The investigation of last week’s shooting death of a St. Louis police officer by a fellow officer has turned into a fight between Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner and city officials, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Gardner, citing “probable cause at the scene that drugs or alcohol may be a contributing factor in a potential crime,” accused police of interfering with drug and alcohol tests of the shooter and another officer who witnessed the shooting. Urine and breath tests were eventually performed, but not a blood test, which can be more exact, while police internal affairs investigators took samples that may not be admissible in a criminal prosecution, Mosby said.
Responding to Gardner’s claims of “an obstructionist tactic,” Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards called that “ludicrous” and the claim that drugs and alcohol may have been at the scene “a bad assumption.” Officer Nathaniel Hendren is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Office Katlyn Alix. The pair, along with Hendren’s patrol partner, were at Hendren’s residence when Hendren and Alix allegedly played a game of Russian roulette with a revolver. In a letter to Edwards and Police Chief John Hayden, Gardner complained that police officials initially characterized the shooting as an “accident” or an incident involving the “mishandling” of a firearm, which she called an “inappropriate” “pre-disposed conclusion about the potential outcome of a case.”