The irony. The sad, twisted, corrupt irony.
In an important government meeting at the St. Louis City Hall on the need for civilian oversight in matters of police corruption and abuse, Jeff Roorda, business manager and spokesperson for the St. Louis police union, also the most corrupt man connected to St. Louis police, disrespected the African-American moderator. He also assaulted a woman as he violently shoved his way through the crowd, leaving a gash on her forehead and sending the otherwise peaceful onlookers into an all-out melee. The meeting was canceled and police escorted an explosive Roorda out of the building without charging him for assault in a confrontation we will clearly show below that he initiated.
In a day and age where protestors are arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience and a respected teenage member of the Ferguson Commission was charged with assault for simply moving around an officer to enter a building, it's a gross double-standard that Jeff Roorda is getting away with this.
Rebecca Rivas, of the St. Louis American, reports:
Roorda, who was sitting in the audience, had just finished yelling to the public safety committee chairman Alderman Terry Kennedy, “How about some order here?”
His comment came after a police officer was trying to give his testimony on the proposed legislation of a civilian oversight board but was being interrupted by some attendees.
Kennedy responded to Roorda, saying, “First of all, you do not tell me my function.”
After hearing this, Roorda rose from his seat and was trying to move through the crowd towards the front of the room. He first tried to push the young black woman out of his way, and then, according to reports of those close by, pushed and scratched her face.
In a video posted on Twitter, the woman, St. Louis resident Cachet Currie, said she was trying to leave the room when the incident happened.
Yelling and name calling shortly ensued after. Police held Roorda back as he tried to charge at people in crowd.
Continue reading below the fold for video and more details on this incident.
Here's one angle of how Roorda destroyed the meeting.
Here's another angle, starting at 5:45 in the video below, showing when Roorda yells at the moderator and then a better angle of when he grabs and shoves Cachet Currie, who was clearly just trying to leave the meeting.
Here's how Cachet Currie, speaking to KMOV, describes the assault:
"I was literally just trying to leave the meeting and I got caught in whatever Roorda and Kennedy had going on in their exchange," said Currie. "Roorda just jumped out into the aisle, pushed me over, and tried to get to Kennedy. I'm like 'wait a minute, don't push me.' Then he started going off on me, pushing me.”
Roorda, though, blames it all on Currie and says she deliberately wouldn't let him through and that she elbowed him—which is clearly disproven on the video and in the images.
“As I tried to exit the aisle I was in, the woman was standing in the way,” Roorda said. “She began elbowing me and pushing, trying to keep me from getting out. As I tried to exit, she continued to do that."
Here's an image of Currie, standing in the middle, in an aisle trying to leave the meeting before she is assaulted by Roorda.
Here's Cachet Currie explaining how she was already in the aisle and leaving when Roorda assaulted her.
Here's a closeup screenshot of Roorda grabbing Currie by the arm while a shocked onlooker reaches to grab her from Roorda's grip.
Here's the forehead of Cachet Currie after being cut by Jeff Roorda. If any activist or protestor did this to Jeff Roorda they'd be in jail right now. The thing is, he's not even a police officer anymore—he's just being protected by them.
But here's what we know—Jeff Roorda didn't come in peace. He came to city hall wearing an "I Am Darren Wilson" bracelet guaranteed to incite frustration and anger in a crowd he had to know would be deeply offended by such an outrageous and completely unnecessary gesture. Mind you, the Department of Justice wrote a detailed letter requesting that St. Louis police no longer wear these bracelets.
Jeff Roorda isn't new to controversy and corruption though. What's disturbing and perplexing is that he's the man white (
white and black officers have different unions) St. Louis police officers have chosen to represent them. How telling is that?
In 2001, he was fired as a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Arnold, Missouri, for falsifying reports in 1997 and again in 2001. Roorda lost an appeal of his termination in the Missouri Court of Appeals in 2004 when it was deemed that he did indeed falsify reports. In spite of being fired for police misconduct in 2001, Roorda was hired as chief of police in neighboring Kimmswick, Missouri, the following year.
Two years later, in 2004, Roorda ran for and won a seat in the Missouri state House of Representatives, where he soon was placed on the statewide Public Safety Committee. In 2005, Roorda wrote House Bill 396, which would allow police officers to—and this is an exact quote from his bill—"collect hazardous samples without court approval, document and then destroy them, and make them admissible." While it didn't pass, it is a shocking peek into the mind of Roorda 10 years ago.
In 2012, Governor Jay Nixon campaigned for Roorda.
In 2013, police assaulted a teenager in handcuffs, but were found not guilty—with the support of Roorda, working in a new capacity as an executive with the St. Louis police union. Here's the awful video and outrageous comments made by Roorda.
In March 2014, in reference to the support of Nixon,
Roorda said, "I’ve enjoyed support from Governor Nixon every time I’ve run. That support has been very important to my success."
In early 2014, Roorda wrote and sponsored House Bill 1466, which would change the Missouri sunshine laws requiring open records on police-involved incidents. Roorda's bill would seal all records involving any/every police action and prohibit police departments from releasing the names of officers involved in shootings.
Filed exactly one week after the murder of Brown, Roorda is listed as vice president of the charity behind the Darren Wilson fundraiser. In spite of Roorda supporting the Wilson fundraisers during a tumultuous time for the state and a new spotlight on Roorda's troubled past, Nixon, in September 2014 campaigned again for Roorda.
Also in September 2014, Roorda continued to speak out against the use of dash cameras and body cameras worn by police officers. And after demanding that the St. Louis Rams apologize for allowing players to enter a game with their hands up in protest of the shooting death of Mike Brown, Keith Olberman named Jeff Roorda as the "Worst Person in Sports."
Will Roorda be charged with assault? Will he even be reprimanded by the union for his destructive behavior or is it more likely that the white union members love every minute of what went down?
