David Dorn's killer sentenced to life in prison

David Dorn
Image: Associated Press

David Dorn (29 October 1942 – 2 June 2020) was a Black retired Captain of the Saint Louis, Missouri police department. Following his retirement from the St. Louis PD he had taken up a job as a small town police chief a suburb named Moline Acres. He was known as an active member of the community to whom "serve and protect" was not just a slogan but a deeply internalized statement of duty.

On 2 June 2020 as protests and riots in the wake of George Floyd's death swept the area Dorn was guarding a friend's pawn shop at the friend's request. The shop was located in The Ville section of St Louis. A group of looters decided to raid that shop. One of them, acing in concert with several accomplices shot Dorn several times. As Dorn lay down, one of the witnesses streamed his dying moments on Facebook Live. No one has attempted to render the first aid to him.

The man who shot Dorn has been captured and has recently received a sentence of life without a possibility of parole for the murder. That man's name is Stephan Cannon. Cannon is currently 26 years of age and he is also Black, like his victim. In 2014 when he was about 18 years of age Cannon was sentenced to a 7 year prison term for a robbery but never served a day as his sentenced was suspended even though he violated his parole conditions multiple times. So he got a number of chances to change his direction in life but still chose not to. Cannon's accomplices - two of them - got various terms for lesser crimes.

David Dorn died in relative obscurity. You may not even know who he was - even though you almost certainly do know who George Floyd was. His killer's sentence also got a somewhat muted treatment by the mainstream media as, based on a recent web search, Fox News seemed to be the only major outlet to cover it.

It is also interesting that Black Lives Matter (BLM), the organization spearheading the 2020 protests during which David Dorn had lost his life, hardly found a moment to even mention him, let alone celebrate his life or decry his death. And that is surprising given that the organization claims to value every Black life. What better chance to do so than by honoring a Black man who grew up in the 1940's and 1950's in St Louis - with anti-Black racist attitudes a lot more prevalent among the White majority at the time in that area than it is now - and then rose through the ranks and had a successful career serving his fellow citizens and raising a family? Why not at the same time try to give young Black men proper guidance to see to it that they acknowledge the utter failure that is Stephan Cannon's life, to help them maintain proper perception and agency to make better choices in life than Cannon made in his? One would think BLM he movement could do better - but it doesn't, as it is far more likely to honor somebody like Jacob Blake, a career criminal, than somebody like David Dorn. I guess not all Black lives actually matter to the BLM, and that is another important takeaway from this tragic story.