St. Louis, Missouri – Three White construction workers now face the prospect of “decades in prison” after they restrained a drunk, off-duty Black cop who assaulted them in the middle of a work zone.
To make matters worse, the full name of the officer is being withheld while Black racial activists line up to demand hate crime enhancements be applied to an already long list of outrageous charges.
The incident first occurred on September 26th in a busy St. Louis intersection being repaved by local road crews. According to witnesses, a driver—later confirmed as an off-duty Black police officer who has yet to be identified—attempted to make an illegal left turn into a closed-off work zone surrounded by construction signs, cones, and flashing lights.
When that officer was prevented from driving into the zone by a work crew, witnesses say he exited his car, began an alcohol-fueled argument, and ultimately attacked them. A probable cause statement alleging one of the White men on the crew may have used a “racial slur” and struck the disorderly cop with a hard hat. However, no evidence of these claims has yet to be provided.
According to reports, road workers were quickly able to overpower and restrain the Black aggressor, who they asserted was heavily intoxicated at the time of the incident.
That same crew detained him until police arrived. However, after four and a half hours, the Black man was allegedly allowed to drive away. While the initial 911 call had notified dispatch that the Black driver appeared intoxicated, officers refused to issue a breathalyzer test at the scene to confirm the suspect’s sobriety.
“I noticed the argument for probably 10 to 15 seconds, and then I noticed the door was open, and the guy was outside his vehicle, and that’s pretty hefty…A guy getting out of his vehicle in a work zone like somebody coming into your office and causing a problem,” said contractor Garrett Gibbs, who was interviewed by local news affiliates just hours before getting arrested for his proximity to the incident.
“He wanted to turn, and he kept saying that he was a police officer so he could make that turn,” he recalled.
Gibbs had taken photographic evidence of the Black man’s vehicle and issued it to local reporters. The photo purports to show his car with expired tags inside a work zone, with a sign to the right clearly stating, “No left turn.”
Gibbs said he had been struck in the face by the off-duty cop at the time, although he was not the intended target. “He caught me right in the mouth here,” he asserted. “I don’t believe he was breathalyzed. I don’t know if the car was searched or anything, so the police officers were informed that we believed he was drunk.”
Ten days later, when the workers thought their involvement in the matter was over, three of them—Matt Devlin, Donnie Hurley, and the aforementioned Garrett Gibbs—all White—were eventually placed into custody.
For the crime of enforcing road safety rules on a Black driver, they now face charges of felony assault and kidnapping, which, if convicted, could spell decades behind bars in one of America’s darkest prison populations.
Devlin is held on an exorbitant quarter-million dollar cash-only bond, while Hurley and Gibbs are held on a lesser but still high $100,000 cash-only bond. All three are currently in custody at the St. Louis County Justice Center awaiting trial.
At a bond reduction hearing on Oct. 15th, a judge refused to lower these bond amounts, disregarding arguments from three different lawyers that suggested that the assault had nothing to do with their client’s alleged speech during the incident.
Attorney John Rogers, representing Matthew Devlin, called the case “overly zealous,” and the massive sums of money issued by the court were “nothing short of unconstitutional.”
“This is a case of prosecutors looking out for police officers who are conducting investigations of other police officers,” said Rogers during a hearing. “This prosecution is overly zealous. The elements of kidnapping cannot be met. The case is overcharged. They ran up multiple counts of armed criminal action based on a fight instigated by a police officer in a construction zone.”
“Assuming what (the prosecution) said was true, they were detaining an individual while the construction company was calling law enforcement to assist…That is not kidnapping,” he added.
While the identity of the so-called Black “victim” remains a mystery—with only the initials “D.W” being quietly released—local Black advocacy groups have already begun blaming the White men and the officer’s own police department for contributing to America’s so-called “ugly history of White supremacy.”
“Their words and actions are not just an expression of violence but of a deeper hatred that must be rooted out and condemned,” read a letter from the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers. “They must answer for their crimes not only as assailants but as perpetrators of racial violence.”
Not everyone agrees with this assessment of the events. Celeste Malick, the wife of Matt Devlin, has loudly denounced her husband’s “racism” arrest, calling the charges “outlandish,” with police merely arresting a man doing his job.
“This is injustice, abuse of power and corruption. Innocent people are facing very very serious charges,” she said in a post on Facebook. “…Anyone who knows me knows I don’t ask for help, but today I’m reaching out!!!! Please share the news video!”
While the outcome of this apparently anti-White case is yet to be determined, Celeste has opened a GoFundMe to provide grassroots legal support for Matt and Garrett Gibbs. At the time of press, the fundraiser is struggling to break $300 of its intended $30,000 goal. The Justice Report urges those able to lend monetary support to consider doing so.
The city of St. Louis, Missouri, has long known the devastating effects of violence and criminality stemming from racial demographic change. According to the 2020 US Census Report, the “Gateway to the West” is estimated at 42.77% Black, with White Americans numbered at a rapidly depleting 42.90%.
The racial situation in St. Louis has given way to a virulent culture of Black supremacist rioting, still fresh in America’s national memory. In 2014, Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, proved to be a formative battleground for the controversial Black Lives Matter movement, which subjected White residents to a year-long siege of sporadic riots in the name of 20-year-old accused shoplifter Michael Brown, shot dead during the commission of a crime by White Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson.
Much like the three men now accused of racism for restraining a drunk Black cop, Black Americans at the time had demanded unrealistic concessions and race-based vengeance to befall Officer Wilson and the FPD. However, despite highly publicized outrage, a court decided not to indict Officer Wilson, with the Department of Justice ruling that he lawfully shot Brown in self-defense.
Since then, Black Americans have been linked to hundreds of savage crimes in the state of Missouri—including forcible rapes and murder—with no long-term solutions appearing on the horizon.
Just this March, White teenager Kaylee Gain made national headlines for narrowly surviving an assault by what police said was a 15-year-old Black classmate in St. Louis. Video of the attack, which went viral at the time, saw Black Americans from coast to coast cheer the attack, with some referring to it as “Black excellence.”
In 2022, White 31-year-old Michael Anthony Wiott was shot dead in the street by a shirtless Black man wielding a semi-automatic handgun. Wiott’s family demanded justice in the case, with Police releasing a photo of the suspect in hopes of receiving tips. To this date, no arrests have ever been made.
This article originally appeared on the Justice Report and is republished by The Noticer with permission.
