The city of St. Louis awoke to yet another murder Monday. A 41-year-old man was found shot to death in a vehicle on the city’s north side.
Add that homicide to another last Saturday and the murder total for St. Louis this year has reached 130. City and police officials can actually put a positive spin on this. Why, you ask?
It’s because at the current pace, the city will have fewer murders this year than the 143 that police recorded in 2009.
Of course, November was a month of mayhem that saw 25 people murdered, so the 2009 total could still be surpassed.
By the way, police recorded 136 murders in 2007 and 167 in 2008.
Two people were gunned down outside a funeral home on Dec. 4, a day after St. Louis was declared the nation’s most dangerous city by CQ Press, which uses FBI data to compile its annual ranking. The city has not escaped the Top 10 in years, but now is at the summit.
Mayor Francis Slay, some civic leaders, and the police department immediately dismissed the rankings wholesale as “flawed.” Too bad David Letterman and USA Today didn’t get word of that before they took the St. Louis ranking to the nation.
Regardless of how CQ Press comes up with its annual list, St. Louis should be beyond embarrassment. It should be taking steps to end the almost daily murders in the city.
Most of the murders are on the north side and involve African-American men. Does this make the situation more tolerable? I have to wonder if that’s true—because the city seems so slow to end the murder spree.
