Prosecutions double in crime-ridden St Louis after old DA stepped down

The new St. Louis district attorney has doubled the amount of criminal prosecutions in his first three months in office, compared to the number pursued by his woke, Soros-backed predecessor over the same period last year. Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore (pictured bottom right), 54, replaced D emocrat Kim Gardner (pictured top right), 48, in May after the George Soros-backed attorney resigned amid pressure from Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican.

Gardner faced criticism for her lax enforcement of crimes that saw criminals back on the streets of St. Louis facing little punishment even as crime spiked throughout the Midwest hub. Gore was sworn in on May 31 and has already filed over 1,400 cases in the past three months, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found. Kim Gardner filed only 620 in the same three-month period during her time last year. ‘I don’t think there’s any magic to what we’re doing,’ Gore told the Post-Dispatch. ‘We are just charging the violations of law.’

The crime-ridden city saw a surge in charges after their new circuit attorney’s office spent more time reviewing cases applied for by St. Louis police and prioritized less severe offenses that were largely unprosecuted under Gardner – which Gore called ‘quality of life crimes.’ ‘These are things that drive people out of the city,’ Gore said. ‘These are things that can’t be considered to be the cost of living somewhere.’ Gore’s goal is to clear the backlog of 2,000 cases that Gardner created during her time in office by the beginning of 2024. One tactic Gore’s office is using to cut down the list is to not add to it – instead they are aiming to determine the same day as arrests if cases should be charged.

The St. Louis attorney’s office was drastically understaffed during Gardner’s leadership. When she took office there were 60 attorneys, but when she left, there only around 30 remained. Gore hired 21 new attorneys – which means the office is still short-staffed but in a far better position to deal with the high volume of cases left over from his predecessor. ‘We’re still relying on attorneys basically coming to work every day and doing more than they should be asked to do,’ Gore said. ‘Everybody’s pitching in and doing the best they can.’ Gore, the former U.S. assistant attorney was chosen by Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, 67, who said: ‘We believe Mr. Gore is a qualified and experienced leader our great city of St. Louis needs for this new day and this historical opportunity for change’ a St. Louis Courthouse in May.

Gardner’s approach to crime centered around prevention including punishing low-level crimes with diversion to mental health facilities or drug abuse treatment centers. She pledged to hold police more accountable and to free inmates who were wrongfully convicted. In 2019, Gardner announced an ‘exclusion list ‘ that listed about 75 police officers in St. Louis who were no longer allowed to bring cases to her office because their ‘integrity is compromised’. Gore’s office has been working through a backlog of pending charges left over from Gardner’s time in office. One of the final cases that Gardner oversaw was a Cinco de Mayo shooting, which the DA refused to press charges against the suspected woman for due to a ‘lack of evidence’ despite surveillance images of the suspect wielding a gun.

According to Gardner’s office the suspect – Amber Booker, 33 – wasn’t charged due to a ‘lack of evidence’ and the victims not cooperating with the investigation. The Democrat-elected prosecutor won her seat in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020. Gardner was backed by billionaire George Soros and received about $116,000 from Soros-backed PACS his Vera Institute of Justice. Under her watch, murder in St. Louis hit a 50-year high and the city saw less and less felonies prosecuted. She is one of several high-profile district attorneys working in liberal cities with the backing of Soros. A study found Soros spent at least $40million to install as many as 75 prosecutors who support his leftist agenda — either with outright donations or fueled through political action committees.

These DAs have stripped away bail laws and opted to forgo prosecuting crimes such as theft and reckless driving, effectively giving criminals a free pass and leading to the breakdown of law and order across the United States. Gardner had faced backlash just one year into office, when she indicted Gov. Eric Greitens for taking a partially nude photo of a woman without her concenst. But the charges were eventually dropped, an investigator she hired pleaded guilty in federal court to concealing documents in the case and Gardner was reprimanded by the Missouri Supreme Court and was forced to pay $750 in an ethics case over her office’s mishandling of evidence, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. She later also came under fire for her decision to charge a couple for brandishing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters.

Everything eventually came to a had in February, when a car speeding through the downtown crashed, pinning a teenager between two vehicles and leading to the amputation of both her legs. The car’s driver, Daniel Riley, had remained free after court delays, even though he kept violating his bond. In the aftermath, many of Gardner’s former allies began calling for her resignation and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a suit seeking her removal.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Visit our profile page here and hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.