urbanSTL

^^ The KC rate has dipped below 20 per 100K and at about 17 is fairly good for American cities. It had 80 homicides last year.... if it had our '14 rate of 50 the city would have had 233. Our present homicide rate is 60ish, which would be the equivalent of about 288 homicides for KC

I certainly think KC demonstrates that significant improvements can be made even in states that have lousy gun control laws 80 is a whole lot better than the 111 is 2011.

^ true, and I hope STL will drive its rate back down and we'll look back at this time as an unfortunate blip, but KC has reduced its homicide rate every year since at least 2011 so it is on to something. Hopefully it will go down even further.

1. This homicide spree is becoming akin to war zone murders. St. Louis should not rest on its laurels and tolerate this. It's ridiculous. There's an underworld of drugs, guns and gangs that need to be attacked. It's good the FBI with its Mission SAVE is in St. Louis. I have a pit in my stomach because of all of these senseless deaths.

Violent crime will continue if the St. Louis community - AS A WHOLE - doesn't stand up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH.

2. Many of St. Louis City's violent crimes are being committed by CRIMINALS who come in from various parts of St. Louis County and the Metro East. They are coming in from Spanish Lake, Florissant, Hazelwood, East St. Louis, unincorporated St. Louis County, St. Charles County etc. It's sad the drug trade is allowed to operate so freely in St. Louis City. The St. Louis region is a MAJOR crossroads for the drug and guns trade.

3. All of these violent crimes committed in the city by non-city residents, in my opinion, demonstrate why St. Louis City and St. Louis County need to combine crime statistics - particularly violent crime statistics. St. Louis City crime stats impact the whole region and if an overwhelming number of violent criminals, drug dealers, gang members etc. come from other parts of the region - especially St. Louis County - to commit their crimes in the city, why should one jurisdiction be burdened/saddled with the numbers?

It's simply not fair.

If the crime stats are combined, such action ultimately shares the responsibility between counties, plus reduces the overall crime rate.

4. St. Louis is not alone in the murder surge. Unfortunately, homicides have risen in many major cities across the country - Baltimore, Chicago, Houston (up 44%), Milwaukee, Atlanta etc. etc.

5. I don't know what is going on with these youngsters, but I suspect many of these youngsters simply have easy access to guns. They have no concept of conflict resolution, are impulsive and guns are used to resolve conflicts. Hell, Dylan Roof killed nine people in one night in a church. Imagine Charleston's murder rate for 2015.

6. It's interesting...........but one of the murdered women - Ce'Onta Cretter - was arrested in Collins County, Texas (Dallas) for robbery there in 2013. Although a lot of St. Louisans have moved to the DFW area, I don't know if she was a St. Louis-native.

7. Part of me feels St. Louis police are standing down because of Ferguson and other incidents/protests around the country. Police should be able police without killing and brutalizing people or violating people's civil rights. St. Louis Police, in my opinion, I suspect, are angry because of the new Civilian Oversight Board in St. Louis and the fact the city denied funds to hire an additional 200 officers.

8. Downtown St. Louis, the largest economic engine of the city, needs to be fortressed - day and night - by city law enforcement agencies. It's sad that shootings and robberies are happenings with regularity in downtown. I am beginning to wonder if Dotson is up to the task of Police Chief. I also believe that Slay is not putting enough pressure on Dotson to protect downtown better.

There's too much recent investment in downtown for people to be scared away from visiting or investing.

Arch, on your point 8, I do find it odd that there is little talk of whether Dotson should remain Chief. I really have no strong opinion on his performance and capability, but when things get so out-of-line there seems to be some level of accountability is called for. Baltimore's chief got bounced. Again, I'm not saying that Dotson needs to go, I just find it odd there is hardly even a conversation about the possibility,

olvidarte wrote:You can't just blame the uncaring wealthy class.

People in these crime-ridden neighborhoods aren't cooperating with police and they're not turning people in either.

I think there is plenty of blame to go around everybody has to play their part in cleaning things up.

Snitches get stitches and end up in ditches.

MattnSTL wrote:I know I don't have much faith in Dotson to be anything more than a talking head right now.

What exactly is he to do? It'd be shocking if he spoke the truth on things. "Legalize all drugs to end criminals from profiting off of them/using violence in place of contract law and end the subsidies for housing and infrastructure that have created ghettos and declining suburban sprawl."

He'd be attacked from all angles as being a whack job. There's something like 225 people for every 1 police officer and doing a better job at improving the lives of the 224.99 is going to fight crime better than that one officer.

DogtownBnR wrote:Nobody in the media is pointing out the facts regarding these cases of woman being murdered. As I mentioned before, after talking to a friend in law enforcement in the City, MANY of these woman are being used as drug runners by the criminal gangs in STL.

They are not random murders of women. These women, for obvious reasons, are used to run drugs and get caught in the crossfire of the gangs, drug cartels and mainly turf wars. As we know, drugs and gangs are fueling the violence in STL. Put a boot on the throats of these individuals and you slow down and stop a lot of this violence. This is criminal on criminal activity.

Put them away once they've offended and you can reduce instances of violent repeat offenders, murdering and reeking havoc. Back to my original point, the media needs to bring the facts, with regards to the type of woman being murdered. These are not executives at local corporations. They are part of the criminal gangs here.

I agree 100%. Many of these criminals are literally getting with away with murder. And in doing so, they seem to be more and more emboldened.

Slinging drugs is fast, easy money - especially for those who struggle in poverty. I am willing to bet that some money or drugs came up missing and either one or more of the women were targeted by a Kingpin. Perhaps one or two were killed because they knew the killer (and dealings and relationships) of at least one of the women.

Something has to give. Gun courts, drug courts, an astute stop and frisk policy with a sunset with no officer abuse or quotas, mandatory "first-time offender" and "second-chance" programs that rehabilitate and of course, JOBS.