Lafayette Square may use taxpayer funds to hire private security.... (St. Louis: 2014, crime)

[MUTGR]

due to uptick in crime:

South St. Louis neighborhood may soon pay for own private security | KMOV.com St. Louis

[aliasfinn]

Do you think they'll vote for it ?

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by aliasfinn

Do you think they'll vote for it ?

I have no idea. I wonder about hiring private security though rather than hiring more cops. I guess it would probably be off-duty cops anyway, but I thought one of the "lessons" of Ferguson was that we have too many small time police departments in the county with untrained and unprofessional police departments and yet in the city of St. Louis they may be hiring private security to, what exactly, patrol certain neighborhoods?

It also sounds like this might already be happening in the CWE which I was not aware of.

[Dawn10am]

The private streets in the CWE have private security, but I was under the impression that the residents finance that. I never saw any private security for us commoners on the public streets when I lived there. Lots of bike cops though.

[SouthCitySam]

Originally Posted by MUTGR

due to uptick in crime:
South St. Louis neighborhood may soon pay for own private security

That's what they do in South Africa. Time for Slay to come up with some other solutions to get this city's crime problem under control. The "merging" thing doesn't qualify as a solution.

[billiken]

Our neighborhood Facebook page posted a link to this story. I agree that there should be more police city-wide. I think funding private security through small neighborhood improvement districts will do more to increase the disparity between the rich and poor neighborhoods in STL. At the same time, I understand the frustrations with the problems.

CWE isn't the only area with private security. Heck, the teenager who was shot in Shaw in the middle of the Ferguson mess was shot by a private security officer hired by the neighborhood association. I think the methods of funding might vary.

[aliasfinn]

Channel 4 said another pizza delivery driver was robbed but I can't find any info about it.
If this keeps up some of these pizza joints will quit delivering and just call you to come and pick up your order. $10,000 worth of copper wire was stolen from a cell phone tower, I think by reporting how much copper is on those towers they just tempted some new thieves. I wonder why they just don't give Chief Sam Dotson his own segment on the news, seems like he's on every night.

[aliasfinn]

I posted the above on the wrong thread. Sorry about that.

[Devon011]

Originally Posted by billiken

Our neighborhood Facebook page posted a link to this story. I agree that there should be more police city-wide. I think funding private security through small neighborhood improvement districts will do more to increase the disparity between the rich and poor neighborhoods in STL. At the same time, I understand the frustrations with the problems.

CWE isn't the only area with private security. Heck, the teenager who was shot in Shaw in the middle of the Ferguson mess was shot by a private security officer hired by the neighborhood association. I think the methods of funding might vary.

The teenager that was shot in Shaw was by a city police officer working a secondary at the private security company.

[zach_33]

The article referenced does say that the proposal is to "tax themselves" so it would only be a fee for the people under protection by the private security. As I understand it, this is a common practice in Detroit's elite inner-city neighborhoods (Palmer Woods, Indian Village, Boston Edison) but the fees are punishing-- $1000-$2000 per month. Maybe a Detroit resident could confirm that. At the same time, it is supposed to a very effective deterrent. It's privatization for the wealthy in our increasingly bi-polar society.