ST. LOUIS • Residents of the College Hill neighborhood, who have been waking up to news of bloodshed on their streets in recent weeks, will wake today to find a small army of police on those streets, vowing not to leave until the violence has stopped.
About 80 police officers will saturate the North Side neighborhood, along the western edge of Interstate 70 north of downtown, until further notice, officials said Tuesday. They will conduct roll call in the street, station a command vehicle on site, use dog patrols and make a door-to-door plea for help in solving shootings that left three people dead and one seriously wounded in the past two weeks.
“We realize people know what’s going on and we realize they are afraid to talk to us,” said police Lt. Col. Al Adkins. “But they have avenues to contact us and still remain anonymous. So we’re going to run this as long as we can, to stop what we can.”
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Residents and police have said they believe the violence involves a neighborhood feud over a woman, and is not gang-related.
It represents an extension of recent police tactics to pour resources into troubled areas.
The three slayings in College Hill brought the city’s January total to 15, not counting two killings ruled justified. The five-year average for murders in January is about eight. Managing violence has become a front-burner issue in the upcoming mayoral election, and in this summer’s impending transition of the police department from state control to local.
Mayor Francis Slay lauded the police intervention and said the effort would be backed up with City Hall resources, such as problem-property units and social services, as needed.
Slay’s principal opponent in the Democratic primary, Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, has criticized the mayor for not doing enough to rein in violence. Alderman Antonio French of the 21st Ward, Reed's supporter and former campaign consultant, hosted what he called an emergency town hall meeting last weekend at the O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex to address the problems around College Hill.
French said he appreciates the police efforts there. “Together, with the citizens and families of College Hill, we’re going to get through this,” French said. “And my commitment to this area will not end when the violence does — and it will end.”
The neighborhood is in parts of two wards besides French’s.
Prince Carter was among the meeting’s crowd of about 120. He has helped plan another meeting for 6:30 tonight.
“We want like-minded people who are fed up and concerned with issues of crime to come together for one hour on a weekly basis and come up with solutions...” Carter said. “We can’t just do it when something happens. We need to stop being reactive and figure out ways to improve safety. I’m tired of waiting for somebody else to save us. We need to save ourselves.”
Carter said he wants to form a neighborhood coalition that can pass information to police or social workers for people too afraid to do it themselves.
He said that every morning he sees children standing at a bus stop near his house, along West Florissant Avenue, while prostitutes prowl nearby. “Why should those babies be exposed to that?” he asked. “Once the masses of good people take a united stand against those bad elements, they will have to run away. They’re in a comfort zone right now, and we’ve got to take that comfort zone away from them by exposing them.”
Pushing criminals out of their comfort zones is part of the police strategy, said Chief Sam Dotson. “Research shows that when you displace crime, you don’t displace it at 100 percent, you displace it at about 80 percent,” he explained in an interview this week. “And I’ll take that 20 percent reduction any day.”
The College Hill intervention is similar to the Homicide Deterrence Initiative, begun by former Chief Dan Isom in the wake of a rise in aggravated assaults involving guns last year. A focused detachment of officers hit the streets about a month after the high-profile August murder of ӣƵ University alumna Megan Boken, shot to death while talking on her cellphone during a robbery attempt in the Central West End.
Adkins said the department had about a month to plan that strategy, but arranged College Hill in just days.
The ӣƵ Police Officers’ Association pushed back on Isom’s 30-day notice to officers that their hours would change to focus on hot spots during peak crime hours, saying it was a contract violation.
The officers assigned to College Hill are members of the department’s specialized units, including SWAT, Canine, Community Outreach and Traffic, Dotson said. “We have more flexibility in specialized units that allow their hours to change.”
Dotson said there is no deadline to end the push. “We will be there until we feel like we’ve made enough arrests and contain the violence,” he said.
The importance of the work was illustrated when the sound of an ambulance siren blared past Carter’s house.
“Oh, Lord Jesus, please don’t let it be another one,” Carter said. “I have to do that now. I have to pray every time I hear a siren that someone else hasn’t been shot.”
Nicholas J.C. Pistor and Doug Moore of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
