1) why is crime higher in TGS/Shaw compared to SW City and 2) are there things SW City does to create the safer environment that can be replicated in other neighborhoods?
To reiterate what was said above, SW city is pretty well insulated. Shaw is next to the highway. So its very easy for those outside the neighborhood to get in and get out. TGS is next to a few areas that aren't great crime-wise - south of Gravois, the state streets west of Jefferson.
To your second question, no, not intentionally IMO.
Probably correct, but still frustrating. It sounds like the problem is bad geography, which is difficult to solve. I wonder what the realistic chances are of these neighborhoods getting safer in the next few years. I'm hopeful we can turn a corner though, but I'm not sure how that will happen since there isn't a simple solution.
Right. Its incredibly frustrating. Most of the issues in Shaw are from people not in the neighborhood. They may be visiting someone, but they don't live there. We have issues on our block with pull-up drug deals. Two cars drive up, make an exchange, and 30 seconds later they are gone. Its really hard to put a stop to it.
Probably correct, but still frustrating. It sounds like the problem is bad geography, which is difficult to solve. I wonder what the realistic chances are of these neighborhoods getting safer in the next few years. I'm hopeful we can turn a corner though, but I'm not sure how that will happen since there isn't a simple solution.
I definitely think they can get safer... property crimes continue to drop substantially and violent crime had actually dropped in 2015 in both neighborhoods, although both increased last year they are at about the same level as around the 2012 period. A lot of times these bumps can be traced to a small group or even individual, and hopefully some key arrests will occur. For Shaw, though, shootings had become very rare and the recent increase is unfortunate... hopefully that will end quickly.
When McRee is redeveloped more completely that will help Shaw. (That's just a matter of time, what with redevelopment pressures from both Shaw and the Grove.) If and when we address the concentrated generational poverty issue that will help literally everyone.
of course I don't know the details, but odds are 99 to 1 that both of the automobiles involved in this murder were exceeding the speed limit. this city has the ***** worst (i.e. non-existent) bike and pedestrian infrastructure of any "big" city i've visited. and drivers here are straight-up ***** entitled a**holes. certainly more so than anywhere i've lived in the last 15 years. in the month that i've been working at Wash U since moving back i've nearly been killed 3 times crossing the FPP-Skinker intersection by piece of sh*t drivers who refuse to stop for pedestrians who have the walk signal. something has to ***** change. this city needs speed bumps ***** EVERYWHERE and drivers need to be put in their ***** place. rant over.
I'm with you -- I'm frequently passed by other vehicles on Union that are using the bike lanes as passing lanes, for example. That said, I'm not sure this particular accident had a lot to do with speeding drivers. Maybe it did, but the description of the accident certainly doesn't make it clear that that was the problem here:
Police said Buller was killed shortly before 6 p.m. Friday in the 10600 block of Riverview Drive. A 48-year-old man driving a Ford E-350 tried to pass Buller on the left. Buller, of the 7400 block of University Drive, then swerved left. He and the vehicle that was trying to pass him went into the northbound lanes of Riverview Drive.
An oncoming Audi A8 driven by a 56-year-old man then struck the vehicle and Buller, who was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
I'm with you -- I'm frequently passed by other vehicles on Union that are using the bike lanes as passing lanes, for example. That said, I'm not sure this particular accident had a lot to do with speeding drivers. Maybe it did, but the description of the accident certainly doesn't make it clear that that was the problem here:
Police said Buller was killed shortly before 6 p.m. Friday in the 10600 block of Riverview Drive. A 48-year-old man driving a Ford E-350 tried to pass Buller on the left. Buller, of the 7400 block of University Drive, then swerved left. He and the vehicle that was trying to pass him went into the northbound lanes of Riverview Drive.
An oncoming Audi A8 driven by a 56-year-old man then struck the vehicle and Buller, who was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
yeah, like i said we don't know the details. but here's the thing: sometimes a cyclist encounters debris in the bike lane or on the road and has to swerve a little to miss it. if a driver is paying attention and not speeding or being reckless when passing a cyclist he/she can react to little things like that. i'm not even sure that i trust an STL news source to report honestly/accurately on an accident involving a driver and a cyclist or pedestrian. drivers in this town are tyically given the benefit of the doubt. if you're not in a car you're viewed as a pest at best and an enemy at worst. i can't imagine any scenario where a an avid cyclist--in this case one who regularly commuted and rode for sport and presumably had the good sense of a renowned scholar--would obliviously swerve across an entire lane of traffic into an oncoming car. not saying it couldn't have happened, but it seems unlikely to me that it went down the way it was reported.
This is not Bommarito's first brush with the law. In 2009, he was charged with discharging his firearm after he fired shots into the air in LaSalle Park at 4:30 a.m. He told police he was trying to summon his dog.
This is not Bommarito's first brush with the law. In 2009, he was charged with discharging his firearm after he fired shots into the air in LaSalle Park at 4:30 a.m. He told police he was trying to summon his dog.
This is not Bommarito's first brush with the law. In 2009, he was charged with discharging his firearm after he fired shots into the air in LaSalle Park at 4:30 a.m. He told police he was trying to summon his dog.
Wow, love seeing an out of town visitor put on Facebook that she "watched a murder happen from her hotel room" at the Westin. She had business meetings here and she's cancelled them and was on the first flight to Atlanta this morning. This has to stop.
This needs to come to a head. And I don't know how that will happen.
Nero Slay and Nero Dotson di*k around while downtown and the transit system implode.
Man shot in head on Busch Stadium MetroLink platform amid assault on train, police believe
ST. LOUIS • A man standing on the MetroLink platform at Busch Stadium was shot in the head when a gun went off inside a train, apparently as a group of people accosted other passengers and tried to rob them late Sunday night.
The injured man was taken to a hospital after the shooting. His condition was not immediately available, but his injuries were grave and homicide detectives were called in to investigate the confusing shooting. The injured man was believed to be in his 40s or early 50s and may have been homeless, police said.
Details were sketchy early Monday, but St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson gave this account based on the initial investigation:
A man and his son were riding on a westbound MetroLink train in Illinois shortly before 11 p.m. when a group of four males and two females boarded in the Metro East. The ages of the people involved weren't available.
The group began pestering the father and son for money. About the time the train arrived at the Stadium station at 400 South Eighth Street, the son relented and reached to give $5 to the group asking for money. Someone in the group grabbed the money and pistol-whipped the son with a handgun.
The gun apparently went off during the assault on the train, and a bullet struck a man standing on the station platform. It appears he was not involved in the situation on the train.
Police believe the group that included the attacker fled from the train at the Stadium station. The man and son who had been assaulted stayed on the train and met up with police at the Central West End station.No doubt this was the first station where police were available. Inexcusable.
Authorities were seeking surveillance video and continuing to investigate. Metro officers were also at the scene.
If this happened on Metro, there needs to be a comprehensive plan to combat this on the system. I suggest putting gates at the stations to where you must have a ticket to enter. This will help reduce crime by having supposed criminals use their credit card, let's say, so we can track where they went.
^well, except that criminals (especially of the juvenile variety) aren't going to be using credit cards. and if the gates are turn styles, they'll just jump them. the system just needs better surveillance and a greater police presence. since Metro isn't allowed to hire its own police force, the PD's (city and county) that are taking Metro's money need to do their f*cking job.
urban_dilettante wrote:^well, except that criminals (especially of the juvenile variety) aren't going to be using credit cards. and if the gates are turn styles, they'll just jump them. the system just needs better surveillance and a greater police presence. since Metro isn't allowed to hire its own police force, the PD's (city and county) that are taking Metro's money need to do their f*cking job.
We should implement the barriers used on the T in Boston. They're literally impossible to jump.
^^^It's not going to stop because establshment city leaders/employees are too busy dicking around on their public salaries to ever feel pressure to actually take things seriously.
There is no pressure on an elected official here to actually strive to improve things. Just keep your head down, don't piss off the wrong people, and you've got a cozy public paycheck for life. This goes from the police, to the BoA, to the mayors office and various departments.
People should have lost their careers over the state of things years, mabe decades ago. But, here we are. Hell, even the general public is to blame. Keep re-electing the same combed and vetted party cronies, by all means, that will make things better. A significant portion of people are going to vote to allocate tax revenues towarads building a soccer stadium, for ***** sake, and then they will b**** and moan about the crime.
I've long given up on the crime situation here improving. I'm sorry, but it won't. Wouldn't shock me if some don't even want it to (media, county-ites, etc). Cover your own ass, learn and know situational awareness if you grew up in a safe area, and generally keep a distance from crime, because it's not going away.
Wow that makes me so angry. Why doesn't anything ever get done in STL regarding crime reduction??? This is anecdotal but it really seems like most of these animals come from east St. Louis. Would be happy to blow the metrolink bridge at this point...
Just my two cents. I've been a little anxious about this all day.
Every time the Post picks it up, trolls go crazy, and Metro issues the same statement, "Safety is our number one concern..."
I understand that the rate of extreme violence is low when considering the millions that ride Metro each year, but the transit loving/riding community can't continue to allow leadership to get away with this again and again. An innocent man lost his life at a popular station in the heart of our region? How are we not protesting or raising hell? They won't solve the problem until true riders, not Facebook trolls, admit that something is wrong and demand it be changed. I love MetroLink. I love that it's in our region, but leadership isn't doing everything necessary or possible.
Some stations are uncomfortable and unwelcoming, security is small and severely under trained, and the regions leaders aren't holding promises. I'm not sure if a physical protest is the right thing to do, but frequent riders need to step up and ask for better management.
"I understand that the rate of extreme violence is low when considering the millions that ride Metro each year"
How do you know that? I witness more crime in a single average 20 minutes of riding Metro than I do on the street during the course of an entire day. That includes crime like assault and drug dealing. Maybe that's not "extreme violence" but step it up to gunshots and murder, and I'd contend that while Metro may have less crime than an average night in North St. Louis, crime on the system is indeed much higher than the region as a whole. And certainly Metro's dubious claims of a low crime rate aren't limited to just extreme violence.
Your post is good and well-taken, but we need to stop hand waving the crime and taking Metro's statements at face value. They're undeniably false.
I assumed they were shots into the sky 
