[This is the fifth in a series of articles on the dark money behind the urban decay in the United States. Mr. Nelles will next explore the challenges facing California's cities.]

George Soros has not reserved all of his dark money for America’s largest cities. Quite the contrary: He has also quietly poured money into mid-sized and small cities, with predictable results. From Tennessee to Mississippi, Georgia to Missouri, the leftist billionaire has been bankrolling district attorneys who refuse to prosecute violent crime.

St. Louis, Missouri, serves as a primary example. With a population of just under 300,000, St. Louis is the second largest city in Missouri. Like the other cities profiled in this series, St. Louis has a progressive prosecutor, called a circuit attorney, Kimberly Gardner , who has been in office since 2017. Gardner has received more than $150,000 in contributions from Soros-backed organizations across her two campaigns , and in return, she has done his bidding by attacking conservatives and letting criminals walk free.

Under Gardner’s watch, St. Louis has seen a devastating increase in homicides. St. Louis’s homicide rate per 100,000 residents exploded from 64.5 in 2019 to 87.2 in 2020 — the city’s highest in 50 years.

But Gardner’s office can barely be bothered to show up in court to prosecute a murder case. In fact, a judge was forced to drop murder charges against Brandon Campbell when a representative from Gardner’s office failed to present herself in court multiple times. Campbell was released from jail as a consequence.

When not neglecting to prosecute murder charges, Gardner’s office spends its time attempting to prosecute conservatives, often in violation of the law or ethical behavior. One example was her attempt to prosecute Mark and Patricia McCloskey for gun violations after they defended their home against Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. Gardner went so far as to use her case against the McCloskeys as fundraising fodder, a decision that did not sit well with the judge overseeing the case against Mark McCloskey. According to NPR , a judge dismissed “Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and her entire staff, saying campaign fundraising emails Gardner sent to constituents that alluded to the [McCloskeys] case ‘raise the appearance of impropriety and jeopardize the defendant’s right to a fair trial.'” A special prosecutor was eventually selected to take over the case.

Gardner was also sanctioned for being untruthful during a failed prosecution of a political rival, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R). The Missouri Supreme Court reprimanded and fined Gardner for her conduct during the botched investigation of Greitens.

Republican lawmakers in Missouri are so tired of Gardner’s failure to prosecute “real crimes” that they introduced a bill that would appoint a special prosecutor to oversee certain crimes. “The special prosecutor would have exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute certain offenses – including murders, assaults, robberies, hijacking, and other violent offenses,” according to the legislation.

The incompetence of Gardner’s office and her disdain for St. Louis law enforcement have had a predictable effect. Nearly 820 police officers have resigned from the city’s police force since 2017, leaving the city at critically low staffing levels as crime soars. In an attempt to retain police, the state legislature passed a law that eliminated residency requirements for police officers.

The fear is that St. Louis will have to keep lowering the requirements for those seeking to serve in law enforcement. In Memphis, Tennessee, for example, the police department has phased out requirements for college credits, military service, or previous police work. All that is now required is “two years’ work experience – any work experience. The department also sought state waivers to hire applicants with criminal records,” according to the Associated Press.

The result of these lax standards in Memphis was on display for all to see last month. Of the five officers charged with second-degree murder in the Tyre Nichols beating, two had only a “couple of years on the force and none had more than six years’ experience … one of the officers appeared to have had at least one arrest, according to the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission.”

St. Louis faces a similar dilemma, in no small part due to Kimberly Gardner, who is incompetent and unfit for her job. She has failed the people of St. Louis and the city’s police force — all so that she can keep doing the bidding of George Soros.

Jim Nelles is a supply chain consultant based in Chicago. He has served as a chief procurement officer, chief supply chain officer, and chief operations officer for multiple companies.