urbanSTL

Stltoday- St. Louis police officer shot in shoulder during traffic stop; 9th officer shot since June 1

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 4abbd.html

quincunx wrote: ↑

Sep 14, 2020

KSDK- 27-YEAR-OLD MAN DIES AFTER FIGHT AT WENTZVILLE BAR

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/crime ... e2fc233e52

As people continue to move westward from the city and North County to places like St. Charles County and Wentzville they are going to be in for a real shocker whey realize that you might actually be arrested and sentenced to life in prison when you murder someone.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/law-ord ... rime-spike

Criminologist Says Decrease In Police Activity Contributed To St. Louis Crime Spike

Rhetoric about "law and order" is central to President Trump's reelection campaign. He has blamed Democratic mayors and social unrest for the rising violent crime rates in cities nationwide.

But criminologist Richard Rosenfeld said that while Trump is right to highlight the increases in crime, the president is wrong to point to Black Lives Matter protests as the cause of the increased violence this summer.
Instead, Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology and criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said a decrease in police activity because of mandatory quarantines, social distancing and low staffing levels has contributed to rising crime in St. Louis. He also attributed part of the increase to tense police relations and increased reliance on resolving disputes without police involvement.
Rosenfeld shared his insights with St. Louis Public Radio’s Kayla Drake.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
Kayla Drake: Have Black Lives Matter protests been the reason for spikes in crime nationwide?
Richard Rosenfeld: By and large, the protests we've seen since the end of May, first part of June, have not been particularly violent or involved substantial looting, fire setting, and so on.
Drake: What is happening with police relations in communities that have high crime?
Rosenfeld: When we think about disadvantaged communities in our city, whose relationship with the police department has historically been tense during periods of widespread protests or police violence, those tense relations become even more fraught. And if police legitimacy falls sufficiently, what that does is create, if you will, a void in the community and that void is often filled by so-called “street justice,” people taking matters into their own hands and settling disputes.
Drake: So what are some of the other reasons behind the summer spike in violent crime?
Rosenfeld: One is the pandemic and its impact on policing in our own city and other cities. When police officers are out on quarantine because they have the virus or they've been exposed to someone with the virus, often a colleague, that reduces policing in the city. So we see in the city of St. Louis, for example, a big drop compared to the same period last year in stops for traffic violations. We see a big drop in pedestrian checks, in checks of occupied vehicles and in checks of unoccupied vehicles. In all of these ways, police activity and police presence is down in our city. Though it’s begun to come back somewhat. And those are the kinds of activities that can help stem the increase in violence.
Drake: Are you saying we need more police officers in the city? Mayor Lyda Krewson has said the city is down over 100 police officers?
Rosenfeld: My own view is that staffing levels in the police department are lower than they should be. Having said that, however, we could have lots and lots of officers on the payroll, but if they're not out there performing because of social distancing requirements, if they're not out there performing the kinds of activities that can reduce crime, then no matter how many officers nominally we have in the department, it's not going to do much to reduce crime.
Drake: Currently, what are violent crime levels in the city?
Rosenfeld: With respect to homicide, the most serious violent crime, we’re seeing some reduction in the increase in the recent period. So, for example, over the last four to five weeks homicides in the city have increased by about 5%, compared with the same period last year. Now any increase, of course, is troubling. But an increase of 5% can certainly be handled.
Drake: And moving into the fall. What are you going to be paying attention to?
Rosenfeld: St. Louis and other big cities have chronically high levels of violent crime. And indeed also serious property crime. And to bring down those chronically high levels, we have to go beyond police reform. And we really have to address the underlying conditions. Those conditions are persisting poverty, high levels of joblessness, inadequate education and training, and the degree of social isolation and residential segregation that we see in our own city and many other places.

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Sep 15, 2020

^ ok, but pretty sure the emphasis of the tweet is "we're finding arsenals during traffic stops" and not "look at all the cars we're towing." nothing is going to make me vote for Trump. ever. but the Tweets are extremely troubling, and this type of thing is the norm in St. Louis even when they're not Tweeting about it to drum up support. if this is the type of crime surge to expect when there's a lull in enforcement, i'm not sure why anyone would expect differently when there is an analogous lull in enforcement while police departments are being defunded/reformed or whatever. not saying reform isn't needed, but the garbage driving around with arsenals and stumbling around in the street firing assault rifles aren't going to stop doing what they're doing because the police suddenly got enlightened. meanwhile, people are gonna keep leaving because people can only take so much of this sh*t.

I don’t think this is a this or that situation, why can’t we have a well funded police dept and a competent one that doesn’t lose millions in lawsuits every year and that fires sh*tty officers?

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Sep 15, 2020

I don’t think this is a this or that situation, why can’t we have a well funded police dept and a competent one that doesn’t lose millions in lawsuits every year and that fires sh*tty officers?

that sounds great—i'm all for it. how long do you think it'll take? what happens in the meantime? despite all their issues it seems to me that, for the time being, we still unfortunately need the police that we've got (not the ones found guilty, of course, but in general), and we need them to try something drastically different in the short term (cough cough aerial surveillance cough cough) in tandem with the longer-term reform work. the alternative is the mayhem that's going on now but sustained and probably worse. like i said, the pieces of trash driving around with these arsenals in their cars don't give a sh*t whether the police are using excessive force or handing out flowers. they're not gonna go, "oh, the police are reforming so we'll stop gunning people down on the highway now." in the near term, we still need the police to police, so any defunding/reform needs to keep that in mind.