ST. LOUIS • The two meetings on Saturday were held in different parts of the city, but the topic was the same: How do you stop the violence plaguing some neighborhoods?
Inside the O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex, residents said they were tired of living in a community where groups of young men, often rival gang members, were making their neighborhoods war zones and leaving people afraid to leave their homes.
The College Hill neighborhood near the center has been particularly violent, said Alderman Antonio French, who organized what he called an emergency town hall meeting. The standing-room-only crowd of about 125 included police officers and city prosecutors.
Meanwhile, at a community forum held at ӣƵ University in midtown, work began on building a regional plan to prevent youth violence.
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About 60 young people came to share their ideas and stories on how violence has affected them.
“I know a lot of people who have been killed on the street,” said Michael Thomas, 18, a student at ӣƵ Community College at Forest Park. “It opened my eyes to a place I don’t want to be.”
Thomas said he began going to the Youth and Family Center on Cass Avenue when he was 9, and got involved in after-school programs there. He now works at the center.
“So many kids are getting killed over drugs and other things not worth dying for,” Thomas said. “There are more funerals in my neighborhood than graduations.”
Last year, the city had 113 homicides, the same as 2011. But during the first month of this year, there were 17. The five-year average for homicides during January is eight.
“It is time for us to regain and take our community back,” said Maj. Ronnie Robinson of the ӣƵ Police Department, speaking at the O’Fallon Park center. When he announced that Friday night was peaceful in the city, with no homicides, the room erupted in applause.
Robinson said that his department’s gang unit had been reinstated and that officers were working in schools to cut down on gang recruitment. Other specialty forces including a SWAT team have been working in College Hill and other neighborhoods near the recreation center to crack down on violence.
“That’s the only way we will get ahead of this thing,” Robinson said.
French said after the meeting that two of the murders this year had been in College Hill and that two other shootings in the neighborhood had resulted in serious injuries. His 21st Ward includes a part of College Hill.
Mayor Francis Slay, who spoke at SLU alongside ӣƵ Police Chief Sam Dotson, reiterated the sentiment shared at both meetings Saturday morning.
“Our youth need safe places to go, meaningful employment options and adults who are willing to work with them.”
