St. Louis plans to overhaul police force as crime grows

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and police chief Joe Mokwa said a plan is underway to overhaul the city's police department in the face of rising violent crime.

Slay and Mokwa met Thursday to discuss the issue and afterward said the city will announce its full overhaul around New Year's Day.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the overhaul plan will include changes in police units and a shake-up of ranking positions.

"This is a demanding task, and it's time to put some fresh horses into the mix," Mokwa said.

The overhaul comes after the release of FBI statistics that show violent crime in St. Louis grew 10.3 percent during the first half of 2006 when compared with the same period last year. That was almost triple the national average increase of 3.7 percent.

"We all believe that the vast majority of our neighborhoods are safe," Slay said at a news conference in city hall. "But any increase in crime, and there has been an increase in crime, is unacceptable. It is not a comfort to me that crime is going up elsewhere in the nation."

Along with a rise in crime, St. Louis is seeing a renaissance in its downtown area, with residents moving into trendy lofts along streets where new bars and restaurants are opening by the month.

A $430 million casino complex is under construction near the riverfront, while the $387 million first phase of the "Ballpark Village" development is starting alongside the new Busch Stadium downtown.

Slay said the city is still on track to hire an additional 40 police officers to complement the force of 1,375.

The new payroll will be funded by an expected $3.2 million in annual revenue generated by an increase in business-license fees that city voters approved in August.

The St. Louis Police Officers' Association applauded the additional hiring in a statement Friday, but said current officers also need bigger pay raises to increase retention.

"The current plans by the city for a 3 percent pay raise fall far short of helping us keep pace with inflation and putting food on our families' dinner tables," the statement said.

Mokwa said the department can quickly hire some experienced officers, but it won't be able to graduate new ones from the police academy until next summer.

Slay also criticized St. Louis Circuit Court for giving too many offenders probation and letting them return to the streets.

"We will talk to the judges about convicts getting multiple probations," Slay said. "They have to understand how this affects our neighborhoods."

Presiding St. Louis Circuit Judge John J. Riley said judges follow the sentencing standards listed in Missouri law. Riley said judges are city residents who understand the frustrations about crime.

"I'd love to wave a magic wand, if that would solve the problem," Riley said. "The law gives us the range of punishments for crime, and if a judge can't consider the whole range, he shouldn't be on the job."

In October the Lawrence, Kan.-based Morgan Quitno Press ranked St. Louis as the most dangerous city in the United States. Slay took issue with the report immediately. He said the data was skewed because it only measures crime inside city limits, without incorporating the much larger suburbs of the metro area where crime rates are lower.