Untimely Police Death Touches St. Louis Music Scene

Back in 1973 and 1974, I was a police dispatcher in Creve Coeur, where we dispatched officers with , Frontenac and Creve Coeur police departments.

Forty years ago, many police dispatchers were like me—young men waiting to be sent to the police academy and hired as police officers. That has all changed. Now police communication officers are professionals, hired with the hope they'll stick around on the job for decades.

Often, after an eight-hour shift, I would be exhausted. An officer may respond to one stressful call, but dispatchers who work the radio, phone and the desk dealt with several things simultaneously. Citizens would need immediate help, burglar alarms would buzz all while police officers on the radio demanded information now. 

I thought of all that when I heard that dispatcher Lisa O’Brien died July 18. Lisa went on sick leave with a bad chest cold and didn't return—she died of bacterial pneumonia. She was 31 and had an 8-month-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. She had been helping folks for the past 10 years as a police dispatcher.

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Immediately after Lisa’s death, I went to see local jazz trumpeter Jim Manley during a break at a performance in Kirkwood. I told Jim the story and asked if we could do a benefit for the family.

Manley said his nine-piece ‘60s Las Vegas-style band, Wild, Cool & Swingin’ normally does one or two benefit concerts a year, where they play at a discounted price, and they haven’t done a benefit yet this year.

We decided on a price that was just a third of the normal fee. For some musicians who live in St. Charles and Jefferson counties their pay for this benefit will be little more than gas money. 

While Manley’s various bands have real followings, I was hoping to broaden the field to get more people. The first person I thought of was Dean Christopher. Christopher lives in South County and is a great vocalist. He also has experience in New York in Broadway plays and television soap operas.

But Christopher’s real talent is mixing music and comedy. He does dead-on impersonations and has developed an act of doing members of the Rat Pack and others from the 1960s Las Vegas and Hollywood scene that is hilarious. Christopher has a large St. Louis following. He regularly used to sell out shows at the old Finale nightclub in Clayton.

Christopher was happy to perform. The only problem was, he was only available on Friday, Aug. 26.

The Meramec Lab Jazz Band, which consists of professional musicians who get together on Wednesdays as a big band, can usually put 100 people in the room when they play. They have a terrific female vocalist, Valerie Tichacek. She immediately said she’d love to perform with Wild, Cool and Swingin’ and even canceled a paying job for that night to be on the bill.

The next trick was to find a venue to put on the show. I found two area clubs that were available Aug. 26. One would cost $500, and the other didn’t have a Friday or Saturday night open for months.

A neighbor called me during the venue search and offered her church, the Parkway United Church of Christ. It is on Ballas Road next to and seats 300.

We plan to ask for $15 donations at the door for more than two hours of entertainment with music and comedy. Members of the Town and Country Police Department will be on hand collecting the funds that will go to O'Brien's family. The show is at 8 p.m. Friday. This will not be somber event, but an entertaining evening.  

Lisa O’Brien lived in Florissant, and none of the musicians knew her. Her family did not attend Parkway United Church of Christ.

None of this made a difference. Everyone wanted to help.          

These musicians are used to closing down clubs and bars on a Friday night. Friday they will be closing down a church.