Block Head

Many of you have been e-mailing this website, wondering why, in the previous offering in this space, this webmaster asked the residents of Kirkwood if they were regretting having annexed Meacham Park a number of years back.

This hearkens to a sad story, one that all of us St. Louisans know by now, but has had no play nationwide — another cop killing.

Kirkwood is a suburb of St. Louis. Its demographics are nearly all-white, and generally middle to upper middle class white collar, business-management types. The historical reason for that is that Kirkwood grew up around the first train stop on the train tracks that were being built west from St. Louis city way back when. As a result, it was typical for middle management white-collar workers of the time to work in St. Louis, and hike the train for the commute and live in the area around the train stop, which came to be known as Kirkwood. Back in those days, Kirkwood was rural, or more correctly, exurban � in contrast, today, it is merely another inner suburb, but it still has that justified demographic reputation.

To the southwest of Kirkwood, in what was for a long time, unincorporated St. Louis County, were rows of streets highlighting a black neighborhood, called Meacham Park (though it never was its own incorporated city). Its approximate boundaries are modern day I-44 to the south and east, Kirkwood Road to the west, and Big Bend Boulevard to the north. If you have an older map or atlas of St. Louis (the older reason will be explained in a minute), you will notice that some of the Meacham Park street names have/had a particular appeal to African-Americans: Attucks, Chicago, Memphis, Handy, Spellman, Orleans.

Since it was a black area, and it was never one of those new-fangled upper middle class black suburbs that modern-day Atlanta is famous for, you can imagine that Meacham Park was typical �ghetto� or �hood,� and you would be mostly correct.

Fast-forward to more recent times. In 1991, for what was then some unknown, bizarre reason, the figures of municipal erudition in Kirkwood got the bright idea that they should annex Meacham Park. And as it turns out, both Kirkwood’s voters and Meacham Park’s voters approved the measure, and Voila! Meacham Park becomes just a black section of Kirkwood.

Fast-forwarding a few more years, it became apparent why the Kirkwood geniuses wanted it. They declared eminent domain on the western one-third of Meacham Park to give to a private developer. It is exactly the kind of eminent domain use that the Supreme Court decision of a few weeks ago have people incensed. But the people who were ran out here probably thought of it as a blessing, as their only ticket out of the slum. That is now the Kirkwood Commons shopping center, anchored by Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Target, the one on the northeast junction of I-44 at Lindbergh. Kirkwood also took out a small slither on the east end, and it is now the smaller Sam’s Club-anchored strip mall on the southwest corner of I-44 at Big Bend.

Still, about half of Meacham Park remains, but a lot of the neat-sounding street names aren’t streets anymore, so this is why one needs an older map or atlas to find out what they were. And since half of the neighborhood still exists, half of the houses still exist, and so are the people of color that the neighborhood is famous for. Only now, they’re under the jurisdiction of Kirkwood’s Police Department, whereas before, when they were just unincorporated, St. Louis County’s Department had jurisdiction.

As a sidebar, there is a misconception that the annexation added Meacham to the Kirkwood school district, meaning the Kirkwood schools filled up with more blacks. That neighborhood was already part of the Kirkwood school district. That would explain why, during the school deseg political debates which were hottest in the 1980s, that the administration in Kirkwood’s district were the most left-wing (i.e. Supportive) of any St. Louis County school district about the issue, because there were blacks in the district that had to be pandered to politically.

On the evening of Tuesday, July 5, 2005, Kirkwood Police Sgt. William McEntee, who was a 19-year veteran of the city’s Finest, responded to a call on one of the remaining streets in the Meacham Park neighborhood, a call to investigate children setting off illegal fireworks. This was not a call that McEntee would had to have taken as late as 1990. At an instance where he was parked in his police cruiser, sitting in the driver’s seat and speaking out the window to a 13-year old boy, a �man� came up from the left and fired at McEntee’s head from the passenger side window, this ambush attack leaving wounds in McEntee’s head that would become fatal early the next morning. The attack also left the boy injured.

The man would later be identified by many credible neighborhood sources as the 19-year old gentleman of color, a denizen of the block, one Kevin Johnson, a.k.a. Kevin Tatum, and also by his street name, Rock Head. Mr. Johnson stole Sgt. McEntee’s handgun, added it with his own, and went on the lam for three days.

Finally, during the late afternoon hours of Friday, July 8, Mr. Johnson’s family alerted police that he was at a north St. Louis County apartment complex hiding out with some of them, and he was ready to surrender, which he did peacefully and without incident. And so now the rest of his living days will be spent as a permanently interned guest of some governmental unit. The only issue is whether those days will encompass a few years followed by a lethal injection, or many years followed by what fate has in store for him as a natural cause of death.

That’s the jist of it, though there are some intriguing nabobs surrounding the case.

MOTIVE: The media version of Mr. Johnson’s motive is that he wanted revenge on the police for their not having done more to prevent the death of his younger, 12-year old brother, of heart problems, that death having occurred earlier on that fateful Tuesday. The theory revolves around the fact that the Kirkwood cops were down on that street looking for Johnson because he was wanted for probation violation related to a previous conviction for felony domestic abuse of his baby’s mother. It was true that the cops were on that street looking for him that morning, but Johnson ordered his little brother, heart problems and all, into the heat to drive his car off the street and out of the sight of cops so they wouldn’t know he was around, even as heat is the worst thing for people with a heart condition. So it looks like his little brother’s demise is partially his older brother’s fault.

The version I buy is the fact that Johnson just wanted to get revenge on any given Kirkwood cop because they had the audacity to enforce the law on him. It’s just that McEntee showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time that evening, for an issue having nothing to do with Johnson.

MISSING GUNS: Johnson did steal Sgt. McEntee’s gun, and added it to �his� gun and then went into hiding. Some people want to know what happened to the guns, as Johnson did not have them on his person when he surrendered. First off, �his� gun wasn’t his. He was not allowed to own handguns for two reasons � he was under 21, and he had a felony record. So �his� gun was probably a rod that he or someone else ripped off from some honest citizen. Second, the most credible theory about what happened to the two handguns is that he found a crack dealer and traded them in for a couple of rocks.

WHEREFORE ART THOU ROCK HEAD: And that alludes to his street nickname, Rock Head. Upon first hearing it, I thought it had something to do with crack cocaine. Then came the news media with its version of the street name. You see, Mr. Johnson played football at Kirkwood High School, and Rock Head was a nickname of endearment from his teammates for his tenacious play. The media also claim that he graduate from Kirkwood H.S. In the spring of 2004.

Trouble with all that is that the POST-DISPATCH told the truth � he didn’t earn enough credits to graduate even after four years, and he was in a post-high school program to earn the credits, though his attendance was sporadic. But since he didn’t earn enough credits, this means he probably flunked some classes, which meant that he was academically ineligible to play ball. In addition, the first �Wanted� posters after the shooting lists him at 5′7� 140. That height-weight combo does not a good football player make, even at the high school level. So even if he ever was on the team at some point during his high school career, he was probably a perennial bench warmer, far end, and was lucky if he ever saw live action for a few downs during late fourth-quarter garbage time. And that level of football acumen is not enough to earn a young man a vicious-sounding nickname of endearment from his squad.

The truth of the matter is that �Rock Head� does has something to do with crack, either dealing it or using it or both. Since he owned a white Ford Explorer (which was found the day after the murder in another part of north St. Louis County, empty and abandoned, meaning its owner was still on the loose), and any legit job that a 19-year old diploma-deficient individual can hold down couldn’t finance a toy Ford Explorer, it’s pretty safe to assume the �dealing� part.

GOOD COP, BAD COP: After all this, when Block Head figures out that his best course of action is to wave the white flag, his family calls 911 and offers Block Head’s surrender, but if and only if one particular officer from the Northwoods P.D. Goes to the apartment complex where he is at and accepts the surrender. Interesting thing about that is, that apartment complex’s location was shown in the POST-DISPATCH the morning after the surrender, and it is in north St. Louis County, just barely outside of the Jennings boundaries. The city of Northwoods is south of Jennings. So this means they wanted a certain cop to come out of his jurisdiction to take Block Head in.

The answer to that riddle is that the cop they wanted was one who had a good rapport with Block Head and his family. Apparently, Block Head and his relatives hold the typical black attitude about cops (especially white cops) that they’re all a bunch of evil, racist, bigoted hayseeds, and if Block Head would have fallen into the hands of one of them �white po-leeceses,� the cops would have murdered him and the official story would be suicide. Therefore, they wanted the �confidence� of surrendering to a non-white non-bigot.

The trouble with that theory is that if the white cops EVER had those fantastic notions (which they really do not), this would have been the WORST time to try and pull a stunt like that, considering all the media scrutiny that surrounds a murdered cop. As it is, the Northwoods cop cuffed Block Head, and immediately handed him over into the hands of some evil white cops from the St. Louis County Department, who then safely transported him to their own headquarters. The TV news dutifully showed us photos and video of his initial surrender, his arrival at County Police headquarters, and his transport from there to the county jail. Fear not, Mr. Johnson is alive and well.

AND NOW WHAT: To be quite blunt (like anything on this website is ever going to succumb to anyone’s sensitivity), I would have preferred if Mr. Johnson would have been gracious enough to do the world a favor, and save everyone a whole lot of time and trouble, and commit suicide. After all, at least for awhile after the murder, he had two stolen guns in his possession. But since he didn’t do it then, he will never off himself. Besides, if he was dumb enough to commit such a vile act like ambushing a cop in cold blood, he’s probably too stupid to ever be ashamed enough of himself to kill himself.

So now, taxpayers are going to be stuck with the bill of keeping him confined and the legal haranguing, especially if the prosecution pursues and gets the death penalty. And now what? One theory is that he and/or the family have convinced themselves that some hot shot defense lawyer can help him beat the rap. I could only HOPE that they would be arrogant enough to pursue that option. You see, in the absence of him committing suicide, the next best option is the death penalty. But the only way I foresee him getting the Bonne Terre Hospitality Cocktail is if he rolls the dice on a trial and winds up with a box-cars of jurors saying guilty.

What I fear is that his side and the prosecutors will cop a plea deal, meaning he pleads guilty to first-degree murder and he avoids death row, but he will spend the rest of his life in a state prison, and as a black cop-killer in the sling for offing a white cop, he will be the biggest hero in the hoosegow, living a relatively charmed life.

Meanwhile, William McEntee doesn’t get to come back, and his wife and children will be without a husband and father.

Really Swift Decision

Hey you! Resident of Kirkwood!

Aren’t you glad you all decided a number of years back to annex Meacham Park?

Oh Well(ston)

On July 1, the Missouri State Board of Education officially took over the failing and ailing and floundering Wellston School District.

This only demonstrates HOW bad the Wellston district was. Usually, the State Board of Education will turn their heads away from, and make excuses for, many “urban” (read: heavily African-American) school districts that haven’t quite “made the grade” and should have been taken over by the state years ago. For the State B.O.E. to do this meant that it should have been done quite a long time ago, and only shows that Wellston had to be really far down in the ditch.

But the takeover begs the question: Now what?

The state has appointed a three-person interim board to replace the elected board. I predict that the state will so run the former Wellston district for a few school years, and when the test scores of the students inevitably keep coming in too low to bear, then the state will dissolve the district’s territory, and merge that area into another, surrounding school district. The two most likely candidates are its neighbors: the University City system, and the Normandy district. Talk about jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

And this alludes to the problem this writer has with the whole concept of the state being able to waltz in and dissolve districts, and merge them into other districts. The whole fallacy of the concept of a “failing” school district is that when some statistics show that the average student test scores are low, that it is assumed that some person or some group of people or some administrators are “doing something wrong” or “not doing enough correctly” or some foible or miscarriage of duty on behalf of some individual or group. Ergo the solution must be to replace the “wrong doers” with “right doers,” as the state just did in Wellston.

Obviously, nobody can ever accept the notions of racial differences in inate intelligence being the easiest, “Occam’s Razor” explanation why districts like Wellston flop, so as with many other issues and questions concerning race and society, Our (supposedly) Better Minds assume that some externality is to blame, and usually the favorite “externalities” to point the finger at are discrimination, racism, poverty brought on by discrimination, white-run “conspiracies” to keep blacks “down and out,” or some misstep or mishap somewhere.

It doesn’t matter if three clones of Albert Einstein ran the Wellston district. The pupils’ test scores will wind up being virtually the same next year, and the year after, and the year after. And once Wellston is merged into another district, (and both Normandy and U. City aren’t that much better off than Wellston), THOSE districts will eventually be taken over by the state and eventually merged into others.

The logical end result of this process is that there will be only a few large super-districts for public education in St. Louis County, and the boundary lines will be drawn in such a way that enough white students are in the schools so that the “district” test scores are numerically passable. Since the Supreme Court has not ended INTRA-district racial desegregation mandates (even though INTER-district is gradually ending), these wide-area suburban districts will themselves have race-based busing within them. And don’t forget — St. Louis City’s district is dancing on a string in terms of state accreditation. How would you people out in, say, the Rockwood or Parkway districts, or any of the districts in St. Charles County, like the idea of your district being forcefully merged with the St. Louis City Public Schools? Heck, that’s why you all live out there, fundamentally so that your children don’t have to be terrorized by “that!”

Therefore, the reason that the concept of state-feted dissolution of “bad” school districts should be opposed is that in the long run, they will turn out to be another subtle under-the-radar mechanism for racial integration of suburban public schools.

Durbin the Turbin

Recent comments by Illinois U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, the ones about the Guantanamo POW Camp “abuse” being comparable to the Nazi death camps and Soviet gulags, have struck off a justifiable firestorm of criticism and opposition. But the Durbin Turbin scandal has some local ramifications, as Illinois is just on the other side of the river.

(1) Before Durbin was a Senator, he was the U.S. House member from the Illinois congressional district in southwest Illinois that stretched from Springfield and extended into parts of the eastern suburbs of St. Louis. In 1994, when he was running for re-election in what turned out to be his last term in the House, his Republican opponent was a man named Owens (?), if my memory serves. Owens, (if that was his real last name), was not just a member of the John Birch Society, but he was also fairly high up in their organizational rank. I remember a feature on him from THE NEW AMERICAN magazine (their official publication) in 1994. Nevertheless, since a big percentage of that congressional district’s population was near St. Louis, anyone running for that seat had to take out ads in the St. Louis media market. Durbin ran one particuarly obnoxious radio ad, which accused Owens of being a slanderous “McCarthyite,” and the “proof” in the ad was an OUT-OF-CONTEXT sound byte which Owens used “Dwight Eisenhower” and the word “communist” in the same sentence. In context, the remarks were something along the lines of the centrism (more properly, consensus liberalism) of the Eisenhower Presidential administration could not effectively combat internal communist infiltration or the external communist threat from the Soviet Union. Still, it would be nice, poetic justice if now-Senator Dick Durbin were to be taken down by his own sound bytes.

(2) In the 1940s, there was a Senator from North Dakota, Gerald (?) Nye. He was a vocal opponent of FDR’s efforts to try and drag America into World War II pre-Pearl, and even after Pearl and the beginning of the war, he openly called for the withdrawl of American armed forces from both theatres. He was not a Nazi sympathizer or a fascist in any way, just an old-fashioned neutralitarian. Nevertheless, when he ran for re-election in 1944, the voters of North Dakota were convinced that he was, and my understanding of the history is that the FDR administration, the Pentagon, and even the northeastern internationalist business establishment of Nye’s own Republican Party all joined to unseat him, which they wound up doing. Dick Durbin is up in 2008; let’s see if all the stars line up against him like they did for Gerald Nye.

(3) And for all you people who work at Scott Air Force Base in Mascoutah, Illinois, don’t be so sure yet that Scott won’t be closed in the latest proposed rounds of base closings. Even though Scott wasn’t in the initial list of proposed closures from the supposedly independent base closing commission (more on that in a second), don’t bet the farm that it will stay open, especially now after Durbin shot off his big mouth. Here’s why I say this: South Dakota also has a big AFB, Ellsworth, that IS on the chopping block. Now SD also has a new U.S. Senator, John Thune (R), who defeated the Democrat’s Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, last November. Ever since the base closing tribunal released its proposed list with Ellsworth on it, Sen. Thune has been standing down on President Bush’s legislative agenda, most notably, Bush’s appointment of John Bolton to the post of UN Ambassador. This begs the question: If the base closing tribunal is really independent and free of political pressures like we’re supposed to think it is, why is Thune behaving like it’s not? After all, Thune, now a Senator, and before that a Congressman, would know it’s really independent more so than the rest of us schmucks. But Thune’s standing-down, like the dog that didn’t bark in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, is a clue that he KNOWS (like most of us cynics do) that politics are as much of a factor in deciding what bases to close as any other factor. Now, bringing this back home, before the Durbin Turbin scandal, I thought to myself that Bush might be forced to choose between a Senator in his own party that toppled the other party’s Majority Leader, or a Senator in Durbin that is now the other party’s second-in-command in the Senate, in choosing between Ellsworth and Scott, respectively. But now, with Durbin showing how politically incorrigible he is, I think that decision might be an easy one for Bush to make. Mark my words, and throw them back in my face if I’m wrong, but Scott Air Force Base is at risk of being closed, not through force of arms, or the force of a pen, but through the recklessness of Mr. Durbin’s own mouth.