‘More access to guns than wallets in their back pockets’
For at least four years of Xavier’s short life, St Louis has been the murder capital of the US.
It has had the highest gun homicide rate per capita of any big city since 2014. This violence disproportionately affects the city’s poor black neighborhoods, and this year children as young as two have become a symbol for how entrenched the city is in violence. St Louis County, the suburbs which border the city, have also seen a high child murder rate with seven children shot dead.
St Louis’s mayor, Lyda Krewson, has offered $25,000 for information on four of the dead children’s cases, a grand total of $100,000. The city is also planning to spend $500,000 on the lauded crime reduction program, Cure Violence, and another $1.5m on violence prevention efforts.
The city also has programs to provide food, recreation and jobs to low-income people, as well as large-scale efforts to demolish derelict homes. This year, St Louis plans to tear down 700 homes, and has programs that allow people to purchase homes for $1.
“It’s a multipronged effort, but we all know this violence is a function of generational poverty and a lack of opportunity and it’s something that St Louis is not immune to just like all these other cities,” said Koran Addo, director of communications for the office of the mayor.
Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, announced on 19 September that the state would deploy more police to the area and provide prosecutorial assistance. This plan of “targeting violent criminals and getting them off the street” does not include any changes to the state’s lax gun laws, which allow people to carry handguns and rifles without a permit.