urbanSTL

I'm ready to start rounding up these repeat offenders and turning them into mulch. Anyone who is brazen enough to do this downtown in the middle of the day is better off as fertilizer imo

southsidepride wrote:I'm ready to start rounding up these repeat offenders and turning them into mulch. Anyone who is brazen enough to do this downtown in the middle of the day is better off as fertilizer imo

Without addressing the racial/economic equality issues, all you'd be doing is turning St. Louis into a woodchipper for poor (mostly black) people.

If it really were as simple as harsher sentences, the white powers-that-be would already have been there, done that.

Simple yet complicated fix. . . Get convicted of a serious gun crime within the city limits, you get put away for 10 years, no questions asked. If you fear this will push crime into other areas, I am not sure that would happen on a large scale.

I am so p'd off that this happened and will probably happen again. With all of the players, coaches, families, media, etc..etc..surely watching, STL lays a big egg...with help from our friendly neighborhood thugs. Hot spot policing is not the answer, unless the PD has the funds to do it everywhere. Obviously, we do not! Stricter laws, less slaps on the wrist and light sentences, might curb this. I could go back and find several high-profile cases, that involved some thug that should not have been on the streets, who kills after a light sentence. Angers me beyond belief.

wustl_eng wrote:Homicides are out of control and have been all this year. It's way past time for Slay/Dotson to admit that. A double murder in the heart of Downtown in the middle of the day--it boggles the mind. What a past couple months for STL...

Exactly.

jcity wrote:h, and let's not blame Dotson or the police, can we focus on the criminals this time?

Just to be clear, my criticism of Chief Dotson is not because he is the police chief, it is because he doesn't comport himself like a police chief of a large police force should in my opinion. It seems as though he and Slay have doubled down on the "overall crime is down" talking point as they've conveniently ignored the recent and disturbing rise in violent crime over the last year.

I commend the city police for putting their lives on the line every day to defend our quality of life. I just wish their leader showed more leadership, or at the very least, he could show that he gives a damn about the well-being of the community.

have there been many other shootings downtown this year?

Greatest St. Louis wrote:

southsidepride wrote:I'm ready to start rounding up these repeat offenders and turning them into mulch. Anyone who is brazen enough to do this downtown in the middle of the day is better off as fertilizer imo

Without addressing the racial/economic equality issues, all you'd be doing is turning St. Louis into a woodchipper for poor (mostly black) people.

If it really were as simple as harsher sentences, the white powers-that-be would already have been there, done that.

I'm all for addressing the issues of racial and economic equality.

But I also think we can do that while making it VERY clear that this kind of lawlessness will not be tolerated. Otherwise the issues of equality will go away only because anyone with the means to leave will have done so.

Do harsher punishments for crimes have any noticeable effect on crime rates?

moorlander wrote:have there been many other shootings downtown this year?

Seems like more this year than i remember in past. I know at the beginning of summer there were several. Only a couple during the daytime though. One at Chouteau and the homeless stabbing at the the Library. Most other were at night. There was just one a few block from where i live last sunday. There is not really a possitive to take away but at least most are targeted. Only bistandard i remember is the guy sitting at the BOB late night

southsidepride wrote:anyone with the means to leave will have done so.

That's already happened (yes, I realize there are still a couple hundred thousand that haven't, but out of 2.8 million, about 2.6 already have). It's too late to prevent that.

Inequality is at the root of everything wrong with St. Louis when it comes to crime, economics, what have you.

It needs to be addressed directly and aggressively if these issues will ever be alieviated.

All i can say is that all of St.Louis deserves better than this..

St.Louis has so much going for it accept the crime & if we can get a good handle on the crime then we'll have such a beautiful city

I choose peace over violence

TheNewSaintLouis wrote:All i can say is that all of St.Louis deserves better than this..

St.Louis has so much going for it accept the crime & if we can get a good handle on the crime then we'll have such a beautiful city

I choose peace over violence

I don't mean to call you out personally, I don't know you. But your post is perfectly emblematic of what's wrong with St. Louis.

This city doesn't "have so much going for it except the crime" but for certain classes and racial groups of people. The overt and institutional problems creating/perpetuating gulfs between those classes and racial groups are what lead to symptoms like crime.

St. Louis deserves exactly what it gets. It didn't arrive at this point by accident, it arrived at this point because of policies and practices carried out by the powers-that-be here for centuries, and the people here who have voted in or otherwise supported those powers-that-be.

^

bigmclargehuge wrote:^

... and THIS is why threads like "The Crime Thread" will forever be the hottest on this forum.

World goin one way, people another yo.

Just life in the big city folks. Sometimes society's ills smacks us right in the face.

The city should should raise the earnings tax to pay for more police officers. Imagen if the city earnings tax was 2% that would be about 300 million more in the city funds and just use 1/3 of the 300 million to hire more cops. One problem no one ever talks about is dose the city have enough officers.

I bet dollars to donuts all of those involved had priors. If stricter sentencing keeps the small percentage of citizens who consider rolling gun battles an acceptable way to solve disputes out of society I'm all for it!
Legalize pot and lock up these guys till they're too old to lift an AR15

If this was a random shooting of incident people then it would be horrible for downtown. The fact that some drug dealers killed other drug dealer, I think this is manageable

southsidepride wrote:I bet dollars to donuts all of those involved had priors. If stricter sentencing keeps the small percentage of citizens who consider rolling gun battles an acceptable way to solve disputes out of society I'm all for it!
Legalize pot and lock up these guys till they're too old to lift an AR15

Agree 100% I feel the only reason it is big news it was hours before a playoff game. We have to remember while murders are up everything else is down so is not all bad news.

Redbrickcity wrote:The city should should raise the earnings tax to pay for more police officers. Imagen if the city earnings tax was 2% that would be about 300 million more in the city funds and just use 1/3 of the 300 million to hire more cops. One problem no one ever talks about is dose the city have enough officers.

No, the city should cut its workforce by 20% and use the savings from that for more police and for projects. As I've said in other threads, the city keeps a lot of people on the payroll for no reason, each dept can be cut by 20-30%

All the stuff about this being drug-related and targeted is true, but here's the thing. This happened in a busy area in broad daylight. This is some straight up mobster stuff. These criminals have no fear of being caught. Or at least no fear of the consequences.

Yes, at the core of this is the social inequality that led these people into lives of crime. And that must be addressed. I hope we've realized that by now and that we'll keep working on it and fast.

But at the same time, this is serious crime, that cannot be tolerated, and can not be allowed to happen. I don't know how we fix it, but it's time to do something big and different. Let's throw all the resources we have at it. Let's do cameras. Let's do more cops. Whatever it takes.

A new football stadium? Screw that. We have bigger issues.

jstriebel wrote:All the stuff about this being drug-related and targeted is true, but here's the thing. This happened in a busy area in broad daylight. This is some straight up mobster stuff. These criminals have no fear of being caught. Or at least no fear of the consequences.

Yes, at the core of this is the social inequality that led these people into lives of crime. And that must be addressed. I hope we've realized that by now and that we'll keep working on it and fast.

But at the same time, this is serious crime, that cannot be tolerated, and can not be allowed to happen. I don't know how we fix it, but it's time to do something big and different. Let's throw all the resources we have at it. Let's do cameras. Let's do more cops. Whatever it takes.

A new football stadium? Screw that. We have bigger issues.

Agreed. The trouble is, (1) our justice system is a revolving door, and (2) we have politicians who are more interested in appeasing criminals than allowing police to do their jobs. I'm not suggesting police shouldn't be held to a high standard, because there is obviously a lot of work to be done to ensure the accountability of law enforcement. However, it just seems like criminals aren't afraid of being caught, nor are they afraid of the consequences once they're caught.

Tough mandatory sentencing for gun-related crimes seems like a no-brainer. I am frequently critical of Mayor Slay as it seems like he blithely ignores violent crime to promote St. Louis as the place that brought America iced tea and some famous people who had to leave our city to achieve success in their careers. However, I have to give him credit for proposing a special armed offender docket for all gun-related crimes. Unfortunately, that idea seemed to stall out in the city's judicial branch. I realize achieving consensus and making that plan work was a complicated endeavor, but there are no simple answers for a problem that has plagued our city for decades and shows no sign of becoming less of an issue in the long run.

Thank you guys. I really needed a good laugh. Only here would people seriously suggest cutting some of the only middle class jobs open to african americans in the City so that we can hire more cops from... where exactly? Weren't we just discussing a lack of quality police officers in the region? Not only would this scheme be practically politically impossible, but also even attempting it would probably lead to a drawn out battle no one wants to fight because... well... politicians typically aren't stupid. Even if they somehow trimmed people from all these wasteful departments, they would lose their next election when the ward Democratic committees came looking for revenge. The City of St. Louis was built by the Democratic machine and patronage, and some vestiges remain, and we must accept the things that we cannot change and work towards those we can. As far as I can tell, the St. Louis City government actually isn't even that corrupt or inept, certainly no more than your average company. I hope someone has a better idea for addressing the present crime uptick, otherwise we might just have to let it sort out itself as crime trends downwards.

I'd love to see the number of people in city government per capita in St. Louis. How does it compare to other major cities? How does it even compare to st Charles, which I know is obviously different, the city of STL would obviously need more services, but I'd still like to see the comparison.