SUMMARY:

Six local and federal law enforcement officers received the 2025 Guardian of Justice Award for their roles in investigating a conspiracy to murder border patrol agents and violent gun crimes in Springfield. FBI Special Agent Isaac McPheeters led the investigation into Bryan Parry and Jonathan O’Dell, co-founders of the “2nd American Militia,” who planned to kill border agents and immigrants. O’Dell escaped jail in 2023 but was recaptured within 48 hours. Additionally, ATF Special Agent Jerry Wine and local officers investigated a series of shootings linked to gangs “F**k The Opps” and “Only Da Brothers,” resulting in multiple indictments and prison sentences, reducing Greene County shootings.

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SUMMARY: Beneath St. Louis’s Forest Park lies a critical wastewater tunnel system connected to the River Des Peres, which runs over four miles under the city. Created in the 1890s, the river originally carried untreated wastewater, causing unpleasant conditions by the early 1900s. A combined sewer system channels both stormwater and wastewater through these tunnels to the Lemay Wastewater Treatment Plant. The complex network, recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, was built using manual labor and early technology. Ongoing maintenance ensures structural integrity, and a new 15- to 16-mile tunnel system, planned for completion in the late 2030s, will increase capacity by 300 million gallons. Residents are warned to avoid the hazardous tunnels and river waters.

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The post Why a river is hidden in tunnels under St. Louis appeared first on fox2now.com

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
August 22, 2025

For six years, Honesty Jade Bishop was held in solitary confinement in a Missouri prison after she was sexually assaulted by her cellmate.

The Department of Corrections deemed that Bishop, a transgender woman who was living with HIV, was sexually active and needed to be isolated. And from 2015 to 2021, she was in administrative segregation at the Jefferson City Correctional Center, a prison that houses men.

A federal lawsuit filed on Bishop’s behalf in 2023 after her parole says her prolonged time in solitary confinement caused “depression, hopelessness, severe anxiety and feeling as if she were going insane and reaching a mental breaking point.” It also, the lawsuit says, drove her to “physically self-harm including attempts to take her own life.”

On Wednesday, the department agreed to a settlement, setting new policies and training requirements. But Bishop died before the settlement could be reached, taking her own life in October 2024.

“My sister, Honesty, was a fighter who never gave up,” Latasha Monroe, Bishop’s sister, said in a news release from the MacArthur Justice Center Thursday. “She endured years of cruel treatment because of her HIV status, but she never stopped believing that things could change. This settlement honors her memory and ensures that others won’t have to suffer what Honesty went through. Her courage in speaking out has created lasting changes.”

Monroe continued the lawsuit on behalf of her sister’s estate. There was a monetary award in addition to the policy and training changes, but the amount has not been released.

Lambda Legal and law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon also participated with MacArthur Justice Center in representing Bishop.

Shubra Ohri, senior counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center, said she first met Bishop soon after she was released from isolation and got to know well after her parole.

“She was a bright person who had to cope with a really torturous experience, basically,” Ohri said. “And you know, despite being bright and despite being hopeful and really productive, I could tell she was struggling with things.”

Bishop was in prison after being sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2014, according to a report on the settlement prepared by Midwest Newsroom and The Marshall Project. During a scuffle with police as they tried to arrest her in 2011 for a misdemeanor stealing charge, Bishop bit an officer and was charged with assaulting an officer and recklessly risking an HIV infection.

Bishop began transitioning after arriving at Jefferson City Correctional Center. During her time in isolation, Ohri said, “she was denied, like a lot of things, that would help affirm her identity as a transgender woman, which really had an amplified impact on her mental health.”

At the time of the assault, and until the settlement, the department policy was to place anyone with HIV into isolation if they were deemed sexually active, Ohri said in an interview Thursday with The Independent.

“It was very, very obviously an unconstitutional policy,” she said.

The Midwest Newsroom/Marshall Project report states that, as of January 2025, there were 218 people with HIV incarcerated in Missouri.

Karen Pojmann, spokeswoman for the state department of corrections, did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement. 

Going forward, any incarcerated person with a communicable disease will be evaluated individually to determine if they need to be in administrative segregation to prevent the infection from spreading, according to the settlement

“This settlement represents a critical victory in our ongoing fight against HIV criminalization and discrimination,” Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal HIV Project director, said in the news release. “For too long, correctional systems across the country have subjected people living with HIV to punitive and medically unjustified isolation based on outdated stigma rather than modern science.”

HIV can be controlled with medication to the point that the virus is not transmissible. Part of the settlement mandates new training for corrections officers on HIV transmissibility, as well as the law on disability-based discrimination, Ohri said.

“The hope is that combined, the policy change and the training,” Ohri said, “would really drive home that what happened to Honesty, putting someone in segregation who may have HIV, but was on medication, that there’s no reason for it.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.

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Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This content highlights issues related to the treatment of marginalized groups, such as transgender individuals and people living with HIV, within the prison system. It emphasizes systemic injustices, advocates for policy reform, and supports civil rights organizations involved in legal advocacy. The focus on social justice, healthcare rights, and institutional accountability aligns with center-left perspectives that prioritize equity and reform within existing structures.