What concerning Kim Gardner,
what evidence would you
present in your filing that you
have said you will file and?
When will you file that?
Where will you file it?
And and have you spoken with?
The Saint Louis City prosecutor. My
office has been in contact with the circuit
Attorney's office in the in the past weeks.
I'll tell you that this is about the
rule of law and about justice for me.
And there are there are a number
of issues that we see coming from
the City of Saint Louis and the
Circuit Attorney's office that all
established neglect and office and it
is time for her to resign and for the
rule of law and justice to prevail.
We we're hopeful she'll make
the right decision and if not,
we're prepared to move forward with
legal action shortly after noon today.
City of Saint Louis,
22nd Judicial Circuit.
My my questions for Governor
Mike Parson. Ohh OK. Anymore.
For this, excuse me, for this removal
of office process. How long would
that process take for her to
actually be removed from office?
If she doesn't resign today,
will the court controls that timeline.
So we will present our evidence and
we'll try to get our day in court
as quickly as possible. Because,
again, this is about the rule of law.
And the people of the city of Saint
Louis and the people of eastern
Missouri and across the state deserve
clarity and they deserve justice
in our criminal justice system.
So we'll move as swiftly as
the process allows us to,
to to reach the right result,
which is that the circuit attorney
is no longer in office.
In the coming days,
weeks and months,
I I've I've heard that this may take months
if not years is that is that accurate? We
don't anticipate it will take that long
again we will be moving as expeditiously
as possible to reach the right result
and we're hopeful that she will make the
right decision and resign before noon
today as called for in in my demand.
Yeah. Kim Gardner has at various
times suggested she's being targeted
because of her minority status.
I mean, what would you say in
response to her if she says, hey,
they're just going after me because
I'm a black female in office,
what do you say to that?
Nothing could be less true.
Nothing could be more false.
This is about the rule
of law and about justice.
Instead of protecting victims,
which is her obligation,
she's creating more victims
by neglect in office.
Question for you.
Her office has also alleged that
judges aren't doing their job.
What responsibility do judges
have if a defendant is constantly
violating bond to revoke that bond?
That's one of the things
we've seen come out of our
office in the last 24 hours.
Well, I'm going to leave
that to the judiciary.
I'm a litigant as in an adversarial
process in the judiciary,
the same that the circuit attorney is.
And so my focus is on the circuit
attorney and her neglect in office,
and she has until noon today
to resign or face removal
proceedings shortly thereafter.
Two kind of questions, real quick.
First off, if she does resign,
are you in charge of appointing
someone to that position?
And then my next question,
what are your thoughts?
Should she resign?
We haven't heard from you yet.
Yeah, I I definitely think there's
plenty of evidence right now,
what I believe that she is not doing
what she needs to be doing is the
prosecutor of Saint Louis City.
And I believe there's not just my opinion.
I think when you look at a record,
it's been consistent with
violent crime in that area,
with the issues they face,
this is nothing new.
It's just a matter of this probably
brought it all to the top.
And I think there's many people
in Saint Louis right now,
they're calling for her to
resign and to try to move on,
to be able to move on in
the city of Saint Louis.
So yes, that would be my process,
appointing another prosecuting
attorney for that area.
What kind of? Appointee,
are you looking forward?
Does does that person
need to be a Republican,
a Democrat from the city,
from anywhere?
What's the profile?
Well, there's a process.
We'll be in place. We'll work with
the city administrators up there.
We'll be talking to the mayor's office.
We'll be talking about different people
and it'll be the same record I've
continued to do since I've been governor,
appointing people in those positions.
I'm going to find the most qualified
candidate and try to put them in that
position and do what they take an oath to do.
That'll be the first priority of that
as we go through that selection process.
But. Again, we got to go through that
process and as of this time right now,
she has not resigned.
So we'll just wait and see
how that comes out.
I just want to clarify Emily's question.
She had asked do you think she should resign?
Do you think she should resign?
I do think she should resign.
I think with everything that's
happened and it continues,
I think it's more of a pattern that
continues to happen, you know,
and it's unfortunate that we have
somebody in that position was the
prosecutor or one of the young ladies
asked about the judges while ago.
Look. We are public servants.
We're elected officials.
All of us are. I am. They are.
And if you say you're going to do
your job and take an oath to that,
you should be doing that very thing.
So if the judges are failing,
they should be called out for
not doing their jobs also.
And we plan to look into that
and see where that's at.
You know,
are they doing what they need to be doing?
Look, some guy that can walk
out of bond 42 different times,
there's a failure in the system and we
need to 1st admit there's a failure of that.
And we need to figure out how
we're going to change that.
And I would also say sometimes people would.
Say, well, this is a Saint Louis issue.
You know,
I will tell you it's not a Saint Louis issue.
Thousands upon thousands of
Missouri go to that city every day,
just like this young lady go there from
a different state to come in here.
This is about the people of
Missouri and it affects all of us,
just not one small region of the state.
OK. You backing
off what you want?
What you just said,
that young lady was a tourist.
We talk about Saint Louis being an
economic engine in this part of
the state's biggest city in this state.
What is your reaction to what
happened to this tourist?
And how do we continue to attract
conventions and visitors to our city
when we have things like this happening?
You know, to be perfectly honest about this,
you know, it's one of the questions
I always have to answer when I go
outside the state of Missouri, you know,
and Saint Louis is such a great city.
It has so many positive things going on.
But you highlight a violent crime
and all these major cities,
you know, a lot of these major city,
don't say all of them,
but a lot of them are gonna
have to do things differently.
They've ever done it before
to fight violent crime.
You cannot let convicts out all the time.
You can't do people that are bad
people and let them out on the
streets all the time and expect
to do anything differently when
there is no accountability for them
or the courts or the prosecutors.
Again, we all take, we,
we all take a part of this
because it's our state.
We want that region.
We want people to go there and feel safe.
The number one issue no matter where
you live in this country.
No matter where you live in rural Missouri
or cities or wherever it might be,
people want to feel safe when
they walk down the street.
They want their kids to be
able to go out and be safe,
and you got to take bad
people off the streets.
So we got to quit doing what we're doing
right now because it's not working.
And this is a perfect example of why.
Yeah, Governor Parson,
is there precedent across the
state or in the history of Missouri
for a removal process like this?
Is there something that the state
is looking at in in its past?
Well, I think we, I think that's
always been on the table as part of the
process if we ever want to use that.
And I think that's more the
attorney general's decision to do
that and what we feel is the best
thing for the people of Missouri.
And I think that's exactly why
he's went forward with what he is.
So, you know, look,
these processes don't happen very often.
They're unique to say the least.
But it seems like since I've been governor,
there's always seems like a
first for everything.
But I will tell you this,
at the end of the day,
we're going to do the right thing
for the people of Missouri.
The Attorney General,
I know is going to do the same thing.
I'm going to work.
With him, you know,
hand in hand to make sure we do the right
thing for the people of this state.
Thank you all very much.