urbanSTL

A random incident in the Central West End:
https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblo ... or-suspect

^Just read that one while eating lunch right now. Not good. Made me cringe and feel for the victim.

I feel for the perpetrator. He's obviously had a tough childhood, doesn't know right from wrong, doesn't know that hitting someone in the face with a hammer is a crime or a sin. I feel for his Mom too. She can't believe what her son has become. It's tough out there.

As for the victim.....he or she most likely deserved it.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2018

I feel for the perpetrator. He's obviously had a tough childhood, doesn't know right from wrong, doesn't know that hitting someone in the face with a hammer is a crime or a sin. I feel for his Mom too. She can't believe what her son has become. It's tough out there.

As for the victim.....he or she most likely deserved it.

That's really clever. Thanks for being a productive member.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... f34b0.html

Charges in the Union Station metrolink shooting from yesterday. Voluntary Manslaughter? Armed Assault? The perpetrator shot and killed someone. Why is he only getting voluntary manslaughter? Murder 1.

newstl2020 wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2018

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... f34b0.html

Charges in the Union Station metrolink shooting from yesterday. Voluntary Manslaughter? Armed Assault? The perpetrator shot and killed someone. Why is he only getting voluntary manslaughter? Murder 1.

Probably went with the charges they think will get a conviction. If they don't have a way to prove that a murder was pre-meditated they can't file for 1st Degree Murder.

Read this article on the dude who ambushed the cop in the CWE:

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

Sentencing is Feb. 23rd. What's the over/under on how many years this a**hole gets put in jail?

I'll say 22.5.

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jan 26, 2018

On my way to KC last night I stopped in StL to grab some dinner at The oyster bar. Very lovely evening quite a few people down there.

Only thing I noticed that annoyed was how ppl treated Broadway and 4th like race tracks.

I would be in complete support of speed cameras of all kind. After living in Europe and seeing their effectiveness I really want them.

Added benefit-if cops are pulling ppl over as much there will be less conflict

I lived up the street from there for years. People always going WAY above the speed limit on both Broadway and on 4th all hours of the day and night. Never saw any enforcement of the speed limit. Incidents like this one that happened just last night were not all that unusual: http://www.kmov.com/story/37356673/witn ... n-st-louis

IIRC there have also been a couple of really bad pedestrian/vehicular incidents (homicides?) out front of Broadway Oyster Bar in the last few years.

...and don't even get me started on the motorcycle issues.

San Luis Native wrote: ↑

Jan 26, 2018

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jan 26, 2018

On my way to KC last night I stopped in StL to grab some dinner at The oyster bar. Very lovely evening quite a few people down there.

Only thing I noticed that annoyed was how ppl treated Broadway and 4th like race tracks.

I would be in complete support of speed cameras of all kind. After living in Europe and seeing their effectiveness I really want them.

Added benefit-if cops are pulling ppl over as much there will be less conflict

I lived up the street from there for years. People always going WAY above the speed limit on both Broadway and on 4th all hours of the day and night. Never saw any enforcement of the speed limit. Incidents like this one that happened just last night were not all that unusual: http://www.kmov.com/story/37356673/witn ... n-st-louis

IIRC there have also been a couple of really bad pedestrian/vehicular incidents (homicides?) out front of Broadway Oyster Bar in the last few years.

...and don't even get me started on the motorcycle issues.

Yep. I had a friend killed right there by the blues bars, and then they drove off.

It's ridiculous -- several people have been hit there. It needs a serious road diet -- not sure how to pull it off though.

Getting rid of the one-way couplet design and converting 4th and Broadway to two-way traffic would make a big difference in my mind. Both are much too wide for being one-way, which promotes driving like it's an interstate highway. More that could be done including better enforcement, but it would be a great start. And maybe just a little more care on the part of drivers. That's our biggest problem. Drivers just don't take the time to care about driving responsibly.

^ honestly, there is a significant portion of our population that intentionally drives recklessly. the only things that will stop it are physical barriers (which will look like sh*t and will need constant repair) and enforcement.

can somebody remind me why our red light/speeding cameras got taken away?

I am fine without the cameras, I would much prefer a more pro-active police presence throughout the city. I think street diets would make a huge difference for development and turning around investment in many areas of the city, major ones for me are Jefferson, Gravois, Broadway through the south side. An EXCELLENT reason to get going on N/S metrolink ASAP.

Gravois is a pipe dream as it is maintained by MoDot, yes? That would be great to get a light rail alignment on it though. 2 for 1 in road diet and a route that hits a ton of dense neighborhoods.

Good ideas above. I really think this is something worth putting energy into pushing Coatar.

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jan 27, 2018

I just hate that SO MUCH money and effort is put in to policing motorists, not just in StL but In America.

In my years of living downtown, and on South Grand in Shaw before that (in the early-to-mid 2000's), there basically seemed to be no money or effort put into policing motorists. Aside from the speed issues - at which near highway speeds could be achieved on South Grand or N Broadway without much concern of any for being pulled over (also NEVER saw radar being shot like I did growing up in the county) - stop signs and even red lights seemed to be optional, mere suggestions.

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jan 27, 2018

I want cops to be focused on proactive policing and rapid response to ACTUAL CRIME.

Yeah, also not my experience. I can recall an incident I witnessed downtown once where I was in my car stopped at a curb and half a block away an argument between a smallish female police officer and a very large woman started to get physical. I immediately picked up my cell phone, dialed 911 explained the situation/location in a few seconds and not 30 seconds later an additional cop was on the scene.

In another incident downtown, I witnessed a situation where a couple of seemingly drugged out individuals (white man, white woman) were involved in a situation where the man was literally dragging the woman down the sidewalk - or at least trying to - and she was basically like "leave me alone", they they appeared to know each other. I was a block away when I first saw it and immediately called 911. Long story short, after 10-15 minutes three bike cops arrived and handled the situation. When they showed up I was *just* about to dial 911 back to be like "Uh, hello, where the h3ll are the cops?!?!?". This was like 3 short blocks from the downtown police bike station.

This is totally anecdotal of course, and who knows, maybe they were on a different more important call. I recall a few years later reading this story of Chief Dotsan explaining his police force... And realized, "Ah, maybe that explains it".

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jan 27, 2018

If you put up cameras on our urban freeways (MLK, Page, Natural Bridge, Gravois, Broadway, etc) you could nab a lot of revenue AND keep your officers out of harms way.

Never understood why the SLPD didn't come up with some solutions to enforce traffic issues. In a city where funding was such a major issue this seemed like a no brainer, especially the motorcycle issues that got so out of hand for a while there. I understand stopping motorcycles can be difficult as they're so agile, but I always felt like some creative solutions could have been tried as the situation got so common and out of hand. Repo those offender's bikes yo and sell em. You'll be paying your officers county wages in no time

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jan 27, 2018

Oh how I would love to be Emperor for a Day. Every street in the city would have 10 mph drop in speed limit, their would be traffic cameras on every major NS and EW rd. And pedestrian crosswalks would be installed at the mid point between block on existing commercial corridors and ones that aim to be. Like these

Yeah, in my experience, rules usually only work when they're enforced.

I've never been in a city with such lax traffic-law enforcement. I mean, pretty much daily I see folks disobeying stoplights, lightly tapping their brakes from 30 to 28 mph to roll through stop signs.

I barely drive, but when I do, there's some asshat passing on the right, along the curb, just totally disobeying any type of traffic rules and norms.

Traffic cameras would be so, so welcomed for me, and possibly the only solution since we've let it devolve into a third-world country situation.

I mean, even on Washington Ave, just east of Grand, the speed limit is 35 with a big electronic warning sign. And 35 is like 10mph too high for a two-lane road in/near the CBD


Is there any valid reason it's 35 mph there, with no enforcement of that?

Every time I notice the Vision Zero campaign in NYC, I can't help but wonder what the number of deaths our leaders deem acceptable is.
http://www1.nyc.gov/site/visionzero/index.page

I don't even know where to begin when it comes to driving in St. Louis city. I've been almost killed 15 times on a bike and about 5 times driving. I mean, I'm speechless. I would never use the Chouteau bike lane. Someone is going to get killed on the Chouteau bike lane it's only a matter of time it ain't gonna be me.

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Jan 26, 2018

^ honestly, there is a significant portion of our population that intentionally drives recklessly. the only things that will stop it are physical barriers (which will look like sh*t and will need constant repair) and enforcement.

can somebody remind me why our red light/speeding cameras got taken away?

St. Louis cameras were red light only; there were never any speeding cameras installed. While I'm staying out of any particular political slant, the whole idea of red light cameras have been contentious state-wide, not just here. But in short:

Tickets were sent to the car owner, not the driver, which lawyers argued violated the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. It was also ruled that penalties were applied in violation of state law because convictions didn’t result in state penalty points on a driver’s license. Source.

Also, some have claimed cities were shortening yellow lights as they were installing cameras. Although various reasons were given, net effect was more people running red lights, and a resultant an increase in revenue when the cameras went live. An example

Red light cameras do have an effect on collisions at intersections. Some have reported an increase in rear-end collisions in some locations as people slammed on their brakes to avoid running a red light, but - assuming you trust the majority of reports as unbiased - overall there are generally fewer accidents when cameras are in place.

However, if you want to reduce speeds, re-engineering, while not cheap, is typically a highly effective solution. Drivers tend to naturally drive at the speeds for which the roadway was designed regardless of the posted speed limits. If you design a road to be driven at 45 then people are going to tend to drive 40-50 mph, even if the posted speed limit is 35 mph. This is the result of planning that caters to vehicles at the expense of the neighborhoods through which they run. St. Louis is hardly alone in this, but there's a lot of that type of road design here.

If you want to slow folks down, the most effective way to do so is to make it uncomfortable for people to drive faster.

As a personal aside, I think in the city the horrible red light timing exacerbates the problem. I believe that if people tend to think the timing of the red lights are terrible, they'll be more inclined to disregard them, or to race to beat a poorly-timed light.

-RBB

Seems like violence is making up for lost time in the central and south precincts.

January 2018 homicides has likely tied 2015. (January 2015 = 16).


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whitherSTL wrote:This is 2018. We don't condemn criminals, we sympathize with them. We don't call out a failure of a sect of society, we blame those who don't kill, carjack, or rob as the reason for their plight.

It's becoming rather humorous as the city flounders.

On a different note: I talked to a Managing Partner of Edward Jones recently. I noted how much EDJ does in terms of philanthropy in the metro area. And how EDJ has no problem buying naming rights to the dome along with heavy sponsorship at Scottrade and Chaifetz. And then I asked why not take the leap and move your HQ downtown,

His reply, "crime, no chance."

The perception more so than the actual crime.


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If its not a shooting then its a high speed chase or not that then its a stabbing kill kill kill all these people retort to and more killing going to be a long year for the new chief and long battle to reduce the amount of murders that continue to plague the city

This is crazy: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... the-latest

I interview a fair amount of people from other cities applying for jobs in STL as part of my job. When I ask about reservations they may have, it’s surprising how many people mention the high crime rate as their main reservation for relocating, especially if they have families. I know that these events (maybe if they were more isolated) can occur in any city, but anecdotally it appears we’re giving Detroit a run for for its money. When you google St. Louis, one of the top alternative searches is “Is St. Louis safe?”

^ as we wrap up the deadliest January in at least a decade...


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robbie wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2018

This is crazy: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... the-latest

I interview a fair amount of people from other cities applying for jobs in STL as part of my job. When I ask about reservations they may have, it’s surprising how many people mention the high crime rate as their main reservation for relocating, especially if they have families. I know that these events (maybe if they were more isolated) can occur in any city, but anecdotally it appears we’re giving Detroit a run for for its money. When you google St. Louis, one of the top alternative searches is “Is St. Louis safe?”

Man, that's just crazy!