Less than three months after he had received a positive performance review from his superiors at the St. Louis County (Mo.) Department of Health, Keith Gladney was fired Dec. 23 from his job as an animal control officer. Thanks to information I obtained today via the Missouri Sunshine Law, I learned his firing was something of an unusual — albeit rare — event.

Why should anyone care about the firing of Keith Gladney? Several reasons exist. For example:

1.Keith Gladney is the brother of Kenneth Gladney, the St. Louis man thrust into the national spotlight Aug. 6 after he was allegedly beaten by a group of thugs from the Service Employees International Union at a South St. Louis County health care town hall meeting hosted by ultra-liberal Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.). Video shows what happened to Kenneth Gladney after SEIU thugs found him selling conservative memorabilia outside the event at Bernard Middle School in South St. Louis, then judge for yourself whether allegedly is a term that adequately describes the beat-down.

2. Keith Gladney publicly criticized St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch and St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Redington for dragging their feet when it came to charging the individuals allegedly involved in the beating of his brother. Later, he joined a nationwide chorus of conservatives appalled by the fact that the duo — formerly known as the St. Louis version of an Obama “Truth Squad” — filed only ordinance violations Nov. 25.

3. Keith Gladney joined a nationwide chorus of conservative appalled by the fact that, on Nov. 25, Redington filed only orordinance violations — not felony chargees — against his brother’s alleged attackers.

Now, back to the issue of Keith Gladney’s firing.

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As bad as Ebenezer Scrooge was, at least he didn’t fire Bob Cratchit right before Christmas.  I can’t say the same for the St. Louis Dept of Health.  Animal Control Officer, Keith Gladney was fired on December 23^rd, less than 48 hours before Christmas Day.

Regular readers of Big Government will recognize the sur name of this unfortunate soul who finds himself unemployed just as the holidays are upon us.  Yes, Keith Gladney is the brother of Kenneth Gladney, the man who was assaulted by leaders of the St. Louis SEIU outside of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Town Hall for Health Care on August 6, 2009.

Considering the fact that government work seems to be the only growth industry in this economy Keith probably thought he was in a stable job, serving diligently for the Animal Control agency, a division of the St. Louis Dept. of Health.  And, considering he was just given a positive job performance rating as recently as October, it must have come as a heartbreaking shock to learn of this Dickensian turn of events just he was preparing for his Christmas.

So, what changed between September and today?  What could have been the reason for Mr. Gladney’s termination? (more…)

In Part 1 of this series we detailed the events leading up to the assault on Kenneth Gladney on August 6^th and revealed the document written by Margarida Jorge at Health Care for American Now (HCAN) a front group funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which laid a blueprint for the unions to follow that evening at Rep. Russ Carnahan’s town hall meeting.  Yesterday, in Part 2, we exposed a second town hall meeting that occurred the same night in Tampa Bay, FL with Rep. Kathy Castor that followed the same structure and had very similar results.  We also detailed the relationships of key decision makers at HCAN, Rep. Carnahan’s office and the White House and showed how they were all inter-related at SEIU, the Obama for America campaign and the two accused of assaulting Kenneth Gladney that evening.

Margarida Jorge

On the evening of August 6^th hundreds of citizens were shut out of the meeting and not allowed to question their elected official while hundreds of SEIU members were ushered in a side entrance to sit in reserved seats in the front of the hall.  This followed precisely the instructions penned by Margarida Jorge of HCAN.

• We need to stack our folks in the front to create a wall around the Member…
• Get to your location early and make sure you set up the venue in a way that ensures that the attendees you want are at the front and that any protesters who come are sequestered as far as possible from the stage.
• Make sure that you assign marshals to take care of moving the crowd, keeping people organized and orderly, and acting as security

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On August 6th Kenneth Gladney attended the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in south St. Louis County. Kenneth was there to make some money selling freedom flags and buttons. After the meeting Kenneth was assaulted, beaten and stomped by angry SEIU thugs who were upset that a black man would be selling anti-Obama merchandise. Gladney was taken to the hospital following the attack.

Ken Gladney is pictured here after his public beating by SEIU thugs. Kenneth Gladney attended this protest against SEIU violence in August in St. Louis. He was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters after the town hall meeting earlier that week. St. Louis County officials have yet to press charges.

It’s been over 3 months and still St. Louis county officials have not met with Kenneth Gladney to discuss the case nor have they press charges against the SEIU thugs who beat him.

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The story of Kenneth Gladney may finally be getting somewhere. County Counselor Patricia Redington, after waiting three months, has been forced to come out and defend her office in emails and in an interview with KMOX, a local St Louis radio station.  We’d say it was quick work, but waiting to look into charges of political violence until after healthcare reform comes to a vote seems to be the plan.  In previous columns, we identified a time difference for assault charges of 3 months versus 2 days.  3 months to start looking if you’re a black man beaten by union thugs and 2 days if you’re a Republican running for Congress against Dick Gephardt.

Redington is now responding to emails saying she is looking into the events, the investigation is still under review, and her office is interviewing witnesses.  This is one of her responses to a St Louis county resident about the affair.

There were several incidents at this event which required police intervention, and our office is reviewing the police report and has been interviewing various witnesses before making a final decision on what charges may be issued.

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It has been more than three months since Kenneth Gladney was viciously attacked by SEIU employees. The assault wasn’t an accident, but a deliberate attempt to intimidate and silence tea party activists and town hall protesters. The morning of the Gladney assault, the White House presented to Senate Democrats a ‘battle plan’ to quell the protests. The White House advised Democrats “punch back twice as hard.” Gladney was the first casualty.

The Gladney beating took place at a forum on ‘Aging’, sponsored by Rep. Russ Carnahan. Carnahan had been caught flat-footed by earlier protests. This time he was more prepared; the day before the forum, Sara Howard took over as his communications director. Ms. Howard is a veteran leftist activist, holding senior positions with SEIU.

SEIU and partisan hacks like Media Matters have tried to spin away the Gladney beating. They would have you believe a 130 lb diabetic, recovering luekemia patient, picked a fight with men almost twice his size. The police report puts an end to that lie.

GLADNEY PART 2.1 –

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Yesterday, Pastor Himes provided powerful, and courageous, witness to the union violence he and his wife saw in St. Louis on August 6th.  They provided strong testament to the union attack on Kenneth Gladney. But, his comments only dealt with the events of that day. Evidence is emerging that the events of that day went far beyond St. Louis and may have been part of a nationally orchestrated campaign to intimidate and silence dissent.

When Congress went into its summer recess at the end of July, an organic movement erupted to protest Congressional proposals to inject government deeper into our health care system. The ferocity of citizen’s reactions caught most congressmen off-guard. The citizen’s spontaneous protests against Congress dominated the news coverage. It was only a matter of time until the left struck back,.

On the morning of August 6th, Sam Stein reported at the Huffington Post that labor unions had released a comprehensive memo, detailing tactics to counter what were called “town hall protestors”. That same day, a White House official said to reporters, “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard.”

Those both happened the morning of the assault on Kenneth Gladney. Is it any surprise that on the specific day that Big Labor and the White House signaled a commitment to ‘punch back’ at the town hall protests, an innocent bystander, Kenneth Gladney, was brutally beaten?

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