ST. LOUIS – Members of Citizens for a Greater Downtown St. Louis kept an eye on things in the city, posting to social media clips of people fighting, brandishing guns, and driving recklessly early Sunday morning.
“It was actually a series of incidents over a five- or six-hour period late at night involving fights of large groups of people and gunfire and gunshots,” said Les Sterman, chair of Citizens for a Greater Downtown St. Louis. “We’ve obviously tried to call attention to it and tried to get more police presence, which is part of the solution, but not all the solution.”
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was called to break up two large fights with teens early Sunday in the 900 block of Locust Street around 1:15 a.m. They were called again about 20 minutes later. Officers were on the scene as the crowd dispersed to the 300 block of Olive when police heard a barrage of gunfire.
A 42-year-old woman suffered a graze wound to her head, and a 30-year-old man was shot in the back of the head and once in the left arm. Both were listed in serious, stable condition.
“These short-term rentals are hosted in a number of buildings,” Sterman said. “They’re listed on other platforms. Some of it social media, some of it Craigslist.”
The police did not comment Monday but said they will discuss this upcoming weekend’s crime plans during their weekly briefing on Wednesday.
The city has a process to deal with problem properties that Sterman said is slow and not easy to navigate. He said two buildings with short-term rentals are repeat offenders with parties.
“If we dealt with that, we could probably get rid of 80% of the problems in downtown,” Sterman said. “That combined with a little bit better police presence, will make downtown safe again.”
