Attorneys For Ex-Cop Convicted In Brutal Beating Of Black Undercover Officer Blame St. Louis Police Culture

It was hard enough achieving some semblance of accountability for any of the officers accused of beating the hell out of St. Louis Detective Luther Hall, who had been working undercover during protests against police violence in St. Louis on Sept. 17, 2017.

The initial trial for former officers Dustin Boone and Christopher Myers and current officer Steven Korte, who were all charged with depriving Hall of his civil rights, ended in an all-white jury acquitting Myers and Korte (they also acquitted Korte of lying to the FBI) and a mistrial for Boone because jurors were unable to reach a verdict.

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But Boone was retried in June and convicted by a federal jury of the civil rights charge. Now, with his sentencing set to take place next week, Boone’s lawyers are asking a judge for just 26 months in prison instead of the 10 years prosecutors are seeking.

STL cop, Dustin Boone, texts his excitement: “it’s gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!” On Sept. 17, he wrote that it was “a blast beating people that deserve it.” #IsThisPoliceCulture pic.twitter.com/DilCmRHIQ4

— GoldenRule1 (@cooperchip1) December 1, 2018

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boone’s attorneys said in a sentencing memo filed Monday that sentencing their client to a decade behind bars would be “disproportionately high” because he did not participate in the initial attack—all he did was hold Hall down while other officers beat him, including former officer Randy Hays, who admitted to beating Hall while he was handcuffed and was sentenced last month to four years and four days in prison.

It’s bad enough that Boone’s lawyers are arguing that his offenses weren’t as bad because all he did was pin Hall down while others beat him—which is basically like saying the getaway driver didn’t actually rob the bank—but their second argument for why Boone should be treated leniently should raise the eyebrows of anti-police violence advocates across the country.

Luther Hall was beaten by 3 of his St. Louis Police Department co-workers when the undercover Black detective was working a protest against police violence in 2017.

The trial tests the so-called Blue Wall of Silence as officers turn on one another.https://t.co/3iJuguEKAb

— NewsOne (@newsone) March 29, 2021

Boone’s attorneys argued that the St. Louis Police Department’s culture of police brutality condoned and encouraged violence against civilians and that the department was a place “where being cavalier about violence, particularly racial violence, was far too prevalent.”

I’m sorry, but are they really trying to argue that Boone should get a lighter sentence because in St. Louis, beating up negroes is basically a police love language?

The indictment says text messages shared by three of the @SLMPD officers express their disdain for protesters and excitement over using force. #JasonStockley
*CAUTION LANGUAGE* pic.twitter.com/gSNDziaQkW

— Alexis Zotos (@alexiszotos) November 29, 2018

Listen: This case has already been drenched in irony. It all started with a Black cop seemingly on a COITELPRO-style mission to document events and a protest against police violence only to become a victim of police violence himself, after all. But now you’re telling me that after people against police brutality have been arguing since hallelujah that it’s a systemic issue involving the culture of policing in America—a thing law enforcement officials across the country repeatedly deny—attorneys are going to use that same argument in an attempt to lighten a brutal cop’s sentence?

Apparently, even blue caucasity knows no bounds.

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