Posted on 02/10/2015 8:52:39 AM PST by reaganaut1
...
Murder rates have fallen sharply in most of the country. But St. Louis is one of a few major cities, including Memphis and Washington, where the number of homicides jumped last year. It is also one of several cities, including Baltimore, Detroit, Gary, Ind., and New Orleans, where violent crime, concentrated in low-income minority neighborhoods, has remained stubbornly high, though down from the crack-driven peaks of the early 1990s.
The start of the new year was equally violent.
On Jan. 15, shaken by six murders in five shootings overnight, the citys mayor, Francis Slay, called for more police, more surveillance cameras, more certain penalties for carriers of illegal guns and stronger gun laws, declaring: Crime is the absolute No. 1 priority in the City of St. Louis.
A seventh person was killed on the afternoon of the mayors news conference.
Why St. Louis suffered a major setback in a year in which many cities saw further progress is hotly debated. By all accounts, the proliferation of guns among young men here is beyond control, turning petty insults, neighborhood rivalries and drug disputes into lethal melees of attack and reprisal that can occur in waves. There was a 33 percent rise in homicides last year, to 159, compared with 120 in 2013 in this city of 318,000.
Jennifer M. Joyce, the citys circuit attorney, or prosecutor, an elected position, complains that in St. Louis, the illegal possession of a gun is too often a crime without a consequence, making it difficult to stop confrontation from turning lethal.
At the same time, deeper social roots of violence such as addiction and unemployment continue unchecked. And city officials also cite what they call a Ferguson effect, an increase in crime last year as police officers were diverted to control protests
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Demographics of the city could be a factor.
Yep. This kind of s4*+ tends to happen when common street thugs like Michael Brown are turned into patron saints.
America’s Rap “music” and thug culture.
Clean those things out of American society and there will be a lot fewer killings.
Ding, ding, ding we have a thread winnah! AND in First Place Reply Slot... Way to go reaganaut1.
Nailed it.
Nope. I got nothing.
The crime rate is in the black so to speak?
Well East StL could be instructive.
It’s the Tea Party again.
NYT: “ White Hate Crimes On Rise “
That damn stubborn murder rate. It won’t do what we want it to do! We should send it to sensitivity training!
Crime is the absolute No. 1 priority in the City of St. Louis.
not ....very well stated.....from a ;”normal” point of veiw
what does one expect with crime as a priority..........
America in Crisis
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iu92zs5gg2bwuy3/FIRE.avi?dl=0
literally....
“Well East StL could be instructive.”..........
St. Louis and East St. Louis are two separate cities. East St. Louis is in Illinois, not Missouri. East St. Louis is heavily “Black” populated. Might be that the writer included East St. Louis deaths as part of the statistics, it’s called “exaggeration for effect”.
Consider the proximity of Ferguson.
Rats you beat me to it. :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.