St. Louis, Missouri – December 2019 – In recent years, St. Louis has experienced a renaissance of sorts complete with green space and new attractions.

“This city is really welcoming,” Missy Kelley, the CEO of Downtown St. Louis Incorporated said. “We hear that a lot from visitors, conventioneers and people that move here from other cities.”

But sometimes the view, or should we say point of view, is very different. Especially when it comes to the perception of crime in St. Louis.

“It's surprising when I visit another city and they say, man, what is going on in St. Louis,” James Clark the Executive Director of Better Family Life said.

“The heart of the problem we have in terms of public image is that crime statistics,” said Professor Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.

“When our crime starts are reported to the FBI, they're talking about St. Louis proper, not the St. Louis metropolitan area,” said Chief John Hayden, the Chief of Police for the St. Louis Police Department. “ If we were talking about the St Louis metropolitan area, which would include like 1.5 million people, we would never be iin competition to some of the more higher, violent places.” 

“There's nothing about our crime problem that is specific to St. Louis,” Rosenfeld said. “The fact that crime is highly localized among places, and also among people is not specific to St. Louis.”

“We do have an issue,” Clark said. “But it is not to the proportion where most people come to think it is.”

“The truth about crime in St. Louis is that a lot of times it is perceived to be a lot more widespread because it's reported on so often,” Hayden said. “But if people were paying attention, they could tell that it is limited to certain areas and centered around certain types of activities.” 

The St. Louis police department has put several innovative ideas into place to combat crime and make the city safer.  One innovative example is the St. Louis Police Departments’ Real Time Crime Center.

“We staff this 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” said Major Angela Coonce. “We like to have a couple analysts working. We have both civilian analysts and commissioned detectives that are in here to get information out quicker.”

The Real Time Crime Center is located at Police Headquarters on the western edge of downtown St. Louis. The center features an array of video screens and sophisticated surveillance technology. The real-time crime center has access to more than a thousand cameras located all over the city.

“It is a force multiplier for us,” said  Captain Renee Kriesmann, the Commander of the 4th District which includes downtown St. Louis. “We have the ability to watch people and to watch areas, to watch large events as they occur downtown.”

“So if the detectives in the center identify a crime happening or there's just an event going on like a parade downtown, we definitely have a lot more people in the center that are watching the crowds to make sure everybody's safe,” Kriesmann said.

Another one of the city’s proactive crime fighting technologies includes license plate reading technology known as LPR cameras that can spot cars that have an arrest warrant.

“Since the real time crime center opened in May of 2015, the center has been directly responsible for over 1800 serious arrests in the city, and that's including over 4,300 additional charges,” Major Coonce said. “And those are serious crimes. So that's a pretty significant number. So we know we're helping to improve the overall safety of our city.”

If there are events at one of St Louis's largest event spaces, America center, the police department is included in several meetings to help keep the event goers safe.

“I recently hosted an event that brought over 35,000 people to the dome at America center,” said Reggie Harris, the Director of Security for America’s Center. “They were here for three days and we did not have one negative event happened during their stay.”

“And about a month ago, we had another 35,000 in downtown St. Louis for an event,” Harris said. “And again, not one car break in, not one incident that people would think should take place in St. Louis. 

St. Louis is also deploying a new lighting system downtown to improve public safety. Thanks to Project #LightMySTL , the community is using smart city technology that features brand new, brighter streetlights that can be powered up to daylight levels on command to accommodate large events downtown.

“This is really is going to add a great deal of surveillance as well as lighting,” Hayden said.   

In addition to the use of sophisticated technology to improve public safety, an organization known as Better Family Life has been recognized nationally as an innovative leader in gun violence de-escalation.

 “It is a new and innovative model where it was acknowledged by the president as one of the most innovative programs in America,” Clark said. “It was born right here in St. Louis.”

The program is credited with preventing 95 shootings.

“We have come out of our state of what we call analysis paralysis,” Clark said. “We're now taking very aggressive, proactive steps to turning St. Louis around.”

“The organization does things to offset violence by supplying jobs, supplying drugs treatment,” Hayden said of Better Family Life’s work within targeted neighborhoods within the city.

“As we bring that model to scale, we will be able to move the needle in a positive direction,” Clark said. “And in a relatively short period of time.” 

Downtown St. Louis resident Leshanna Lewis says crime was never a personal worry for her when she decided to move to the area. Lewis says she loves living and hanging out in the city

“I love to walk,” Lewis said. “I feel like you find out so many things about a neighborhood when you walk around.”

“I've felt like whenever you have a chance to walk around, it's totally worth it,” said Lewis. “You find out there a little stores and little areas that maybe you never saw before when you're in a car and you're just zooming past.”

“There is a lot to do here,” Lewis said. “There are so many hidden gems.”

“We use all of the tools in the toolkit to ensure that when you're here, you're going to be safe in downtown St. Louis,” Hayden said. “Come have a good time.”

“There are so many really cool, fun things that are happening downtown,” Kriesmann said. “I think everybody should come down and see what we are doing.”

--Julie Tristan, StorySMART