Crime Thread

roger wyoming II · PostJan 07, 2016#59262016-01-07T21:53+00:00

Due to his listed address, I'm pretty certain that this man who listed the 3900 block of Forest Park Avenue as his address and who used a gun to rob a student on SLU campus actually is a patient at the Salvation Army's Adult Rehab Center on that block and is from Steelville.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 8d595.html

Either that or he lives at IKEA.

Just another sad story about how our core carries the heavy burden of providing social services for those in need throughout the 3M person region (and sometimes from even further afield).

downtown2007 · PostJan 08, 2016#59272016-01-08T02:08+00:00

St. Louis Spends More Per Capita on Police Than Just About Any Other Major U.S. City

http://m.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2 ... or-us-city

framer · PostJan 09, 2016#59282016-01-09T18:58+00:00

FWIW, it took 8 days for the City to record it's first murder in 2016. Looks like we're on a pace to have fewer than 50 this year!

downtown2007 · PostJan 09, 2016#59292016-01-09T20:10+00:00

The county currently has more homicides than the city this year.

southsidepride · PostJan 09, 2016#59302016-01-09T20:54+00:00

There were no homicides in the city between Dec. 19 and Jan. 8.

Almost three weeks with no murders.

jcity · PostJan 09, 2016#59312016-01-09T23:22+00:00

Too cold

downtown2007 · PostJan 10, 2016#59322016-01-10T20:38+00:00

It really hasn't been that cold.

imthewiz · PostJan 10, 2016#59332016-01-10T23:04+00:00

It was 60 degrees on Christmas

gary kreie · PostJan 10, 2016#59342016-01-10T23:58+00:00

downtown2007 wrote:St. Louis Spends More Per Capita on Police Than Just About Any Other Major U.S. City

http://m.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2 ... or-us-city

Most cities have a lot more low-crime suburbs within their city limits to help lower that statistic. What would the stat be if City and County were merged to match up with San Antonio, say?

downtown2007 · PostJan 11, 2016#59352016-01-11T00:11+00:00

Malarkey. I don't believe in boundary shifting just to fudge numbers. It doesn't fix the problem.

gary kreie · PostJan 11, 2016#59362016-01-11T00:52+00:00

There is so much misinformation about this. Moving the boundary just gets us ranked correctly with respect to other cities. It is NOT cheating.

Experiment -- which would you say has less cholesterol per ounce -- an egg yoke, or the whole egg? Rank them by least cholesteral per ounce to find which which is safer to eat. I'll check back.

MarkHaversham · PostJan 11, 2016#59372016-01-11T02:20+00:00

downtown2007 wrote:Malarkey. I don't believe in boundary shifting just to fudge numbers. It doesn't fix the problem.

If the already city included the current suburbs, would you be arguing we should shrink the statistical borders to unfudge the numbers? E.g., if you were posting on the Urban San Antonio forum?

stlgasm · PostJan 11, 2016#59382016-01-11T03:18+00:00

I'm with downtown2007. Sure, lots of newer cities that have huge land areas that dilute their stats, but many others do not. San Francisco, Boston and Pittsburgh all have smaller land areas than St. Louis, yet their crime rates are MUCH lower. Every time the subject of St. Louis' high crime rate comes up, people always say, "But St. Louis City and County can't combine their statistics like other cities..." Umm, no, sorry. Just because most cities are in a county doesn't mean their crime stats include the entire county. Cities still have jurisdictional borders. It's not like Chicago's crime stats include Glenview and Winnetka just because they happen to be in the same county (Cook), after all.

We need to face the FACT that St. Louis' urban core has an extremely high crime rate, no matter how you slice it. Sure, it's largely concentrated in a few zip codes and most crime is not random, but our central city has a major crime problem. Higher than just about any other older urban central city in our peer group.

MarkHaversham · PostJan 11, 2016#59392016-01-11T03:59+00:00

It makes zero sense to make hay over St. Louis' ranking while ignoring the reasons for that ranking and its various flaws. You might as well say StL has a crime problem because it has more crime than 39N 90W on every other body in the solar system. Comparing crime in urban StL to suburban San Antonio or wherever is barely more relevant than comparing to midwestern Triton. If StL has a crime problem, talk about it without referencing random number generators like those city-border crime stat rankings. Adding noise does not aid anything.

gary kreie · PostJan 11, 2016#59402016-01-11T04:37+00:00

MarkHaversham wrote:
downtown2007 wrote:Malarkey. I don't believe in boundary shifting just to fudge numbers. It doesn't fix the problem.
If the already city included the current suburbs, would you be arguing we should shrink the statistical borders to unfudge the numbers? E.g., if you were posting on the Urban San Antonio forum?

Of course not. San Antonio city limits include 70% of its metro. So would the City County. You could compare those two straight up. But to rank all cities against each other you need to use consistent boundaries based on a consistent population criteria, like MSA boundaries, not political criteria like city limits.

I get annoyed when relatives in OKC ask if it is safe to live in St Louis. Their house in OKC & has been broken into. I point out that metro level rankings show St Louis is safer than OKC and I have never had a breakin. Metro rankings use consistent boundaries to not distort. If someone could figure out how to fairly rank inner 12% cores of metro areas, they would likely show St. Louis core is also safer than OKC core. But ranking OKC city limits, which is nearly their entire metro, against St Louis city limits, which is 12% of the metro, creates these ranking anomalies that lead folks in OKC to not move here because these city rankings wrongly told they are safer there in OKC.

PostJan 11, 2016#59412016-01-11T04:37+00:00

MarkHaversham wrote:
downtown2007 wrote:Malarkey. I don't believe in boundary shifting just to fudge numbers. It doesn't fix the problem.
If the already city included the current suburbs, would you be arguing we should shrink the statistical borders to unfudge the numbers? E.g., if you were posting on the Urban San Antonio forum?

Of course not. San Antonio city limits include 70% of its metro. So would the City County. You could compare those two straight up. But to rank all cities against each other you need to use consistent boundaries based on a consistent population criteria, like MSA boundaries, not political criteria like city limits.

stlgasm · PostJan 11, 2016#59422016-01-11T04:42+00:00

MarkHaversham wrote:It makes zero sense to make hay over St. Louis' ranking while ignoring the reasons for that ranking and its various flaws. You might as well say StL has a crime problem because it has more crime than 39N 90W on every other body in the solar system. Comparing crime in urban StL to suburban San Antonio or wherever is barely more relevant than comparing to midwestern Triton. If StL has a crime problem, talk about it without referencing random number generators like those city-border crime stat rankings. Adding noise does not aid anything.

If St. Louis City and County are allowed to combine crime stats, than it's only fair that every other older city be allowed to include their larger suburban county into their stats too. That means Pittsburgh = all of Allegheny County, Cleveland = Cuyahoga County, Detroit = Wayne County, Baltimore City + County, Cincinnati = Hamilton County, Chicago = Cook County, etc. Just expanding St. Louis' reporting borders does not level the playing field-- the same has to be done for all older urban cities.

Bottom line- yes, city boundaries are arbitrary, and crime rankings taken at face value are misleading because some cities like St. Louis are compact and highly urbanized and others like Kansas City are sprawling and include exurban and even rural areas within their vast city borders. But many cities' rankings are negatively affected by subjective city boundaries, not just St. Louis.

bprop · PostJan 11, 2016#59432016-01-11T11:16+00:00

framer wrote:FWIW, it took 8 days for the City to record it's first murder in 2016. Looks like we're on a pace to have fewer than 50 this year!

2 dead in St. Louis shooting

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 71031.html

ajwillikers · PostJan 11, 2016#59442016-01-11T14:31+00:00

#DeathRaceSTL2016
Fatal Crashes: 5
Homicides: 5

https://www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/HP68/ ... rchTroop=C
http://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia ... e86ade.htm

MarkHaversham · PostJan 11, 2016#59452016-01-11T18:25+00:00

stlgasm wrote:
MarkHaversham wrote:It makes zero sense to make hay over St. Louis' ranking while ignoring the reasons for that ranking and its various flaws. You might as well say StL has a crime problem because it has more crime than 39N 90W on every other body in the solar system. Comparing crime in urban StL to suburban San Antonio or wherever is barely more relevant than comparing to midwestern Triton. If StL has a crime problem, talk about it without referencing random number generators like those city-border crime stat rankings. Adding noise does not aid anything.
If St. Louis City and County are allowed to combine crime stats, than it's only fair that every other older city be allowed to include their larger suburban county into their stats too. That means Pittsburgh = all of Allegheny County, Cleveland = Cuyahoga County, Detroit = Wayne County, Baltimore City + County, Cincinnati = Hamilton County, Chicago = Cook County, etc. Just expanding St. Louis' reporting borders does not level the playing field-- the same has to be done for all older urban cities.

Bottom line- yes, city boundaries are arbitrary, and crime rankings taken at face value are misleading because some cities like St. Louis are compact and highly urbanized and others like Kansas City are sprawling and include exurban and even rural areas within their vast city borders. But many cities' rankings are negatively affected by subjective city boundaries, not just St. Louis.

I'm not opposed to other cities combining statistics to stave off exaggerated negative media attention.

Any serious comparisons would use something like MSA comparison that at least attempts to use a consistent basis. City-boundary reporting is strictly ignorant media hype, and I don't think anyone should be concerned that adjusting our statistical reporting is disturbing the sanctity of city-boundary comparisons or whatever. It's media circus all the way down, we should acknowledge it and respond accordingly.

roger wyoming II · PostJan 11, 2016#59462016-01-11T23:48+00:00

December crime report is out...

http://www.slmpd.org/crimestats/CRM0013-BY_201512.pdf

Property crimes were essentially the same and an 8% increase in crimes against persons (i.e. violent crime) so about a 2% uptick overall. Some nabes, like TGS, saw significant drops, and I suspect the city overall will for this year as well.

Ebsy · PostJan 13, 2016#59472016-01-13T03:54+00:00

Let's hope we see a return to normalcy.

roger wyoming II · PostJan 16, 2016#59482016-01-16T15:41+00:00

Couple good arrests regarding particularly busy scum....

Good to see some results from the downtown cameras helping catch this serial robber coming to downtown from Metro East:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... e808e.html

The shooting of a corrupt cop helped break violent drug/murder ring:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... 70852.html

rbb · PostJan 25, 2016#59492016-01-25T15:13+00:00

So anyone have an idea of what happened at IKEA last night?

My wife and finally made our way there for the first time, albeit just to run in to buy a gift card. We got their just before closing, ran in and ran out. As we were leaving, no fewer than five police cars came barreling in, congregating around a car in the lot. As we left we could see a man laying on the ground next to the car with the driver's door open.

It might be nothing, but that seems like a lot of police response for a drunk guy. I've not been able to find anything in the news or a police blotter, and the site the city uses for crime mapping hasn't been updated.

-RBB

roger wyoming II · PostJan 25, 2016#59502016-01-25T17:49+00:00

Very interesting story of a German immigrant widow living in Affton who had her house fire-bombed by someone in a drug ring that a member of the highly connected family belonged to and said member had letters asking for leniency written by Stenger and Belmar:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 1556f.html

Keep it classy, Saint Louis!

Crime Thread

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