St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay pledged to find the money to make permanent a hotspot police initiative that drastically reduced violent crime in targeted areas of the city. reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He suggested gains from the Cardinals’ post-season could be a contributor. Slay said he would push for tapping any money that comes into city coffers from playoff games — for example, from sales tax on tickets and concessions, and earnings tax for visiting players — while continuing to search for long-term funding sources.
The city gains roughly $400,000 from each post-season home game. Rick Rosenfeld, a University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist, studied the 30-day strategy that began Aug. 24. He said shifting police patrols reduced gun crimes by as much as 68 percent over the same time last year in the 12 targeted, high-crime areas. The results were the same when comparing to the month prior. And there was a 64 percent drop when comparing to the last year’s average.