urbanSTL

leeharveyawesome wrote: ↑

Jan 12, 2018

Forgive me, but why do you have to up and move just because of a few gunshots down the street? And what neighborhood in the city are you moving to where there won't be gunshots down the street?

First off, I have to move anyways because we need more space. And my wife isn't going to let us stay in a neighborhood where there's gunshots around the corner at a children's bus stop at 7am in the morning.

There probably isn't a neighborhood in the city where you won't occasionally hear gunshots, sure. But certainly there are ones with less than others, and certainly they're usually going to be constrained to the night hours.

It's a real problem that this stuff is happening in the light of day now in areas where people are likely to be out and about.

I love the hell out of this city, and I don't plan to ever leave it. But I'm not going to apologize for being concerned about the increasingly frequently and increasingly close amount of gunfire to my home.

Nice and relevant article by CityLab about how Camden reset their police department and cut murders by 3/4ths. Some cool discussion points about the value of community policing in destabilized neighborhoods. STL could take a few pointers.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/ ... =SFTwitter

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: Nice and relevant article by CityLab about how Camden reset their police department and cut murders by 3/4ths. Some cool discussion points about the value of community policing in destabilized neighborhoods. STL could take a few pointers.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/ ... =SFTwitter

There were actually more shootings in Camden last year but less people happened to die from their injuries, for whatever reason. Just a fluke. But if the cops want to pat themselves on the back by all means, feel free.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/ ... 997968001/

Comparing any city to NYC is somewhat difficult, but here are some rough comparisons between us and NYC which we should consider given how dramatically NYC's crime has fallen in recent years. Murders are down from a peak of over 2,000 in the early 1990's to around 290 in 2017. To put that in perspective, here are some rough estimate figures:

NYC:
Population 8.5 million
Murders: 290
Police Officers: 37,000

STL:
Population: 315 k
Murders: 200
Police Officers: 1,300

Quick math shows that STL has about 1 officer for every 242 residents while NYC has around 1 officer for every 230 residents. This implies that maybe we could stand to add a handful of officers here, but that alone is highly unlikely to result in the dramatic reduction in murders seen in NYC. Clearly our policing strategy needs to change.

Year-end neighborhood crime report out...

http://www.slmpd.org/crimestats/CRM0013-BY_201712.pdf

205 homicides in 2017, up 9% from the 188 in 2016 (and 2015). As always results vary by neighborhood but in general homicides up in North City, about the same in Central Corridor, and down in South City.

STLrainbow wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2018

Year-end neighborhood crime report out...

http://www.slmpd.org/crimestats/CRM0013-BY_201712.pdf

205 homicides in 2017, up 9% from the 188 in 2016 (and 2015). As always results vary by neighborhood but in general homicides up in North City, about the same in Central Corridor, and down in South City.

The overall crime numbers are pretty disappointing. Even though murders have been rising for the past few years, it seems like the total crime numbers have been dropping. However, that wasn't the case in 2017 which saw a 1.9% increase in total crime.

Aggravated assault with a gun was up 22.7% with 2,616 cases. That's a pretty staggering number. That's about 1 for every 120 people and over 7 per day.

In 2013, there were 1,626 aggravated assaults with a gun. We have had over a 60% increase in 4 years.

^ yeah, as mentioned results vary greatly neighborhood to neighborhood -- see Downtown (no change) v. Downtown West (up a lot) , e.g. -- but the overall jump in shootings (and homicides) is extremely frustrating.

STLrainbow wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2018

I see there's been an interesting convo on here but this gave me a bit of a chuckle....

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Jan 12, 2018

In a decade the city will have ~225K residents, will file for BK, and everything will restart...

Ha yeah I can't speak to the BK issue because I haven't taken a dive into the city financials. However, on the baseline that comment completely ignores the reality of nationwide housing trends that are starting to take hold in StL, global trends concerning urban migration, and the current boom in multi-family building taking place in the city right now. Also the slowing of net migratory outflows from the city shown by the most recent census data.

As a post above in this thread states, homicides are flat or down in the central corridor and south city which since 2010 have seen consistent rehab and new construction activity, pointing towards the potential of a no-loss census for the city overall in 2020.

But my view is shaded from growing up in the city in the 1990s and seeing the dramatic difference of investment in the city now compared to then. IMHO 2020 is the bottom for StL city population.

^ those are two good posts.

I agree we may see some population loss this decade --, my bet is under 5% (which would keep us above 300,000 people -- and that'll be the population bottom. Crime definitely is one of many factors affecting our ability to maximize population, but its pretty silly to suggest we'll crater population over the next decade when all available evidence suggests we're seeing increasing investments in more and more neighborhoods.

SouthCityJR wrote: ↑

Jan 12, 2018

Comparing any city to NYC is somewhat difficult, but here are some rough comparisons between us and NYC which we should consider given how dramatically NYC's crime has fallen in recent years. Murders are down from a peak of over 2,000 in the early 1990's to around 290 in 2017. To put that in perspective, here are some rough estimate figures:

NYC:
Population 8.5 million
Murders: 290
Police Officers: 37,000

STL:
Population: 315 k
Murders: 200
Police Officers: 1,300

Quick math shows that STL has about 1 officer for every 242 residents while NYC has around 1 officer for every 230 residents. This implies that maybe we could stand to add a handful of officers here, but that alone is highly unlikely to result in the dramatic reduction in murders seen in NYC. Clearly our policing strategy needs to change.

I've asked this directly to aldermen/alderwomen, and will ask again here: St. Louis has one of the highest rates of police officers to residents in the country (if not the highest), so where are all these police officers??

When I lived in NYC, I constantly saw beat patrols, car patrols, etc. I lived in different neighborhoods and boroughs (Manhattan and Brooklyn), wealthier and poorer areas, and you see police everywhere. Here in St. Louis I barely see any police ever. There are no cops walking the streets anywhere, you very rarely see police vehicles just on patrol. Even Cara Spencer on a recent nextSTL post highlighted the importance of beat cops and community policing in driving down crime rates around the Cherokee area. This is a relatively well-tested method but does not seem to be a priority.

Again, where is everyone? Are they just sitting at the police station all day?

kipfilet wrote: When I lived in NYC, I constantly saw beat patrols, car patrols, etc. I lived in different neighborhoods and boroughs (Manhattan and Brooklyn), wealthier and poorer areas, and you see police everywhere. Here in St. Louis I barely see any police ever.

While the per capita number of police officers in NYC and STL may be comparable, the density is not. In NYC, they have 121.7 officers per square mile, while STL is 19.6.

That stills seems like a fairly high density of police in STL. I guess you would have to divide that by 3 shifts a day, but that would still leave an average of over 6 cops per sq mile. Assume each one is partnered up, that would still have 3 cop cars/pairings per sq mile, which seems like a sufficient number.

Grover wrote: ↑

Jan 14, 2018

kipfilet wrote: When I lived in NYC, I constantly saw beat patrols, car patrols, etc. I lived in different neighborhoods and boroughs (Manhattan and Brooklyn), wealthier and poorer areas, and you see police everywhere. Here in St. Louis I barely see any police ever.

While the per capita number of police officers in NYC and STL may be comparable, the density is not. In NYC, they have 121.7 officers per square mile, while STL is 19.6.

That stills seems like a fairly high density of police in STL. I guess you would have to divide that by 3 shifts a day, but that would still leave an average of over 6 cops per sq mile. Assume each one is partnered up, that would still have 3 cop cars/pairings per sq mile, which seems like a sufficient number.

Thank you, yes. I wonder which of these is the case
a) They spend all their time in North City responding to incident calls
b) They spend all their time at stations/substations waiting for deployment calls
c) The dept is terribly mismanaged

kipfilet wrote: ↑

Jan 14, 2018

SouthCityJR wrote: ↑

Jan 12, 2018

Comparing any city to NYC is somewhat difficult, but here are some rough comparisons between us and NYC which we should consider given how dramatically NYC's crime has fallen in recent years. Murders are down from a peak of over 2,000 in the early 1990's to around 290 in 2017. To put that in perspective, here are some rough estimate figures:

NYC:
Population 8.5 million
Murders: 290
Police Officers: 37,000

STL:
Population: 315 k
Murders: 200
Police Officers: 1,300

Quick math shows that STL has about 1 officer for every 242 residents while NYC has around 1 officer for every 230 residents. This implies that maybe we could stand to add a handful of officers here, but that alone is highly unlikely to result in the dramatic reduction in murders seen in NYC. Clearly our policing strategy needs to change.

I've asked this directly to aldermen/alderwomen, and will ask again here: St. Louis has one of the highest rates of police officers to residents in the country (if not the highest), so where are all these police officers??

When I lived in NYC, I constantly saw beat patrols, car patrols, etc. I lived in different neighborhoods and boroughs (Manhattan and Brooklyn), wealthier and poorer areas, and you see police everywhere. Here in St. Louis I barely see any police ever. There are no cops walking the streets anywhere, you very rarely see police vehicles just on patrol. Even Cara Spencer on a recent nextSTL post highlighted the importance of beat cops and community policing in driving down crime rates around the Cherokee area. This is a relatively well-tested method but does not seem to be a priority.

Again, where is everyone? Are they just sitting at the police station all day?

Growing up in South City I definitely recall noticing a dip in the number of squad cars patrolling our neighborhood starting maybe six or seven years ago. My neighbors always attributed it to who our alderwoman was but I don't buy that entirely.

I did, however, move Downtown last summer and was very pleasantly surprised to come across beat cops numerous times throughout the year (as recently as two weeks ago). Granted, this is just along Washington Ave and by Keiner Plaza but it still felt good to see them out and about. Now if only they could do something about the rising number of car break-ins...

That's encouraging. And (definitely not coincidently) that is one of the parts of Downtown that has gotten much safer in recent years. Besides the obvious community engagement benefits, police presence on the streets is a very powerful deterrent.

St. Louis' new director of public safety speaks out on black-on-black crime:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... op-story-2

^ Bruce Franks did not like Jimmy Edwards' comments on TWTR. Paraphrasing, he wanted the conditions that people live in which leads to murder to be addressed.

People do realize that killing someone is considered a bad thing and is also against the law, correct? Regardless of "conditions" taking another human's life when it's not self-defense has to register in someone's conscience as bad, and unlawful.

2017 STL Neighborhood Crime Stats are out. While results vary by n'hood, it's utterly depressing for north of Delmar. Of STL's 205 homicides...
North: 165 (up 26% over 2016)
Central: 14 (down 17.6%)
South: 26 (down 33.3%)

Based on 2010 Census, the 2017 homicide rate (per 100k ppl.) by corridor is roughly:
North: 165
Central: 23
South: 17

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Jan 16, 2018

^ Bruce Franks did not like Jimmy Edwards' comments on TWTR. Paraphrasing, he wanted the conditions that people live in which leads to murder to be addressed.

People do realize that killing someone is considered a bad thing and is also against the law, correct? Regardless of "conditions" taking another human's life when it's not self-defense has to register in someone's conscience as bad, and unlawful.

This is part of the problem. Especially for this issue, there needs to a short and long-term solution. The long-term solution is exactly what Rep. Franks said and has been saying. However, waiting for these institutional changes to be implemented without doing something to prevent it in the meantime negatively impacts the communities in which these violent crimes occur. It's easy politics for either side to blame everything on the community or everything on institutional racism (although the latter is likely a large part of the issue). What is difficult and, to my knowledge, what has not been addressed, is what to do over the six months as well as over the next six years.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Jan 16, 2018

People do realize that killing someone is considered a bad thing and is also against the law, correct? Regardless of "conditions" taking another human's life when it's not self-defense has to register in someone's conscience as bad, and unlawful.

you can tell people to stop committing crimes until you're blue in the face, or you can work to end the conditions that drive people to commit crimes. it's not that hard to understand. as with most things, though, people here can't (or won't) see the forest for the trees.

Sounds like police have little detail on the homicide on Gravois last week, but this story about the victim's past run-in and encounter with Saint Louis County Prosecutor Office corruption/lack of professionalism is pretty wild..

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 10023.html

Went downtown Saturday to the Blues games, went to Wash Ave, had dinner, went to BPV had a beer and then walked to the Blues game.
We got downtown early and parked on the street in front of the Federal Courthouse. We all commented on our way home that we did not see one police officer ( the entire night and we did a lot of walking) until we got in front of Scottrade.
Honestly, we were a bit surprised and in hind sight it was a bit unnerving.