When police stand down the true nature of a community will be revealed.

St. Louis and Baltimore Face Record Homicide Rates Since #BlackLivesMatter Riots

Jim Hoft Aug 1st, 2015 

The St. Louis homicide rate is on target to reach its highest level in 20 years.

This comes after the anti-police riots by Ferguson #BlackLivesMatter protesters last year.

The story made international headlines.
Now St. Louis city is experiencing a record number of homicides.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported:

The bodies are found on downtown streets and neighborhood alleys. Near O’Fallon Park in the north, and Gravois Park in the south.

Their number is tallied nearly every morning. Two, three, four — sometimes more.

With the homicide rate on target to reach its highest level in 20 years, St. Louis police are coming under increasing pressure. So is the man who two years ago won control of the department to hold it more accountable…

…After a particularly violent weekend last week, the number of murders soared above 100 already this year. That’s 60 percent higher than the number of homicides at the same time last year, which itself had seen a 30 percent increase from the prior year.

The situation has put Slay in unfamiliar territory.

The city’s longest-serving mayor, Slay saw a sharp decrease in homicides after he first took office in 2001. By 2003, under former Chief Joe Mokwa, the annual number of murders dropped to 74, the lowest in generations.

Throughout Slay’s tenure, it stood relatively even, in the 110-130 range. But last year, it spiked to 159. This year it is on pace to reach 190, the highest since 1995, but still lower than peaks in the late 1970s and ’80s. A recent tally showed that most other crime categories are up too.

The number of St. Louis homicides is on track to reach 190, the highest number since 1995.

Of course, the murders are concentrated in poor minority areas of the city.
Via St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Likewise in Baltimore is facing its highest homicide rate since 1972.