St. Louis saw one of its first tangible benefits of local control of the police department last week when Police Chief Sam Dotson announced a redistricting of the police force – without having to go through approvals from a board of commissioners appointed by the governor.
As of 4 a.m. on Monday, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was downsized from nine police districts to six – changing district boundaries that have been in place for more than 50 years.
When the old boundaries were originally established, the city’s population was around 750,000, and the department employed more than 2,200 sworn police officers. In 2014, some 318,000 residents live in the city and the department employs around 1,250 police officers.
“Reducing the number of police districts will allow the department to consolidate command structures, put more officers on the street and deploy resources in areas that need it most,” Dotson said.
The redistricting emerged out of a study of calls for service and data-driven analysis. The six districts will also allow more officers to focus on “hot-spot” policing, he said.
“District captains need additional resources to go block by block to address neighborhood issues,” Dotson said. “Each captain can tailor their strategies for fighting crime.”
Under the new patrol configuration, Districts 1 and 2 will operate out of South Patrol, 3157 Sublette; Districts 3 and 4 will operate out of Central Patrol, 919 North Jefferson; and Districts 5 and 6 will operate out of North Patrol, 4014 Union.
“We redrew the districts to balance the workload,” Dotson said. “Nobody was fired, nobody was laid off.”
Citizens can view Dotson’s redistricting presentation, district maps and learn more about district captains at www.slpmd.org. Citizens are also encouraged to leave feedback on redistricting on the department website or at the three area patrol stations.
Crime and eco devo
Dotson has heard the criticisms of the city’s rollout of crime statistics leveled by Alderman Antonio French and others – namely, that city officials were too upbeat about a 5.4 percent decrease in overall crime when murders went up and are still well in the triple digits at 120. But he stands by his stance.
“I’m sympathetic for every family that is a victim of violent crime,” Dotson said. “But the fact is, the city is getting safer.”
He also insists the Slay administration’s focus on the city’s image – trying to portray the city in the safest possible light that the facts will permit – is in the long-term best interests of the city’s safety.
“The city needs economic investment, and that doesn’t come unless people understand that the city is getting safer,” Dotson said. His case in point is Wells Fargo Advisers’ decision to relocate to St. Louis.
“The biggest hurdle was crime,” Dotson said. “We had to reassure 800 families that crime is not an issue. We did it, and it worked. And when we do that, the tax base grows, wages go up, the city has better jobs. We need economic development to solve the systemic problems that result in crime.”
In fact, Dotson said that his first career ambition was economist, not police chief.
“Look at the behavior of people in places where there is economic development: Crime is reduced. There is tons of proof that this theory works,” he said.
“St. Louis is not going to grow unless there are significant inflows of new capital, and no one is going to come here if all we say is, ‘St. Louis has a crime problem, St. Louis has a crime problem, St. Louis has a crime problem.’ The message has to be: ‘Yes, we have a crime problem, but it is getting better, and here is what we are doing about it.’”
Meanwhile, the corpses keep piling up. As French tweeted on Tuesday, “28 days into 2014 and already 14 homicides in the City of St. Louis. And that doesn’t include shootings that didn’t result in death.”