Overview
The Death Of David Dorn occurred on June 2nd, 2020, when the retired St. Louis police captain and municipal chief was shot to death by looters at a pawnshop in St. Louis during the 2020 George Floyd Protests. His killing and death were livestreamed on Facebook, showing Dorn lying on the sidewalk near the store after he attempted to prevent looters from robbing the shop.
Background
On June 2nd, 2020, 77-year-old David Dorn responded to an alarm at Lee’s Pawn & Jewelry, his friend’s business where he had been providing security, in St. Louis around 2:30 a.m. The pawnshop was being looted when he arrived, and after attempting to confront the looters, he was shot several times in the torso. Facebook user Dèll Saav livestreamed Dorn’s death on Facebook Live, arriving at the store after Dorn had been shot. The video, posted under the caption “THEY JUST KILLED THIS MAN IN MY FACE” (seen below), shows Dorn lying on the sidewalk outside the pawnshop. Saav can be heard throughout the video repeating, “They just killed this man over some TVs. Stay with me OG.” The video received over 95,000 views, 4,500 shares and 1,200 reactions.
After the video was streamed, several users commented on it claiming the livestreamer didn’t do enough to help, to which Saav replied in the comment section:
For everybody saying call for help! We did! The ambulance and fire departments were all up the street not even 5 mins away from the scene while this was going on, yes we could have taken him to them or to the nearest hospital 💯 but no one had any knowledge of what to do in this situation and there was no medical professionals on the scene to guide us in helping! Yes recording was disrespectful and I send my condolences to the family 💙 this could have been avoided in many different ways but first people have to think before they react to certain situations! I was not the only one on the scene recording so don’t be in my inbox trying to blow me down about the situation! And we wonder why we have problems with the police not caring for us! But we have to stand up and care for ourselves first! I haven’t been to sleep at all yet because the situation is so fucced up its never serious to the point where people have to lose their life over materialistic things! Rip.
Developments
Government Response
The St. Louis Police Department and Police Chief John Hayden announced in a news conference on June 2nd, 2020 (uploaded to Twitter, shown below), that “Throughout the night, we made 25 arrests for various charges, and then there were 55 businesses and counting that were burglarized and had property damage. One of those businesses had one of our retired captains, retired captain David Dorn, who retired after 38 years. During the looting process, David Dorn was exercising law enforcement that he learned here.” Police stated that no arrests have been made and they have no suspects, but announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
S https://t.co/qGgN0JZVXN
— St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) June 2, 2020
On June 2nd, 2020, President Donald Trump paid tribute to Dorn in a Twitter post and said, “Our highest respect to the family of David Dorn, a Great Police Captain from St. Louis, who was viciously shot and killed by despicable looters last night. We honor our police officers, perhaps more than ever before. Thank you!” The tweet (seen below) received 373,000 likes and 107,000 retweets.
Online Reactions
News of Dorn’s death spread online in the following days, appearing on a number of social media platforms. One such example was posted by Twitter user stillgray who re-uploaded the livestream on June 2nd, 2020 (shown below), receiving over 7.5 million views, 59,000 likes, 39,000 retweets and 8,400 replies.
“All over some TVs.” 77-year-old St. Louis retired Police Captain David Dorn was shot dead by looters when he tried to get them to stop looting a local pawn shop. pic.twitter.com/Xtvii4HoB1
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 2, 2020
On June 3rd, 2020, Twitter user w_terrence shared a video discussing Dorn’s death with the caption, “KEEP POSTING HIS NAME!” The video (seen below) received over 786,000 views, 14,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
KEEP POSTING HIS NAME! #DavidDornslifemattered TOO
People posted black boxes all today for #blackoutuesday
But they refused to post about a 77 year old black man who was shot & killed and left for dead on a sidewalk#DavidDorn#JusticeForDavidDorn
— Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) June 3, 2020
Redditor boomerpro posted an image of Dorn to the r/conspiracy subreddit on June 2nd, 2020 (shown below), receiving over 10,000 upvotes and 1,000 comments. On June 2nd, 2020, Redditor 2dubs1bro then reposted the video to the r/PublicFreakout sub where it was upvoted over 5,500 times and commented on 822 times.
On June 2nd, 2020, Donald Trump Jr. shared his father’s tweet on his Instagram account alongside the caption, “R.I.P. Captain Dorn.” The image received nearly 150,000 likes. Michael Rapaport shared the video to his Instagram on June 3rd, 2020, receiving over 814,000 views and 91,000 likes.
The story was also covered by numerous media outlets on June 2nd, 2020, including The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Guardian and CNN, as well as many others.
Search Interest
Know Your Meme Store
External References
Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/death-of-david-dorn