “They will kill them just to get back at me for talking.”

Still, as word of Vonne Karraker’s work spread, more and more people who had been inside posted stories on Facebook. She entered the jail herself to visit Clinton Wheeler, who complained he’d been denied medications and doctor visits. (At least six other people have alleged medical neglect in lawsuits since 2004.) Karraker shot a video of what she thought was dried blood on the oor. Wheeler, who was facing murder charges for shooting his son-in-law, was nearly skeletal, with black spots on his teeth and gums.

As they spoke, she heard a “massive, 3-D cough.” Convinced someone was listening, she abruptly ended the conversation. She later learned that a local lawyer was contacted by jail administrator

“It’s putting the youth of this county through a grinder,” said former detainee Joel Burgess, “and it’s for nothing.” ries about “Friday Night Fights,” which according to more than a dozen former inmates involved ritualized, two-man duels, often to prepare men for state prison. “On many occasions I could see the outlines of officers standing outside the tinted glass, looking into the pod,” recalled Maxwell Lee, who was in the jail in 2014 and 2015 facing charges of killing two people during a robbery.

The jail has developed its own lingo, with particular areas dubbed the “Thunderdome,” and a group of especially violent men called the “wolf pack.” Five people said jailers would announce which inmates had been charged with sexual crimes against children or were informants to police, knowing they’d be victimized. “The predatory clique ran the pod,” wrote James Gannaway from prison, where he is serving time for a domestic violence conviction.

“Every three days or so a batch of hooch would come in and the clique would go insane.”

Among former St. Francois inmates who have moved on to state prison, mention of the jail evokes knowing looks and war stories.

Missouri prisoner Bobby Bartlett said his cellmate appeared rav-

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Dennis Smith, in an attempt to stop her from meeting with the lawyer’s client.

Karraker lives far from a major road, and she and her husband Kevan both began noticing mysterious cars at the end of her driveway. “As I walk towards them, they leave,” she said. “All I can say is: white dude with dark mustache.” (Joe Braun also claims Sheriff Bullock followed him around in his car. The sheriff denies this.) Karraker started to feel afraid when she stayed late at the office. Whenever she prepared to enter the jail, she’d text numerous friends, telling them if they didn’t hear from her in a speci ed number of hours to “raise hell.”

I witnessed Karraker do this before we went to meet one of her clients inside. When we left safely, she forgot to tell her friends, and they began to panic; her husband was not pleased.

THE SHERIFF

In March, Sheriff Daniel Bullock granted me an interview, and we met in his office, which is full of Western tchotchkes, including a taxidermied snake, a small statue of a Confederate soldier, mounted guns and swords, and pictures of

frontier lawmen like “Wild Bill” Hickok and Wyatt Earp. He comes from a family of law enforcement officers, and once told a reporter they believed they had a connection to eth Bullock, the rst sheriff of Deadwood, South Dakota, depicted on HBO by Timothy Olyphant. “I’ll work with you until you burn me, and when you burn me, we’re done,” he told me. “If I read something [in your article] that’s not particularly true, I wouldn’t advise you to come back.”

Bullock declined to discuss the death of Billy Ames in detail, but pointed to the cause of death — an overdose — as evidence that the family’s lawsuit was frivolous.

“I’ll tell you a little secret about Vonne,” he said. “She’s an ambulance chaser.” He was angry that she had taken me in earlier in the week to visit one of her clients, but he agreed to let me tour the jail.

Last December, as Karraker’s lawsuits gained attention, administrator Dennis Smith announced his retirement. (Karraker had previously sent a letter to the county commission demanding he be placed on leave.) His departure allowed the sheriff to appoint a new jail administrator who could signal a new era.

It was this new administrator, Jamie Crump, whom I followed into the jail. A restraint chair still sat in a cell near the booking desk, although Crump said it was not used often. Crump spoke about the importance of understanding trauma and addiction, and said he didn’t believe in using solitary con nement. e wanted to make it easier for family members to visit. Still, he said, “There’s not really been anything that I’m looking at and going ‘holy crap.’”

The kitchen was clean and the day’s chili was tasty (I tried it), but other glimpses were less encouraging Many surfaces were lthy, and some of the walls were covered in what looked like black mold. The hallways were dark and a few ceiling panels were missing due to a leak in the roof. The central enclosure, from which guards would be able to watch many of the living areas, was abandoned. In another room, amid numerous screens of security camera footage, a television was tuned to cartoons.

When I asked Bullock about the stories of violence and medical neglect, he said, “Take a trip around the nited tates, and you’ll nd every facility has the same complaints.” He is not wrong: Rituali ed ghts, medical neglect and abuse by jailers plague jails across the country, and sheriff’s departments frequently face lawsuits. “If Continued on pg 19

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THE MOST DIFFICULT THING Continued from pg 16

they were true, I certainly wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “I couldn’t have been here 40 years if I was letting things like that go on.” When I emailed a detailed list of the allegations in this story to the sheriff, he wrote back: “I am proud of my years of service to the residents of St. Francois County. Based on the timing and content of this article, it is obviously politically motivated. Because of the pending litigation, it is not appropriate for me to comment speci cally. I can say unequivocally that these allegations are not true.” I sent a similar list to jail administrator Dennis Smith and he said by phone on Monday, “I believe that the sheriff released a statement, and I’ll go with that.”

THE CHALLENGERS

Sheriff Bullock began his career as a deputy, and in 1992 he won the Democratic primary for sheriff, according to the department’s website, by 22 votes. He has been re-elected every four years since then. Jim Powell, a former deputy who failed to unseat him in 2000 and 2008, said one man refused to put up his campaign sign because his son had been beaten in the jail and remained fearful of retaliation. Bullock “seems to have a cult following,” Powell said. “You can’t penetrate it.” Some former detainees do not blame the sheriff personally for the conditions inside the jail. “It ain’t Bullock’s fault, I don’t think info gets to him,” said Sheila Downs, after telling a story about an officer spraying a fellow inmate with mace.

This summer, nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis focused on police departments, whose leaders are typically appointed by mayors. Sheriffs are directly elected and often stay in power for a decade or more. Hundreds of counties will hold sheriff elections this November, and some incumbents like Bullock are now facing scrutiny from voters over deaths in their jails. In early 2020, a retired police officer named Don Ebner announced he would run against Bullock, campaigning with a life-size cut-out of President Trump while criticizing abuses in the jail, like the Ames death, as examples of government overreach.

But Ebner was also battling cancer. In late March, he died.

From his deathbed, he threw his support to Ryan Miller, a 32-yearold former police officer. Miller told me that even if voters don’t sympathize with those abused in

jail, the problems will ultimately cost them as taxpayers as the county loses lawsuits like those Karraker is bringing. Miller has a local reputation for being liberal, but he argues that the sheriff should not be a partisan position. “Your vote is of much greater impact locally than it is in Washington,” he said, noting that “everyone knows George Floyd’s name,” but many in St. Francois County may not know about the death of Billy Ames.

Ebner was not the only one facing a medical crisis. In December, Karraker was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.

She had survived it before, and made jokes about how her doctors couldn’t let her die because her photo graced a calendar the hospital sent out for fundraising. But radiation still sapped her strength; when we met, she was clearly in pain. In late March, she began having trouble breathing. A coronavirus test came back negative, but she was brie y forced to stop radiation treatment, and her pain grew worse. She began making plans with a fellow lawyer and her many clients for how to proceed should she not survive.

Even so, she worked with new clients, including Jimmy Dean Cook, who said he was punched by his cellmate and, after picking up his teeth off the oor, was denied medical treatment and then beaten by a jailer. A carpenter named Michael Perry told Karraker that he’d been held in the jail for 24 hours after getting into a ght with his neighbors over noise. He said the jailers ignored his broken bula and then released him in the dead of night, and he spent four hours dragging his leg two miles to the house of a friend. Perry led a lawsuit in June.) “Not one damn thing has changed,” Karraker told me.

As the Aug. 4 election approaches, and Karraker’s lawsuit over the Ames death edges toward a potential trial, stories from the jail continue to dominate the local Facebook groups. ArchCity Defenders, a St. ouis nonpro t that has sued ails in Missouri, contacted her and is looking for information. But Karraker is handing off much of her work to others as her medical condition worsens. She recently noticed her ngernails turning blue, and she learned the cancer has spread to vital organs. She also needed surgery for an unrelated spinal issue; she remained awake during the operation even though she took a sedative. “I was on my feet an hour later and headed home,” she wrote in a text message. In late June, a doctor gave her three to six months to live.

She wrote, “The good old boys will probably wish I’d died sooner.” n

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SHORT ORDERS

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Busy Bee Restaurant vet Mike Risk is still buzzing during COVID-19 Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

I

n mid-March, when the restaurant community ground to a halt and hospitality workers across the country found themselves idled, the Clover and the Bee’s (100 W. Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves; 314-942-1216) Mike Risk found himself busier than ever as he tried to navigate the chaos thrust upon his businesses by COVID-19.

“Jesse [Mendica Risk] and I were still in the restaurants because we had all this food to mess with,” Risk says. “We were running a mini grocery store for all of our employees, trying to conserve what we could and clean out the walk-ins. It was our only way of going out, so we’d go work in the restaurants for a couple of hours and then come home.

We were also trying to deal with the Mack, trying to get PPP loans, working with bankers to see where we would end up. It was a lot; we were working, working, working.”

If anyone would have a packed schedule during the coronavirusinduced great slowdown, it’s Risk.

A veteran industry professional, the chef has been working nonstop in kitchens since he was nineteen. Shortly after graduating high school, Risk got his start at Trattoria Marcella and knew right away that he wanted to eschew college to soak up as much knowledge as he could from owners Steve and Jamie Komorek. For twelve years, he worked alongside them, learning everything from how to run the nancial side of the business to how to tend to the restaurant’s garden and develop relationships with local farmers.

In 2008, Risk decided he needed a change, so he left Trattoria Marcella to help open Ninth Street Deli in Soulard with his friend and business partner, Brian Tracy. After two years, Risk joined Tracy at his other business, the Mack in the Southampton neighborhood, and eventually transitioned to that full time in 2009.

Mike Risk of the Clover and the Bee hasn’t stopped moving during the COVID-19 pandemic. | ANDY PAULISSEN Risk kept busy running the Mack with Tracy, but his decision to take time out of his busy schedule to help a friend would change his life. The friend was working at Olive + Oak, which had not yet opened, and he called Risk begging for help on the line for the restaurant’s opening night. Risk obliged and realized instantly that he never wanted to leave.

“Getting back into that way of cooking really lit a re under me,” Risk says. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, what have I been doing for eight years? I really miss this.’ That one day became two nights, then three, and it just spiraled from there.”

Risk continued to work at Olive + Oak until owner Mark Hinkle tapped him to be executive chef at the restaurant’s sister concept, the Clover and the Bee, when it opened in 2017. And now, he’s taking on an additional role in the company, helping Hinkle develop and run O+O Pizza, the forthcoming concept that will occupy the old Olive + Oak space (the restaurant has moved down the road to bigger digs).

Though balancing the Mack, the Clover and the Bee, and O+O keeps him incredibly busy, isk is lled with nothing but joy when he reects on where he is in his career.

It’s why, even when faced with the challenges brought on by the pandemic, he can’t help but feel the responsibility to do everything he can to make sure the industry he

loves weathers the storm.

“I love the restaurant industry,” Risk says. “It’s all I’ve done since I was fteen, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I feel like I have excelled in it, and I want to care for it and preserve it — and I’m hopeful. I think we end up on the good side of this. We’ll end up with some great restaurants, including some new ones, and there will be a cool restaurant boom once people can get their bearings again.

That’s my hope.”

As a hospitality professional, what do people need to know about what you are going through?

Nothing. Hospitality has always been about the customer’s experience; it’s their break from the everyday. We have always been here to provide them with that.

Hospitality is about the customer.

What do you miss most about your job?

Plates and the buzz of customers conversing at tables.

What do you miss least?

Really, nothing comes to mind.

What is one thing you make sure you do every day to maintain a sense of normalcy?

Walking! I walk to and from work every day, weather permitting. It’s the best hour of my day to meditate, re ect and plan.

What have you been stress-eating/drinking lately?

Pizza, pizza and more pizza —

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and not stressfully, just working on pizza for the new O+O Pizza to open soon.

What are the three things you’ve made sure you don’t want to run out of, other than toilet paper?

Charcoal, Natural Light and rosé.

You have to be quarantined with three people. Who would you pick?

My new wife Jesse Mendica Risk and my two sons, Will and Cal. These three are my world.

Once you feel comfortable going back out and about, what’s the first thing you’ll do?

Some type of sporting event or concert for sure.

What do you think the biggest change to the hospitality industry will be once people are allowed to return to normal activity levels?

Values — how much we value our customers, our employees, our restaurant business as a whole. We can make or change entire neighborhoods, and that’s an amazing thing.

What is one thing that gives you hope during this crisis?

The St. Louis restaurant community! When this all began, everyone was on Zoom meetings, calls or email trying to work together to tunnel our way through this as a city. It was really cool to be a part of it, watch and see people step up and navigate through this. Standing ovation to the St. Louis restaurants and restaurant groups who lead the way. n

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CULTURE [HOMESPUN]

The Sky Is Falling Fight Back Mountain drops new single “Lavender Sky” even as COVID-19 cancels all its other 2020 plans Written by

JULIA BROOKS

A

t the start of the year, Adrian Barnello and his bandmates in Fight Back Mountain had big plans, with a new album to be released and a tour in the works. But then, as with all plans in 2020, the life-draining, hope-crushing nightmare that is COVID-19 demolished their dreams.

“We had to cancel a ton of shows; we had a show we were gonna play with the band Pears, the Fat Wreck band, that was probably going to be our biggest show to date,” Barnello says. “That got axed completely. We also had to cancel some other shows. We had to take two or three months off of practicing — we didn’t practice at all when the lockdown order was in place.”

On top of the canceled shows and missed practices, coronavirus put the kibosh on the band’s most ambitious plans for 2020: the release of its sophomore LP, with a cross-country tour to match.

“We were gonna put out our full-length album this year, but we decided to push it back to next year because we wouldn’t be able to sell albums or play any shows,” Barnello explains. “We’re not going to play shows until it’s a real one. I wouldn’t be comfortable playing a show at all for the rest of this year. O I de nitely took a wrecking ball to our plans this year — that would be putting it lightly. We were supposed to go on tour this month, which obviously is not happening. It was on the books, we were gonna announce it in April. Postponed album, canceled tour, canceled shows — we

Adrian Barnello, left, says that his band got hit about as bad as a band can in 2020. | VIA THE BAND got it pretty much as bad as you could get for a band.”

For a band that was years in the making, it’s been a series of setbacks in what had promised to be a big year. Though Fight Back Mountain started in 2017 when band members Barnello (vocals and guitar), Anjelica Aquilino (rhythm guitar and lyricist) and Devin Dessieux (drums) decided they needed something new, it wasn’t their rst time playing together.

“Me, Devin and Anjelica, we all used to go to a rock & roll summer camp thing when we were in high school. It’s pretty dorky, but it was pretty fun. It was called Camp Jam,” Barnello explains. “We were in a band at this summer camp, this is in like 2007, our band captain was Mario from a bunch of STL bands like the Pubes and Sex Robots; he was our band leader guy. He was our camp counselor, believe it or not. We were like ‘the punk rock group.’”

Ten years later they joined up again to form Fight Back Mountain and decided to evolve past being just “the punk rock group” and make a move toward a more rock roll sound. o le them away as another KSHE Klassicstyle rock band would be a mistake though — a heavy dose of that foundational punk in uence still shines through.

“We’re a rock alternative band, we’re obviously punk-y, like a pop-punk-ish band, but we don’t really t in with a lot of amonesstyle pop-punk bands, and we don’t t in with a lot of the easy core bands,” Barnello says. “I don’t really like to call ourselves a

The new single “Lavender Sky.” | VIA THE BAND pop-punk band that much. We’re a ’90s pop-punk band mixed with a Dischord Records Fugazi-style band.”

But while Fugazi notably leaned heavily on politics to power its lyrics, you won’t hear much of that from Fight Back Mountain.

Although Barnello was an elected delegate for Bernie Sanders in St. Louis’ 24th Ward, currently phone banks for congressional candidate Cori Bush and works with the campaign for state senate hopeful Doug Beck, the band tries to keep their political viewpoints out of their music.

“I’ve always been involved in politics; I try as best as I can not to sing about it too much,” Barnello says. “I don’t want anyone to not be able to enjoy the band because of a difference of opinion. We don’t have any tolerance for racism or stuff like that, but I try not to let the political stuff bleed into the lyrics too much — although it does happen on occasion.”

One such occasion would be the

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band’s March single “Uncle Amero” (available on Bandcamp and Spotify), which slips through the cracks and lands rmly in political territory. “A corporatist, a realist/the Party and Nate Silver think that you’re the shit/Won’t beat far-right with mediocrity/We’re snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” is certainly as political as anything you’re likely to hear from any artist this election year.

But that’s the exception rather than the rule. Most of the band’s songs delve into deeper issues ranging from depression to grief to sexism. The band’s lyric-writing process is unique, as most lyrics are written by Aquilino for Barnello to sing, and in fact the band was formed around Aquilino’s writings.

“In 2017 Anjelica was writing a bunch of songs because her therapist told her to try to write some lyrics to try to deal with what she was going through, so she wrote a bunch of them,” Barnello says.

“Me and Devin, our old band the Mondales had just broken up and we were looking for something to do. So we were like, ‘Hey, let’s take these lyrics that Anjelica wrote — they’re pretty good — so let’s take them and make a band.’ Eventually I coerced Andy [Kohnen] into being in our band; we didn’t have a bass player until then.”

When asked if it’s strange to sing someone else’s lyrics, Barnello says it’s in fact quite the opposite.

“I actually like it more. I’m kinda lousy at writing lyrics,” he says. “It sort of allows me to not be embarrassed because a lot of our songs are really personal, and if it was my personal issues that I was going through it might be kind of hard showing that to people, but I don’t really get that because it’s not mine. If it was Anjelica singing it she might be more likely to get stage fright because you’re putting yourself out there to the world. This way I’m kind of the intermediary.”

Even with all that 2020 has rained down upon the band, Fight Back Mountain is hopeful about the future and plans to record the second half of its full-length album, tentatively titled Lavender Sky, in October. The band’s latest single, also titled “Lavender Sky,” was released on July 17 and is currently available on Spotify, Bandcamp and Apple Music. n

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[ A P O C A LY P S E S O U N D T R A C K ]

Pande-Mix: An End of the World Mixtap

BY CHRIS WARD For the final week, former KDHX DJ Chris Ward examines a song from his quarantinebased playlist dealing with isolation, loneliness, hope and germs. Find them on the Spotify playlist “Pande-Mix: An End of the World Playlist”: https://spoti.fi/2WZGTJZ.

“Tomorrow May Never Come”

by David & the Same Mistakes from their self-titled album (2020) “Someday soon, my love, you’ll be in my arms again.”

W

e’re not going to get our summer jam. Not this year.

Even as monoculture disintegrates faster than a nuanced Facebook argument, riding that shared joywave of a certified summer banger before crashing into the overplayed rocks was something I looked forward to. Year after year, the Summer Jam takes my mind back to a place John Prine called “the Valley of the Unconcerned.”

But in 2020, there will be no Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.” No “Hey Ya!” No one’s taking their animal — any animal — to the “Old Town Road.”

Only twice have I gotten close to that warm Summer Jam Feeling in the middle of the worst year in a string of worst years. The first time was watching a documentary about “Who Let the Dogs Out,” a thing that actually exists to stream, is very good, and will make you happy. The second time was hearing my friend David Meyer’s new album.

Now, I hesitate to say “my friend Dave” because who wants to check out “my friend’s band”? The answer is “no one.” No one wants to hear anyone’s music, even fans of music. Even other musicians. Even music critics and DJs. No one wants to hear anyone’s music.

I don’t make the rules, nor do I understand them.

To his credit, I don’t think David really cares if you hear it either. Like the best music, he just sort of made it for himself. But I just happened to be at his house and spot a box of new CDs (an oxymoron, yes) on his kitchen table.

“Wait … did you make an album? You ... play music?” I said. “Oh yeah … you want one? I gotta get rid of them,” he replied, offhand. And so, accidentally, David & the Same Mistakes (also on Spotify) has become my Summer Jam. Of the six short songs (four of them clocking in at exactly 3:19, which he swears isn’t a conspiracy), “Tomorrow May Never Come” fits best into this particular Pandemic Mix. In a way, it captures our collective “haha we’re

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gonna die” vibe. It’s Slim Pickens riding The Bomb, but with harmonica. It’s got a breezy, whistle-while-you-quarantine, New Orleans funeral-by-way-of-the Beatles sound. It’s bouncy, like the Muppets are gonna pop up any second during the hand-clap portion. It’s wistful that someday we’ll be in each other’s arms again, knowing it will be later than sooner, if ever at all. It has a charmingly outdated phrase that no one says anymore: “You were right, I was wrong.”

Also featuring Paul Niehaus IV and journeyman local musician and former RFT contributer Bob McMahon on drums (who, in full disclosure, has once written about my old band be-

cause this is, after all, St. Louis), the entire EP is brisk, summery, bittersweet, and ... well, just nice. We could all use a little “just nice.”

The penultimate track, a wonderful yacht rock slow jam contender released before COVID, cements my most recent thoughts: “I’m not ready to die just yet/ But I wouldn’t call this living.” But “Tomorrow May Never Come,” the perfect closer and the “acceptance” part of the previous track’s grief cycle, throws up its hands and says “Make love, drink up/While we are young.”

In other words, just make your own summer jams this year, and don’t care about who hears them. Act like Mama Cass, and make your own kind of music. Dance like no one’s watching, baby. And write a music column during a pandemic like no one’s reading.

And, with that said, this column has been a pleasure: Wear a mask you selfish idiot, be safe, enjoy the playlist, never vote for a Republican again, and let’s ride this rocket into the heart of the fucking sun. n

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SAVAGE LOVE FRIENDS IN DEED

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a twenty-something more-or-less lesbian in an East Coast city. I’m primarily into women, and I’m only interested in relationships with women, but I’m sometimes attracted to men and have enjoyed sex with men in the past. For various reasons, I decided a few years ago not to pursue physical stuff with men anymore and I publicly identify as a lesbian. This worked great prepandemic, but now, with a tiny social bubble and no dating prospects, I find myself feeling very attracted to a male friend/coworker. He’s 30-something, single, straight, and we’ve hung out a few times since COVID (only outside, and while socially distanced). As far as work goes, neither of us has a management role, we’re in different departments, and we rarely interact professionally. So, hypothetically, the coworker part wouldn’t be an ethical issue if we were to get involved.

I have a feeling he’d be down for a casual pandemic thing ... although it’s possible I could be projecting.

But I have no idea how to broach this subject. He’s a respectful person and we work for a very progressive organization, so he’s not going to flirt with me since I identify as gay.

I don’t know how to bring up in casual conversation that I sometimes like sleeping with men, Dan, and my usual approach to flirting involves a lot of casual physical contact, which obviously isn’t possible right now. What should I do? Should I just let this go? Even though we don’t work closely together, there’s obviously the potential for professional issues if feelings got hurt, and celibacy is obviously a responsible option during this pandemic. But COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions are going to continue and he and I seem well enough suited to keep each other company. I was single and celibate for a while before the pandemic and am feeling desperate to touch another human being. If it’s not a terrible idea, how do I flirt with him without endangering public health, messing up our friendship, or making our work situation incredibly awkward in the event that he’s not into me?

Craving Organic Viable Earthly

Touching There’s no way to ensure that a sexual and/or romantic relationship with a coworker (or anyone else) won’t end badly — and a little awkwardness would be the least of your worries if this proposed arrangement ended badly. But if your relationships and breakups are generally drama-free, COVET, and if you’ve been friends with this guy long enough to know that his relationships and breakups have been mostly drama-free, I think you should tell him how you’ve been feeling. Ask him if he’s interested in nding a O I -19 sex buddy, as the utch call them, and if he is, tell him you would like to apply for the position.

While most couples meet online these days, COVET, roughly 10 percent of opposite-sex couples — which is what you two would be — still meet through work.

And while you’re not interested in anything romantic or long-term, couples that meet through work remain the most likely to marry.

Which means work relationships don’t always end in tears and/ or pink slips and/or lawsuits. (Although they do sometimes end in divorce. People who nd themselves attracted to coworkers need to be thoughtful about power dynamics, of course, and cognizant of company policies where workplace romance is concerned.

And it sounds like you are being thoughtful, and it doesn’t sound like either of you have power over each other or are likely to ever be in positions of power over each other.

And life is short and this pandemic is going to be long.

So the next time you get together for some socially distanced socializing, COVET, open your mouth and tell this guy what you’ve been thinking. If he’s as liberal and progressive as you make him out to be, he’s no doubt aware that human sexuality is complicated and that while many of us can nd a perfect t among the most commonly understood set of labels, many of us pick a label that doesn’t t perfectly because it comes closest to capturing some combo of our sexual and/or romantic interest and desires. on’t think of this ask — don’t think of this disclosure — as walking anything back but as expanding and

complicating what he already knows about you. You remain homoromantic — you’re only interested in other women romantically — but you are attracted to both men and women sexually. In other words, COVET, your heart is lesbian but your pussy is bi.

If he’s up for being your COVI -19 sex buddy, swear to each other that you’ll handle the inevitable end with grace and compassion.

For while awkwardness can’t be avoided, COVET, stupid and unnecessary drama certainly can. And it’s been my experience that promising in advance to act like grownups ups the chances of everyone acting like grownups. Similarly, simply saying, “Well, this might get awkward,” in advance of awkwardness or, “This is awkward,” if things should get awkward reduces the strength and duration of awkwardness by at least half.

Finally, a note to all the guys out there reading this who think COVET’s question gives them license to hit on women who identify as lesbians o, it doesn’t. on’t do that. If there’s a lesbian-identi edbut-not-averse-to-all-dick dyke in your life ... if you work or go to school with a homoromantic-butbisexual woman who identi es as a lesbian ... and if that woman is even remotely interested in fucking you, she will let you know.

And even if your hunch is correct — even if your dickful thinking is spot-on and that one lesbian you know does wanna fuck you — being disrespectful enough to make the rst move instantly disqualies both you and your dick.

Hey, Dan: This is a letter from a gay guy. If one of my regular kinky playmate friends were to gag and hood me and then fuck me while wearing a condom, would that reasonably be expected to prevent COVID-19 transmission?

Hoping Or Otherwise Determined You’re less likely to contract COVI -19 if you’re hooded and gagged, and it’ll be even safer if your kinky playmate wears a mask too. But you should be hooded and gagged before your kinky playmate arrives, OO , because if he gets close enough to hood and gag you himself then he’ll be exhaling all over you and inhaling whatever you’re exhaling. And that — inhaling what other people are exhaling

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— is the risk we all need to avoid right now. And while O I -19 has been found in semen, the jury is still out on whether semen presents a signi cant risk of infection. nless a dude shoots so hard his semen is aerosolized and his sex partners are in danger of inhaling his spunk into their lungs.) That said, COVI -19 isn’t the only thing we need to worry about, OO , so he should wear a condom to protect you from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The biggest risk, according to health departments from sea (NYC Health) to shining sea (British olumbia entres for isease Control), is kissing — we’re being urged to forgo “kissing and saliva exchange” with randos for the moment — so kinky fuckers who get off on wearing masks, gags and hoods have a built-in, hard-wired advantage. But no kissing before the hood goes on.

Hey, Dan: Please settle a debate with my “friend.” I’m correct in that your staff comes up with the clever names of those who submit letters to your Savage Love column, right?

My “friend” holds the delusional belief that the clever names are created by the letter writers themselves.

Please settle this with a confirmation that I am correct.

Friendship Risked In Entirely Needless Dispute A million or so years ago I began shortening sign-offs created by the letter writers — I began making acronyms out of them — to cut my word count and save space. Readers noticed what I was doing and began creating sign-offs that, when acronymized, became words that playfully referenced their questions. It quickly became something “Savage Love” readers looked forward to — something they liked as much or more than my dick jokes — and it wasn’t long before readers were letting me know they were disappointed when sign-offs didn’t result in clever acronyms. So nowadays when readers don’t go to the trouble of creating clever sign-offs for themselves, I do it for them. I would say I come up with roughly half the sign-offs that appear in the column, F IE , which means you and your friend are both right. www.savagelovecast.com FakeDanSavage on Twitter mail@savagelove.net

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THE GREEN DRAGON CBD

IS A ST. LOUIS, FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESS THAT RECENTLY OPENED ITS FLAGSHIP LOCATION IN CHESTERFIELD Did you know that your body already produces cannabinoids every day as part of a key system that runs throughout your body and helps to regulate almost every part of your body’s functions? CBD is one of many natural cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, and is used to promote overall health and wellness, as well as to deal with many health challenges.

Our company’s mission, and the physical store itself, was constructed with the intention of helping to educate both existing and brand new potential users on every aspect of CBD. The education center includes video, wall displays and printed material to help customers explore CBD and related topics. The inviting environment, much like a spa, is supported by knowledgeable and friendly associates. We are excited to have created an animal friendly establishment, where 5% of all pet product sales go to benefit Stray Rescue of St. Louis.

When you are ready to buy CBD, you have the largest selection of top-quality, trusted brands and

products anywhere. Select from many product categories to find the best method based upon personal preference:Jack CBD Oils & Tinctures, CBD Flower or Pre-Rolls, CBD Topicals, CBD Gummies, Edibles, Drinks, CBD for Pets, CBD Vaping…and more!

In addition to the store resources, the online presence, at www.thegreendragoncbd.com has dozens of blog posts covering many topics of CBD usage, CBD myths, and unique testimonials from CBD users. You can also place orders online for delivery at-home.

15% off for all first time customers in-store, or go online for special web offerings!

The Green Dragon CBD www.thegreendragoncbd.com 14856 Clayton Rd Chesterfield, MO 63017 (636) 220-7278 Open Mon-Sat 8am-9pm, or Sun 9am-6pm