St. Louis homicide detective warns young people: Don't become a cop
Retired St. Louis homicide detective Roger Murphey speaks out on the criminal chaos in St. Louis Under District Attorney Kimberly Gardner.
A former St. Louis homicide detective and 26-year veteran on the force, said a George Soros-backed district attorney, Kimberly Gardner, placed him on an infamous "exclusion list," which bars officers from being involved in crucial portions of criminal justice proceedings.
Roger Murphey retired in 2021, approximately two years after he said he was put on an exclusion list which made him feel like a sitting duck. As an excluded officer, Murphey would have to ask other officers to file his paperwork to Gardner's office – such as arrest and search warrants, as well as grand jury subpoenas, he said.
Murphey said he left law enforcement for his own sanity. He added that he would not recommend young people become officers. "It's not worth it," he said.
"I just basically sat there, couldn't really do anything. So I just said, I'm sitting here collecting dust and just collecting a paycheck and not doing anything. So what good am I here for the citizens? So I said, 'Well, I'm going to retire to turn my papers in,'" Murphey told Fox News Digital.
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Roger Murphey speaks to Fox News Digital about Soros-backed District Attorney Kimberly Gardner. (Fox News Digital | Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
"It was just frustrating. No one goes into law enforcement to get rich. I mean, you're just not going to. You go into it because you have a calling," he added.
It is unknown how many officers are on the list, but estimates have run as high as 75, with some believing it is much higher. Gardner has refused to share the exact number. Officers are gagged from speaking out if they are placed on the list.
"You're given a direct order not to discuss this. So that's a fireable offense," Murphey said.
Officers who are currently at the DA office are terrified to speak out due to retaliation, Murphey said. About 819 officers have left the department around when Gardner took office in 2017, according to the St. Louis Police Pension Board. The department lost an average of 119 officers each year between 2017 and 2019. In 2020, 129 officers left the force, with an additional 174 leaving in 2021.
Gardner's office will even decline to prosecute cases brought forward by some officers on the exclusion list if they were considered essential witnesses and the case could not move forward without their testimony. Some officers who have been placed on the list are victims of shootings, according to KSDK. A local police union told the outlet that it was concerned whether those excluded officers would be able to see justice if they are prohibited from being essential witnesses in criminal cases.
The district attorneys' office has said it places officers on the list – which was created in 2018 – that are believed for one reason or another to be untrustworthy and biased.
District Attorney Kimberly Gardner uses the Soros-backed Vera Institute of Justice to dissolve the criminal justice system's footprint in St. Louis due to its supposed "racism," a Fox News Digital investigation found. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images | AP Photo/Jim Salter)
"This was a political effort by her, had nothing to do with bias," Murphey said. "If it was true, if it was biased, then take me in front a judge, show proof that I'm biased – and she hasn't done that," he said. "If I'm biased, why did you have to have a secret list, you know? Because I'm not biased. Why was an order given out not to talk about it? No transparency."
Murphey continued, "I'm here 26 and a half years. Open all my cases up. Bring it forward. Why are you not reopening these cases? And the simple answer is because she's lying. And it was a political stunt because she wanted less policemen on the force, less arrests, and it made arrests go down."
A Fox News Digital investigation found that Gardner was implementing policies that would shrink the criminal justice system's footprint in St. Louis in coordination with the Soros-linked Vera Institute of Justice. The private organization appeared to pay its own way to influence the district attorney's office. A Vera representative said that no taxpayer dollars were used.
In order to enter into a partnership with Vera and get its support, DA offices must commit to reducing racial disparities by at least 20%.
According to Murphey, two social media posts on his personal Facebook caused his exclusion. One was critical of Gardner's soft-on-crime approach. "It got to the point where if you criticized our prosecutor here in the city of Saint Louis, she blackballed you."
"She's got very thin skin. She's very shallow person, in my opinion. And her whole thing was, we're not going to incarcerate and not put anybody in jail. Well, that's not what police departments are created for. We're created to provide protection to the citizens."
Upon recommendation from Vera, the DA office applied a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard – used by a jury to decide whether to convict – for initial charges on cases instead of the standard prosecutors use – probable cause. This effectively shrunk the amount of cases that entered the system.
An inmate throws a chair from broken windows at the St. Louis Justice Center, known as the city jail, after fires were set at the facility on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM)
Murphey said, "So no matter what you did, you arrest somebody, and she wasn't issuing charges… And it got to the point where everybody was shut down because they were like, why am I doing this?"
And in many cases, Murphey said, Gardner's office "wouldn't even issue charges. And it just sits there."
"Then the system broke down, completely broke down. The police didn't break it down. Kim Gardner broke it down," he said.
Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has moved to fire Gardner and intends to show a judge that Gardner neglected her duties and therefore needed to be removed.
Murphey added that Gardner's refusal to prosecute and charge cases was part of an intent to destroy the system in place.
"You really cannot be that incompetent unless it was a concerted effort to break the system down," Murphey said.
He said he found it bizarre when Gardner's office began requesting the criminal histories of the victims, which he considered to be a move used by attorneys defending criminals at trial.
"They actually got to the point where we had to start bringing in the criminal histories of our victim. They gave more weight to the victim's criminal history. I'm like, ‘What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?’ This man is dead. Or at least the woman has been assaulted. Yes, okay, she's had a criminal past, but... that has nothing to do with it. The fact is that this person is dead."
A St. Louis homicide detective speaks out against District Attorney Kim Gardner for failing to prosecute cases. (Getty | Fox News )
On the other hand, with career criminals, Murphey said, "We got to disregard this guy's 15 prior felonies, and three prison sentences that he's done, and he's been released early. And we're only going to judge him on this one little case."
In order to enter into a partnership with Vera, DA offices must promise not to consider criminal histories. The reason is that – according to Vera – the criminal justice system is racist.
"[T]he criminal legal system has been a tool of racial oppression and social control… of Black people…. As some of the most powerful actors in the system, prosecutors have a responsibility to work to rectify that impact," Vera said. "Prosecutors should… repair harms caused by the system... They should also dramatically shift the policies, practices, and organizational culture of their offices to address racial disparities and ensure respect for the inherent dignity of all people."
Letting criminals out on the street, Murphey said, encouraged juveniles to shoot at police, feeling like as minors they would face even less consequences. "It was always demoralizing for one for the officers. And the effect is you just let a bunch of criminals go that saw no consequences for action."
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"The Vera Institute doesn't have any requirement for public safety to protect the citizens like the prosecutors supposed to. Who do you think she's beholden to? The Vera project that is pushing this with all this money. She's going to do what they tell her to do," Murphey said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Gardner's office but did not immediately receive a response.