Six people arrested in August outside a raucous town hall meeting in south St. Louis County have been charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations.
The six, including a Post-Dispatch reporter, had attended a demonstration outside an Aug. 6 forum called by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville to discuss health care reform.
The charges were filed Tuesday by the St. Louis County counselor’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor ordinance violations in unincorporated areas. All are to appear in court Jan. 21.
The maximum penalty upon conviction would be one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Some bloggers have been writing for months about the lag between the arrests at the politically-charged event and the filing of charges.
County Counselor Patricia Redington insisted it had nothing to do with politics, influence or pressure from any official.
“These charges are like the 90,000 other charges we file each year,” she said.
Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman, 30, of University City, was charged with interfering with a police officer. The charges allege that he failed to obey repeated commands “to leave the site of an ongoing disturbance.”
Elston McCowan, 47, of St. Louis, and Perry Molens, 50, of De Soto, each were charged with assaulting a person and interfering with police. They are accused of scuffling with and injuring Kenneth Gladney, a demonstrator with the Tea Party, a group generally opposed to Democrats’ universal health care proposals.
By the way… Gladney was not a protester. He was selling merchandise at the event.
Kenneth Gladney was beaten and stomped on by SEIU thugs outside of the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in August: