With St. Louis homicides on pace to reach the highest yearly total in 13 years, the St. Louis Police Department is saturating crime-plagued neighborhoods with patrols and plainclothes officers. Sheronda Glover, a resident of the Academy neighborhood, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “We need to get all of the bad people out of the neighborhood. It should (work). I hope so. It could if they stay on it and if they have people like me calling police when they see things.”
Police are focusing on areas where 21 of the city’s 89 homicides have occurred this year. Beat officers are working together with drug, gang, and juvenile officers to interact more with community members as they try to slow violence, prevent retaliatory killings, and dig up tips on unsolved crimes. “We’re going to make sure the good people see us and the bad people feel us,” said Police Chief Joe Mokwa. Police are strictly enforcing a 10 p.m. curfew for young teens, who Mokwa said are the source of many of the homicides that stem from gang activity, disputes over girls, or general disrespect for life. Officers will hold roll call outside in neighborhoods and post command vans on street corners.
Link: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/6506E1CA017B1D6686