As Reported in the St Louis Today
The politically connected head of Gov. Pat Quinn's Southern Illinois security detail used a racial slur against a black college student in a Carlinville, IL bar, starting a fight that preceded the officer's resignation, the student says.
Blackburn College senior Bryan Reynolds, 22, said in an interview that the epithet from state Trooper Ken Snider "started the ... well, I wouldn't call it a ‘brawl,' but I guess the fight."
Reynolds' account of the St. Patrick's Day fight in the small community south of Springfield raises new issues around Snider's sudden resignation the next day. Snider, one of Quinn's top security people and a well-connected member of the region's Democratic power structure, resigned shortly after what officials have described as a barroom "altercation."
The following day, Snider also resigned without explanation as head of the Macoupin County Democratic Party and president of the Carlinville School Board.
Quinn's office has declined to comment on the matter because Snider left the security staff of the governor, also a Democrat.
Reynolds, a former football player, told the Post-Dispatch that he stood near Snider inside the Anchor Inn. After two bumps to his shoulder, Reynolds turned to the state trooper and "asked what his problem was, because that's the second time he bumped into me," Reynolds said.
Snider grabbed the student's shoulder and called him "the N-word" and other derogatory names, Reynolds said.
But the Tea Party Patriots are the racist ones, right?
