Pine Lawn is no shining city upon a hill. Its former mayor pleaded guilty to extortion, its top police officer is facing accusations of rape and its court system preys on the town's poorest residents.
But surveillance footage suggests that — contrary to speculation roiling the Internet — Pine Lawn's sins do not include staging a fake suicide to cover up for jailhouse abuse.
The footage, obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, allegedly shows the moment that Bernard Scott used a shoelace to try to hang himself from the bars of his cell door last September. Just minutes before, officers had sent the 44-year-old back to his cell.…