The Most Dangerous City in America

The most dangerous city in America

St. Louis, Mo. is in the top places of a statistic no one wants to lead.

For the past two years the city has been in first and second place on the ranking of Americas most dangerous cities. This year looks to be particularly bloody. The number of homicides has increased almost 40 percent since last year.

At the end of August 109 people had been murdered in this city along the Mississippi river.

That gives an average of three murders per week in this city with only 350,000 people, making it significantly smaller than Oslo. In comparison only eight people were murdered in Oslo during last year.

In this city, vice-presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden will have their first debate tonight, far away from the realities of the poor neighborhoods.

The last victim to enter the gloom statistics was the 23-year old-father and aircraft mechanic Matthew Walsh.

He was on his way home from the night shift at St. Louis international airport, when he for no obvious reason was shot outside his home on Aug. 30.

His wife Jamie, who was inside playing with their six-month-old daughter, had just enough time to see a white pick-up drive away from the otherwise peaceful neighborhood.

The police have no clues or theory with regards to the motive of the killing. The people living on the estate, with their gardens and well-trimmed lawns, think they know where the police should start searching in this historically segregated city.

“It’s a good place to live,” Glenda Jones said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I don’t think it’s the people in the neighborhood, it’s the people who come in to the neighborhood from other places because they know it’s nice.”

Glenda and her husband Bryan, who have lived in the same neighborhood all their lives, cannot remember other murders taking place there.

In St. Louis’ northern and eastern poor neighborhood however, murders, shootings and rapes take place on a weekly basis. Here people sleep with their windows closed to avoid hearing the sirens at night.

This is the real The Wire if you like. For those who have followed the critically acclaimed HBO series, Baltimore, Md. is not even in the top 10 on the list of America’s most dangerous cities.

St. Louis is divided in two parts. The demographic north-south divide is very much in people’s consciousness, despite attempts at integration, community organizer Hortense Harrison sais to Dagbladet.no.

St. Louis’ northern edges, the areas north of Delmar Boulevard, look peaceful during the day. It looks almost derelict. This is one of the oldest settlements in the city, where German immigrants settled in the mid 1800’s.

Today mostly African-Americans are left. About half of St. Louis’ black population lives in this troubled area – where most of the roads are one-way and blocked in the end to stop car chases.

It is Harrison of the Archs organization and the St. Louis police who try to make an effort.

Nine specially trained police officers work actively towards 18 schools and a target group of about 2000 pupils to stop the existing 5000 gang members recruiting.

The most important thing is to make the children carry through their education, and make them choose a different path than crime. In St. Louis only 49 percent completes their high school education.

It is not that bad in a country where a student drops out of high school every 26 seconds, according to Colin Powell’s foundation America’s Promise Alliance.

“You can’t just look at the numbers. It is completely de-motivating”, says Harrison, with a brave smile. She has a PHD in this field and has worked as the principal at four schools.

“Doctor Harrison”, as she is known, brings Dagbladet.no to the Gateway Middle School. Where being screened by metal detectors and police is mandatory before the pupils can go to class. In the afternoon there is voluntary leisure time until half past five.

“Here the pupils get breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Harrison said. “This arrangement takes into account that most of these children has nothing to come home to”

Because the mother-and-father model is anything but the norm. 70 percent of the children are growing up with only one parent. And in 20 percent of these cases it is a teenage mother, who has dropped out of school herself. The last 20 to 30 percent are raised by their grandparents, Harrison said.

“We are seeing more and more of this. Families losing their homes. Parents getting depressed, struggling with drug problems. There is resignation everywhere,” she says.

“And how can you expect the children to concentrate about reading and writing when they are living in such an uncertain world?” she asks.

“Often I cant sleep at night because of the shooting, all the ambulances and police cars,” said 11-year-old Romeira Wallace when Dagbladet.no met her and her classmates. They have all been thru the gang resistance program G.R.E.A.T.

The principles of the program are simple. Once a week a policeman in uniform comes to teach the children good behavior and making the right choices in life. No bullying, not giving in to peer pressure, make sure you hang with the right crowd, that sort of thing. It sounds obvious, but not to these children.

Few of them have this knowledge from home. The gangs have tried to recruit all of them.

“It happens all the time,” the 11-year-olds tell us. “They drive up along side of you, try to make contact, and they do these signs with their fingers to see if you are on their side or not.”

They swear that they will never join a gang. Their dreams of the future are in a totally different direction.

“I want to be an attorney. I have a feeling my family could need one,” said Alexia Snipes with a good portion humor.

Here in the hallways of the Gateway Middle School, the mainly black pupils wish Barack Obama would keep his promise of improving America’s schools. The pupils have cut cardboard letters spelling out the message: Vote Obama.

McCain’s vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin also has her name on the walls. But not McCain. The pupils would have liked a re-shuffling of the cards. “I can’t wait until Obama takes the throne,” Snipes said. “We need him. I only wish he could have Sarah Palin with him. That would be so cool.”

Does the gang resistance program in St. Louis work?

“Well, we think we are seeing some moderate results during the three years the G.R.E.A.T.-project has been run here in St. Louis,” Harrison said. “It is better with 5000 gang members than 10,000, is it not?”

She admits the task feels hopeless; to change a behavioral pattern created by dividing lines of race and economy. Poverty is the most difficult thing to deal with. Harrison praised the city mayor, Democrat Francic G. Slay, for making sure the G.R.E.A.T. Program is implemented, and for funding it generously.

But it is not enough. According to the annual, national report from the Annie E. Casey-foundation one fifth of the 1.4 million children in the state of Missouri are living below the poverty line.

In St. Louis, charitable organizations say the need for food, clothes and housing increased dramatically two years ago. Just when the first inhabitants started to feel the effects of the housing crisis.

“Poverty is the root cause of much of this misery,” Harrison said. “When people are desperate for money they are willing to do almost anything.” In her dream world, the $700 billion congress has been fighting over would have gone a completely different way than to the stockbrokers and finance people of Wall Street.

She wishes the politicians of Washington would see the problem differently.

“They are beginning in the wrong end,” Harrison said. “They want to waste $700 billion on a failed system. What about investing $700 billion in our future?”