The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Friday that former St. Louis police officer, Matthew D. EerNisse, has finally been found not guilty of assault for shooting a suspected carjacker in self-defense in 2018.

The former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner charged the officer with first-degree assault in 2019 following the incident in which prosecutors had alleged EerNisse had “recklessly” shot unarmed suspect, Arvell Keithley, wounding him in the thigh and arm. Those charges were dropped to second-degree assault on the first day of the trial after new evidence came to light that EerNisse’s attorney felt should have led to all charges being dropped, but the circuit attorney had a different agenda.

The Post-Dispatch reported: “Gardner, who abruptly resigned in May, promised during her tenure to hold officers accountable and came under fire from the department for her handling of such cases. She later faced criticism for refusing to review dozens of cases of police shootings that were submitted to her office, leaving officers to languish for months on desk duty.”

At the time of the incident, Keithley, who was reported at the time as being “armed and dangerous,” led police on a chase in a stolen car before crashing it and being chased on foot into an alley by EerNisse. EerNisse reported following the shooting that Keithly reached for his waistband and then also reached for his gun.

Keithley was ultimately sentenced to 11 years in prison for two separate carjackings. Meanwhile, EerNisse’s law enforcement career has been put on hold until the case could finally be settled.

The shooting by Matthew D. EerNisse was “objectively reasonable in light of the totality of the particular facts and circumstances confronting the officer on the scene,” Judge John T. Bird wrote in his ruling and as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

EerNisse’s attorney Scott Rosenblum told the Post-Dispatch, “He believed it was ‘the right verdict’ in a case that ‘never should’ve been brought in the first place.”

Rosenblum told the newspaper that his client intended “to go back into law enforcement.”

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19 COMMENTS

    • He was paid at all times, just limited to desk duty. What are his damages?
      The prosecutor is immune from prosecution. This is an absolute immunity, not a qualified immunity.

      • He resigned from the PD, no doubt under severe pressure to do so from the higher ups when they were convinced that the bad “optics” of the case (white cop shoots black bad guy) would make them look bad. So no, he hasn’t been paid and wasn’t on desk duty.

        The fact he’s willing to go back into cop work is the dumbest thing he could do. I got out after 11 years when it was clear to me, post St. George Floyd, that I was nothing more than a pawn, to be either used and/or abused by my agency, the public and lawyers. It sucks because I enjoyed what I did and as a detective, fought for victims and put some really, really bad people behind bars for decades. Never been happier since I left that shit show behind though…

  2. Rosenblum told the newspaper that his client intended “to go back into law enforcement.”

    And all that back pay, and besides, there’s so many scumbags needing to be shot.

  3. I don’t even know why this is news. It should be filed under, “so what?” This is what should happen when a dirtbag attacks someone. No matter the victim’s profession.

    • It’s news because a cop had to endure a trial because a black racist DA loves black criminals more than the rule of law.

      • The root cause – the selfdefense laws of that state are inadequate. That condition opens the door wide to statistics, opportunists and racist politicians.

        • I’m no expert on MO gun laws but to my understanding the state has substantially reformed their gunlaws since the time of this SOB’s dirt nap. Now one of the leading states in gun laws.

  5. A police officer should be able to defend himself just like the ordinary citizen should.
    Unfortunately , the libertarians are the useful idiots of George Soros and the prosecutors he has funded.

    There is nothing wrong with killing an unarmed criminal under the right circumstances.

    But the people who hate cops the libertarians liberals and the left, never question when a cop is brought up on charges.

  6. We have a corrupt district attorney problem that a lot of people want to ignore. Because they hate the cops and at the end of the day, they like the fact that these DA’s are not prosecuting criminals. And thereby making the prison population in the United States drop.

    And that is the long term goal of these people. To reduce the prison population that they complain so loudly about.
    So they’re quite happy when criminals are not prosecuted.

    People who were accused of murder and rape are being released back into the population. No bail required by the local DA. They need to reduce the jail population.

    And if the law abiding try to protect their private property, they are quite comfortable, with having the law abiding prosecuted. For trying to protect what they own.

    A district attorney can actually lie in court. They can lie on court documents.
    They can falsify a warrant. They do not have to tell the truth. They don’t have to present evidence that exonerates a suspect. They can in fact and have, purposely put innocent people in prison. In order to raise their conviction rates.

    Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore. Mike Nifong in North Carolina. Garner in Missouri. And these are just the ones that got caught.

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