Member-only story
Should they have posted bail for this poor black man?
Were they doing more harm by trying to help?
Today I read a story about a man who allegedly murdered his wife.
The man’s name, according to this article, is Samuel Lee Scott. He was charged with murder just hours after he was freed from prison. A nonprofit group, the St. Louis Bail Project, posted the $5000 bail.
Why was Scott in jail? He’d hit his wife, Marcia Johnson, in the face. When he was arrested for that, he promised to finish what he started and kill her.
His wife died 5 days after he was freed. The reason it took him so long to keep his word— he broke her eye socket and some ribs but didn’t finish her off. A friend got Johnson to a hospital where she lingered before she died.
One in three women experiences domestic abuse and 20 people experience “intimate partner” violence every minute according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Those are statistics. Marcia Johnson was a real person. What were her hopes and dreams? We don’t know and she can’t tell us, because she’s dead.
Robin Steinberg, the Executive Director of the Bail Project said her organization was not responsible for Johnson’s death despite posting bail for Scott. Instead, she blames systemic poverty, racism and…
