urbanSTL

leeharveyawesome wrote:

downtown2007 wrote:"Crime up after Ferguson and more police are needed"

Yes Ferguson has contributed to an increase in crime across the region. Not just downtown.

http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/crime- ... touch=true

Well, there you have it. As we speculated a month ago the cops are busy doing other things and doing police work is now racist and crime is up.

City folk who would have NEVER thought about arming themselves are doing so because they are pretty much on their own. Thats just more guns around to steal or fall into the wrong hands. What a mess.

Have what? Read the article. It clearly states city homicide rates have nothing to do with ferguson and were trending before August.

ttricamo wrote:

downtown2007 wrote:"Crime up after Ferguson and more police are needed"

Yes Ferguson has contributed to an increase in crime across the region. Not just downtown.

http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/crime- ... touch=true

Again, I would urge everyone to read this article. It mentions a consolidation study that Better Together is funding to discuss consolidation of the 60 police departments in St Louis.

I absolutely 100% agree the real problem is the little kingdoms and fiefdoms of police departments and towns scattered across North County. All these little bureaucracies battling for money to keep themselves afloat and maybe get a new Camaro cop car for their department, scam some money out of the system and preserve or creat easy jobs for friends and relatives on the backs of the residents. You can't do any of it without producing money through fines and tickets and taxes.

To oppose the the bureaucratic disaster which is the root of the problem in North County is consistent with a conservative or libertarian view of how government should work. Quite simply, it's "too much government".

Out of control bureaucracy or not, I still can't recommend fighting a cop for his gun in his police car.

leeharveyawesome wrote:

ttricamo wrote: Again, I would urge everyone to read this article. It mentions a consolidation study that Better Together is funding to discuss consolidation of the 60 police departments in St Louis.

I absolutely 100% agree the real problem is the little kingdoms and fiefdoms of police departments and towns scattered across North County. All these little bureaucracies battling for money to keep themselves afloat and maybe get a new Camaro cop car for their department, scam some money out of the system and preserve or creat easy jobs for friends and relatives on the backs of the residents. You can't do any of it without producing money through fines and tickets and taxes.

To oppose the the bureaucratic disaster which is the root of the problem in North County is consistent with a conservative or libertarian view of how government should work. Quite simply, it's "too much government".

Out of control bureaucracy or not, I still can't recommend fighting a cop for his gun in his police car.

I agree with all of the above. I'm not sure how municipalities would feel about a combined police force with St. Louis County Police, or if it would be possible to merge some or all departments with the SLMPD if city reentry ever happens for a truly 'metropolitan' police department.

However, it seems like a happy medium is still possible. I can't find the link for it, but I recently saw a story on the Normandy Police Department, and they seem to have a good reputation with citizens there for their community policing approach. Apparently a couple of the smaller villages nearby contract with Normandy for police protection as well. Perhaps other departments could be merged with their force as a start- or at least they could use their community policing strategies to build better relationships with their citizens? Any of these options would be a good start in my opinion.

^ Good point. Even when there are fewer and larger police forces in a given area, that gets tricky. I visit Memphis fairly often, and around the busy Wolfchase Galleria area, Memphis police patrols the south side of Stage Road (by the mall) while Bartlett (an adjoining suburb with about 70,000 residents) patrols the north side. Interestingly, whenever I'm there, it seems like Memphis Police pull over more motorists than Bartlett Police, although Memphis definitely has its share of financial issues.

Combining police forces could get messy and could take a long time, but reform efforts could lead to a more organic process in which some smaller municipalities disband their police forces and contract with neighboring suburbs or the county for police protection. I see that as a more practical and achievable way of reducing the number of police forces and increasing professionalism among law enforcement agencies in our area.

Stltoday - You just can't keep killing people,' says son of slain St. Louis woman

The secret workings of the Missouri Parole Board have outraged the families of Harry Little Sr.'s victims, who want to know why the double murderer was freed from prison and is now accused of killing again.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 91d2d.html

^^This is outrageous. How are these people ever let out of jail?

Fox2 - Five shot and one dead in North St. Louis carjacking

http://fox2now.com/2014/11/21/five-shot ... arjacking/

^ drugs drugs drugs. i'd bet that about 75% of murders in the city are drug related.

Jamilah Nasheed said a gunman pointed a gun at her and demanded her car. This city has gone mad i don't see any silver lining in progress on combatting happening anytime soon ..

Saturday morning homicide in Cleveland brings 12-hour death toll to 7

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ss ... _in_c.html

This city has not gone mad. I was downtown last Sunday for the Rams game. There was also a convention happening. The place was packed for most of the day. Popped over to Baileys Range; pretty full for a Sunday.

This place is totally fine.

The city is not going mad the last time I check crime numbers were going down. Even downtown but not as much as we like.

Wow in Cleveland literally a whole family of 5 been killed friday..

I think constantly posting about every single crime might be doing a bit to lend to the sense of panic some of us are feeling.

Ebsy wrote:I think constantly posting about every single crime might be doing a bit to lend to the sense of panic some of us are feeling.

local news + social media = this, times a billion.

stlhistory wrote:I think "the city has gone mad" would have been a legitimate thing in 1974 or 1994, but not 2014. For what it's worth, crime is down 7.9% this year since last year. Some might cry that the numbers are fudged, but I just don't buy it. We live in a hyperaware environment vis-a-vis crime, and when we on the board think crime is up we're just reflecting the average American (who also thinks crime is higher every year even though it's lower).

It's definitely not as bad as the early 90s to the 70s and social media is no help (I think we prefer out of sight out of mind) plus gentrification has helped a lot. Still, St.Louis is as crime-y as any place in the so called First World. That's just what it is. And it's mostly fine imho.