JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Amid mounting calls for the St. Louis Circuit Attorney to resign, the Missouri Attorney General has issued an ultimatum for Kim Gardner: resign or face removal.
In a statement late Wednesday afternoon, Attorney General Andrew Bailey said Gardner has until noon on Thursday, Feb. 23, to step down. If not, Bailey said he’ll start the process to remove her from office via a writ of quo warranto, accusing Gardner of neglecting her role as city prosecutor and demanding she prove her legal authority in court.
“It is time for the circuit attorney to go and for the rule of law and justice to prevail,” Bailey said in the statement.
The outrage against Gardner stems from an incident over the weekend, in which an out-of-town teenager suffered a life-changing injury due to a driver who was out on bond awaiting trial for armed robbery.
Janae Edmondson, 17, was visiting St. Louis with her family in order to participate in a volleyball tournament. The family was walking in downtown St. Louis around 8:40 p.m. last Saturday when a speeding driver failed to yield and collided with another vehicle. That second vehicle struck Edmondson.
One of Edmondson’s legs was severed in the crash and the other severely maimed. Her father’s quick thinking and military training allowed him to save her life, but both of her legs had to be amputated as a result. She remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Two people in the vehicle that was struck were also injured.
The driver who caused the crash, Daniel Riley, 21, was out on bond and under house arrest for an August 2020 robbery case, but had been ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device.
Riley’s case was supposed to go to trial last July, but was delayed. Court records show Riley violated his GPS monitoring device more than 50 times, including 10 times in the last month.