The widow of slain St. Louis police veteran David Dorn devastated viewers by telling his story on the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention.
Her poignant story captured the emotions even of Meghan McCain, whose mother spoke at the Democratic convention last week on behalf of longtime family friend Joe Biden.
This video of Ann Dorn speaking about the murder of her husband David Dorn is the most heartbreaking and gut wrenching of the entire convention…. Pray for the Dorn family and an end to the chaos in this country.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) August 28, 2020
But many others responded the same way, saying that Dorn’s speech was a “tipping point,” and even that it was the nail in the coffin for Joe Biden’s campaign.
Ann Dorn’s speech is the kind that makes you stop whatever you’re doing to listen.
— Jedediah Bila (@JedediahBila) August 28, 2020
Ann Dorn’s RNC speech was absolute fire. The truth hits different y’all.
— Damani Felder (@TheDamaniFelder) August 28, 2020
Dorn’s story has been something of a rallying cry for the Right in the face of race riots that claim to be advancing the singular precept that “black lives matter.”
But instead, the riots have only compounded death and destruction within the black community and seem more catered toward a cynical political outcome than for any genuine social-justice causes.
As an African American and a 38-year law-enforcement veteran, Dorn represented both sides in the current divide over law-and-order versus alleged police brutality and systemic racism.
But with nary a mention of the racial politics, his wife delivered a heart-rending, gut-wrenching account of his final night.
It was not uncommon for Dorn to respond at any hour when an alarm went off at the pawn shop owned by his lifelong friend. Most of them were false alarms, said his wife.
But “the alarm that went off the morning of June 2 was for real, she said, as the city was consumed by rioting a few days following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody.
Ann Dorn worked with the same police force that her husband had only recently retired from after 38 years.
“I was keenly aware of the rioting and spent the evening getting ready to mobilize support,” she said.
But she returned home and had gone to sleep by time the call came.
“This time, he didn’t wake me up to tell me,” she said. “He probably knew I would have stopped him.”
Horrifically, Dorn’s sleazy assailants showed no regard for humanity—not even an upstanding member of their community. They not only murdered him, but broadcast the event on social media.
“They shot and killed David in cold blood and then live streamed his execution and his last moments on earth,” Ann Dorn said.
To make matters worse, David’s grandson happened to see the broadcast in real time, “not realizing he was watching his own grandfather,” she added.
As a new crop of rioting threatened to consume Kenosha, Wisc., a picturesque lakefront town halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago, Dorn made an appeal to those who were taking to the streets to perpetuate the senseless violence.
“I relive that horror in my mind every single day,” she said.
“My hope is that having you relive it now will help shake this country from this nightmare,” she continued. “This isn’t a video game where you can commit mayhem and then just hit reset and bring all the characters back to life. David’s never coming back to me. He was murdered by people who just didn’t know and didn’t care.”
She also rejected the Left’s notion that the best solution was to defund the police.
“We cannot heal amid devastation and chaos,” she said. “President Trump knows we need more Davids in our community, not fewer.”
Dorn’s was not the only speech of the convention’s final night to tug at the emotional heart strings.
Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of murdered ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller, spoke of their harrowing ordeal and of being abandoned by the Obama administration, saying that if Trump had been president Kayla would still be alive.
But continuing on a note of hope and optimism, particularly for bridging racial differences, Trump also featured Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and recently freed inmate Alice Johnson, both of whom shared their inspiring stories of rising up through faith and determination to triumph over adversity.
