urbanSTL

No they need to be reported. It's the over the top fashion in which they are reported is what is a turn off. Much more constructive ways to report them instead of striking fear in a populace to keep them in front of the TV set watching the 10pm news.

Terrible crime, but this happened to one person out of 3.5 million that attended games. What about the people paralyzed in an accident driving home after drinking 5 beers?

I get what you're saying here, but the incidents of random people getting robbed and shot after complying with demands is rising in the City. Just last week there was this guy and then the woman who was shot and robbed on Arsenal across from TGP in the middle of the afternoon. Before that there were the two (?) people robbed & one was shot on S. Grand and an elderly couple were robbed on Wyoming after going to City Diner just recently.

I think this is scary.

I hate sensationalism and the "crime report" but , sheesh, gun violence in this city is crazy and now innocent people are being affected.

Quincunx:

Heard gunfire at 3 am this morning. Very close. Heard a car drive off after. Don't think anyone was hit as no ambulances came. C'mon people!

Downtown2007 wrote:

Where?

Just wondering.........where?!

olvidarte wrote:

No they need to be reported. It's the over the top fashion in which they are reported is what is a turn off. Much more constructive ways to report them instead of striking fear in a populace to keep them in front of the TV set watching the 10pm news.

Terrible crime, but this happened to one person out of 3.5 million that attended games. What about the people paralyzed in an accident driving home after drinking 5 beers?

I get what you're saying here, but the incidents of random people getting robbed and shot after complying with demands is rising in the City. Just last week there was this guy and then the woman who was shot and robbed on Arsenal across from TGP in the middle of the afternoon. Before that there were the two (?) people robbed & one was shot on S. Grand and an elderly couple were robbed on Wyoming after going to City Diner just recently.

I think this is scary.

I hate sensationalism and the "crime report" but , sheesh, gun violence in this city is crazy and now innocent people are being affected.

In the past 4 or 5 weeks there have been at least 3 incidents (maybe 4) where someone is robbed, and then shot afterword, in what seems to be just a straight antagonistic act (as if getting mugged is not enough). This is a very disturbing trend.

As for news I find 2 to be the most fear monger sensationalist, but all four local newscasts love to roll around in it, and then have the gall to tell you they are just reporting what happened.

Hope they got him. Some relief for Sanna and his family at least.

Glad the abused woman wasn't afraid to call the police due to an insolvent muni citing occupancy violation to raise money, since she's in Spanish Lake, nor fear of being evicted for being a nuisance under a county landlord licensing bill, which sounds like is being revised thankfully.

So many issues in this article.

StlToday - Suspect in custody in shooting of Cardinals fan in downtown St. Louis

The man has previous felony convictions for resisting arrest and first-degree assault, according to the documents. Court records show he also has convictions for fraud with a credit card and driving with a revoked drivers license.

“I have been stopped by people on the street, hugging me and telling me how sorry they are and all I can think of is, ‘This is your neighborhood and you can’t go out at night without worrying about getting mugged or robbed.’ I only have to worry about it when I go to work downtown or to a Cardinals game.”

Sanna, of House Springs, said he rarely ventures downtown.

“Downtown restaurants? I’ve never seen them,” he said. “Crime is just really out of hand. It’s just scary.”

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 81474.html

downtown2007 wrote:

Aesir wrote:We're in the midst of a murder wave. Someone was just shot and paralyzed after leaving a Cardinals game.

Would you prefer the media not report these things? Maybe give you a kiss on the forehead and tell you everything is fine?

No they need to be reported. It's the over the top fashion in which they are reported is what is a turn off. Much more constructive ways to report them instead of striking fear in a populace to keep them in front of the TV set watching the 10pm news.

Terrible crime, but this happened to one person out of 3.5 million that attended games. What about the people paralyzed in an accident driving home after drinking 5 beers?

Yeah, this pretty much hits it on the nose. Crime is bad. So are car accidents, and lots of other things. Crime gets reported much more frequently, fervently and sensationally than other issues. If we could simultaneously halve the crime rate and double the mortality rate due to vehicles and other mundane causes, it would be a PR coup and a public health disaster. And given the incentive structure with respect to good/bad PR, that means we're driven toward actions that increase perceived public safety while actually reducing public safety.

If the region wants more cops on the streets of downtown, the region should help pay for it. We should have one regional police force for STL city and county, and the ability to increase police presence in areas with high crime.

The 1% earnings tax is not sufficient regional sharing. And if the region doesn't want to increase its share of the cost of policing downtown, then non-city residents can stop complaining about street crime downtown.

^ One easy way for the region to help pay for more security, etc. downtown is to funnel $$ through the Cardinals via a reinstated admissions tax. Time for the Cardinals to step up... the tax isn't going to hurt attendance or their bottom line to any real degree and the $$ can help improve their neighborhood. (Personally, I'd like to see admission tax $$ largely earmarked for residential and office development of BPV but some $$ for DT cameras, etc. would be good.)

The money would be great, but the strategy feels like a band-aid fix and a knee-jerk response.

Safety downtown is not about Cardinal baseball. Safety downtown is about having a vibrant downtown. It's a bigger conversation than the Cardinals can convene. They're an important piece of downtown, but we have a lot more at stake than the safety of Cardinal fans.

I go back to a regional police force (at least covering STL city and county), with one unified SLMPD. If Clayton and Chesterfield want to brand their cars with another line saying "Chesterfield Division" or whatever, great.

Maybe an effort like this will start to help get folks more comfortable with the idea of regional cooperation/unification. It could be an important first step.

If everyone is flying the same banner on their police departments, could Fire/EMS work too? What about street maintenance, building inspection, planning, etc?

I think the heart of the problem is the gangs. How do you get rid of the gangs and provide more opportunity, family structure, and education for high risk youth in north city/ESTL or wherever these lost souls are coming from?

^^ obviously funding DT cameras through a renewed Cardinals tax would be for the benefit of everyone, not just the Cards. I just think its part of an important larger issue that there is a lot more that our stakeholders can do to help step up. It certainly isn't knee-jerk and it''s an easy thing to do while we look at ways to expand regional cooperation, etc., which is a good idea.

So the guy had prior convictions? What were his original sentences? I'm ready to throw his liberal judges in jail with him. All of these criminals almost ALWAYS have prior offenses. St Louis should have the toughest sentencing in the country for violent criminals and we can decriminalize drug offenses to free up space.

Don't know if this belongs in the crime thread discussion or over in the sports forum. Oh well...

Interesting turn of events at the Board of Aldermen today. Apparently some members of the Board have stated they will hold funding for the new football stadium hostage until the Mayor sits down with them to craft a comprehensive plan to deal with violence in the city.

I'm all for a plan to combat violence. But are these aldermen saying that if Slay works with them on fighting crime, they'll work with him on supporting taxpayer funding for a new riverfront stadium?

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows.

^ Here is the link to Bizjournal article on it. I'm scratching my head on this one. I'm absolutely positively convinced that the BofA as per current makeup and numbers has been doing more to hurt the city than anything else because of idiotic political plays like this among other things (like trying to add a goodie jar for themselves on the recently failed bond issue)

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... ng-in.html

Northside Neighbor wrote:Don't know if this belongs in the crime thread discussion or over in the sports forum. Oh well...

Interesting turn of events at the Board of Aldermen today. Apparently some members of the Board have stated they will hold funding for the new football stadium hostage until the Mayor sits down with them to craft a comprehensive plan to deal with violence in the city.

I'm all for a plan to combat violence. But are these aldermen saying that if Slay works with them on fighting crime, they'll work with him on supporting taxpayer funding for a new riverfront stadium?

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows.

I think they're saying lets not worry about making sure Stan Kroenke's Personal wealth increases before we come up with a plan for crime. Im all for it. Good on French and whoever is joining him.

I go back and forth. What's stopping them from sitting down with Slay and discussing a plan regardless of the stadium?

I think crime is the more important issue and that we should be doing more. But most of what I see from French are his tweets to the Mayor calling for a comprehensive plan. I think he goes after the Police Chief a lot as well during his updates to BofA. So I know French is serious about it, and I'm glad about that. But if needing a comprehensive plan is as important as he feels it is, why not put forth legislation, invite the mayor to sit down, or whatever else? Is it that hard to get multiple aldermen together, sign some letter asking the mayor to sit down, and then blast it all over the news, social media, papers, etc.?

^ for the record, French has had this out for awhile now...

http://comprehensiveplan.org/intro/

He's been calling for very particular changes for a long time now but much is beyond BoA and rather how the Police resources are administered. I believe they've been asking for a sit down for a while now, too.

I knew about French's plan. I agree that he's been calling for changes for a while now. I don't dispute that. And I agree with French in regards to his puch on crime and having a comprehensive plan.

Its just hard to see through the political sideshow to see what has actually occurred. Has French actually tried sitting down with the Mayor? I would hope so but all I see are his calls through twitter.

I'm with you that Slay and Dotson dragged their feet. And Its a complicated problem. Its going to require changes in the courts, changes on the state level, etc.

mjbais1489 wrote:

Northside Neighbor wrote:Don't know if this belongs in the crime thread discussion or over in the sports forum. Oh well...

Interesting turn of events at the Board of Aldermen today. Apparently some members of the Board have stated they will hold funding for the new football stadium hostage until the Mayor sits down with them to craft a comprehensive plan to deal with violence in the city.

I'm all for a plan to combat violence. But are these aldermen saying that if Slay works with them on fighting crime, they'll work with him on supporting taxpayer funding for a new riverfront stadium?

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows.

I think they're saying lets not worry about making sure Stan Kroenke's Personal wealth increases before we come up with a plan for crime. Im all for it. Good on French and whoever is joining him.

They will increase Kroenke's wealth if they reject the stadium so Kroenke can move the Rams to LA as he and rich Missourians desire. If they vote to continue the $6M per year and keep the Rams, they keep the $4.2M tax revenue the city says they get now each year from Rams & fans. At the end of the new 30 year ironclad lease, the $4.2M will grow to over $8M per year, assuming the same inflation rate we had the last 30 years (2.5%). So ALL of the city taxpayer money (just 15% of the total cost of this huge new city asset) will be paid back by Rams and their fans and then some. If they vote against the stadium, the city will save $6M - $4.2 = $1.8M the first year they can use to hire more police. But in a few years, lost revenue will exceed the saved payment money and the city may need to start eliminating services such as police for a final net reduction in services after 30 years.

gary kreie wrote:

mjbais1489 wrote:

Northside Neighbor wrote:Don't know if this belongs in the crime thread discussion or over in the sports forum. Oh well...

Interesting turn of events at the Board of Aldermen today. Apparently some members of the Board have stated they will hold funding for the new football stadium hostage until the Mayor sits down with them to craft a comprehensive plan to deal with violence in the city.

I'm all for a plan to combat violence. But are these aldermen saying that if Slay works with them on fighting crime, they'll work with him on supporting taxpayer funding for a new riverfront stadium?

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows.

I think they're saying lets not worry about making sure Stan Kroenke's Personal wealth increases before we come up with a plan for crime. Im all for it. Good on French and whoever is joining him.

They will increase Kroenke's wealth if they reject the stadium so Kroenke can move the Rams to LA as he and rich Missourians desire. If they vote to continue the $6M per year and keep the Rams, they keep the $4.2M tax revenue the city says they get now each year from Rams & fans. At the end of the new 30 year ironclad lease, the $4.2M will grow to over $8M per year, assuming the same inflation rate we had the last 30 years (2.5%). So ALL of the city taxpayer money (just 15% of the total cost of this huge new city asset) will be paid back by Rams and their fans and then some. If they vote against the stadium, the city will save $6M - $4.2 = $1.8M the first year they can use to hire more police. But in a few years, lost revenue will exceed the saved payment money and the city may need to start eliminating services such as police for a final net reduction in services after 30 years.

Amazing how many people become microeconomics experts during stadium debates.
Why are we assuming the same inflation rate of the last 30 years? Why not the last 5?
If the revenue doesn't match the bond payment why don't we get a guarantee from Kroenke to cover it if its such a sure thing? Clearly he'd never have to pay it so such a commitment shouldn't be a big deal.
What happens if the stadium costs 1.4Billion to build - who covers overrun costs?

Using the last 5 years as a baseline assumption for the next 30 would be foolhardy without good reason. Maybe as a sensitivity test case. Incidentally, the 2010-2014 average inflation was about 2%, so 2.5% for the next 30 seems pretty reasonable. If anything, there's good reason to think the last thirty years may represent a somewhat conservative sample. A larger sample would probably indicate an average around 3-3.5%, depending on the range.

I wonder what French's opinion of stop-and-frisk is? It worked when NYC was out of control.

sirshankalot wrote:I wonder what French's opinion of stop-and-frisk is? It worked when NYC was out of control.

Did it? I think the data is pretty ambiguous on that topic.