On Monday, the chair of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s Public Safety Committee answered 21st Ward Alderman Antonio French’s request to schedule a committee meeting with the city’s director of public safety and police chief. Alderwoman Phyllis Young, who chairs the committee, said the meeting would be held 10 a.m. Thursday, April 24.
Young responded to an email French had sent earlier Monday morning, repeating a request for a meeting French first made on Friday that had not been answered, he said. The intervening weekend was not a safe one in the city.
“It has been three days since my request and there has been no response. Since that time at least five more people, including one child, have been shot and one person has been killed,” French wrote to Young on Monday morning.
French said the committee had not heard from Police Chief Sam Dotson since January 16 and has not yet heard from the new public safety director Richard Gray, who supervises the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department under local control.
“This is not good oversight and this is not the kind of ‘local control’ that I supported and encouraged my constituents to support,” French wrote.
French has persistently criticized Dotson for emphasizing crime statistics that are favorable to the city when shootings and murder are still common in many city neighborhood. In his letter to Young on Friday, he pointed out there were more than 30 murders in the city in the first three months of 2014.
As of noon on Monday, there had been 36 murders in the city of St. Louis in 2014, compared to 28 murders by that time last year.
“Our city is in crisis. People are frightened and they want action,” French wrote to Young. “I don’t know about your ward, but mine suffers from violence on a regular basis. My constituents expect information and action.”
In addition to Young and French, the other aldermen on the committee are Craig N. Schmid (vice-chair), Larry Arnowitz, Freeman M. Bosley Sr., Jeffrey L. Boyd , Chris Carter, Tammika Hubbard, Christine Ingrassia, Terry Kennedy and Joseph Vaccaro.
