Following is a crime alert from Lisa Otke dated April 30 and forwarded by Terry Hoffman on May 1, 2008:
SHOTS FIRED
Residents reported hearing shots fired on Saturday night in the vicinity of Shenandoah & 7th/9th Streets. Per the police the shots came from the area around South Broadway Athletic Club where the suspects were not allowed into a party. The police received over a dozen 911 calls – a resident reported being on the line for 8 minutes without a answer from 911 which may have been due to the volume of calls. The police have a partial license plate number and are investigating. A problem with the investigation is that all the “victims” refused to make any statement and would not give any good physical descriptions.
Terry Hoffman added to his e-mail the following note (note was above description of "Shots Fired"):
additional information we received from hi-tech security re: the event below...
"original call was for a "large fight with shots fired" around S. Broadway Athletic Club (around midnight on Saturday night.) The call was reclassified as "large crowd causing a disturbance" and the "shots fired" was canceled. Crowd was dispersed by officers and everyone was back in service in about 10 minutes."
Madame Chouteau is not following this report. Apparently a dozen or so people called 911 to report shots fired, but now the "shots fired" concept has been deleted from any police report. Madame Chouteau is starting to understand the April 25, 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline: "Crime down, except for the killings," found on page C1. We like creative crime reporting: if it isn't in the police report, then it didn't happen. Some may remember that this happened with rape statistics a couple of years ago.
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2 comments:
I find it strange that south Soulard has more crime (car break-ins and such) than north Soulard despite the proximity to A-B security. Is it the greater desnity of bars and foot traffic that keep the northside safer? Anybody else with me on this?
I find it strange that reports regarding crime in Soulard do not make it into the crime section of the "South Side Journal." People are wandering around Soulard thinking that crime does not exist here. Not good at all. The Otke/Hoffman bulletins, which are not sent to everybody in the neighborhood, are the only source of information about Soulard crime, it would seem. This creates a false sense of security for the bozo's who patronize the "nightspots" in the neighborhood.
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