ST. LOUIS — The son of a retired St. Louis police captain who was killed during looting sparked by the death of George Floyd has a message for the person who pulled the trigger: “Just step back from what you are doing.”
Brian Powell made the remark to Fox2Now after David Dorn, 77, was gunned down early Tuesday while working as security for Lee’s Pawn Shop and Jewelry. Around 4 a.m. that morning, Powell said his brother – who was crying – called him to inform of him of his father’s death, leaving a “numbing feeling that came over my body.”
“The person who pulled the trigger, my message to them would just simply be, just step back from what you’re doing. Know the real reason that you are protesting. Let’s do it in a positive manner,” Powell told the news organization. “We don’t have to go out and loot and do all the other things.”
The person responsible for killing Dorn remains loose. CrimeStoppers is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Dorn, prior to working security at the pawn shop, had been a police captain with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and a police chief in nearby Moline Acres. He retired in 2014, ending a police career that spanned more than 40 years, Powell said.
“They called him ‘Cap.’ That was the Cap. That was the Cap, everybody knows that was him,” Powell said.
“He couldn’t stay retired. My dad is that kind of person — he believed in black and blue.
“Police work ran through his veins.”
Powell also says if Dorn was still alive, he would have shown empathy toward his attacker, Fox News reported.
“My dad, he is a forgiving soul. So he would have forgiven that person and try to talk to them because he was real big on trying to talk to youth and mentoring young people as well,” he added. “He was trying to get them on the straight and narrow and everything.”
According to St. Louis police, Dorn was killed responding to a burglar alarm that looters set off.
“David Dorn was exercising law enforcement training that he learned here,” St Louis Police Chief John Hayden said.
Moreover, “David Dorn was a fine captain, many of us young officers looked up to him,” Hayden reflected.
The chief said officers will wear mourning badges in response to Dorn’s death.
The Ethical Society of Police, a St. Louis black officers fraternal organization, mourned Dorn in a tweet as “the type of brother that would’ve given his life to save them if he had to.”
“Violence is not the answer, whether it’s a citizen or officer. RIP Captain!” the tweet said.
