Murder in St. Louis

The 159 murders in St. Louis this year — through Tuesday — have made 2014 the most violent of recent years, with at least 39 more murders than last year. It’s the highest yearly tally of criminal homicides since 2008, when the city recorded 167 murders.

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The reasons for the rise in St. Louis are unclear, especially at a time when homicides in several other U.S. cities this year are continuing a downward trend.

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University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Rick Rosenfeld said the increase in homicides in four north St. Louis neighborhoods alone — Wells Goodfellow, St. Louis Place, the West End and Kingsway East — accounted for most of the year’s overall rise in murders.

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Police Chief Sam Dotson said he believed one of the reasons for the increase here since August could be what he has called the “Ferguson effect,” the belief that criminals became more emboldened since the Aug. 9 killing of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer. Dotson said he believed crime rose in part because police were diverted from regular patrols to special details focusing on civil unrest.

  St. Louis Today

So, it’s the fault of protesters? Really?

The year began on pace with 2013, but a bloody spring pushed the number of homicides in St. Louis 47 percent above the previous year by the end of April.

April, eh?  Not August?

This month, Dotson asked the mayor to find money to hire 160 more city officers over the next two years.

It will be good news if they're going to put police on neighborhood patrols. I guess the Brown murder can at least account for that.

 Or not.

That followed the death of Bosnian immigrant Zemir Begic, 32, who was beaten to death by a group of teenagers with hammers in the Bevo Mill neighborhood Nov. 30. Three days later, a woman was killed and five other people were shot in an attempted robbery at Pooh’s Corner, a bar in south St. Louis popular with retired and off-duty police.

Two whites.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.