Last week’s rash of carjackings and ATM robberies in South St. Louis haven’t ended, according to law enforcement and local officials.
On Saturday night, a man was robbed at gunpoint while at an ATM — police say the masked suspects fired a gunshot, but the victim was uninjured.
Tom Oldenburg is the alderman for the area where the Hampton Village Schnucks carjacking occurred, as well as the two armed robberies at the Bank of America across the street. He said there needs to be a larger police presence in the area.
There is one pilot program that’s seeking solutions for the area. The St. Louis Hills Neighborhood Association purchased cameras and hired a police officer to work secondary. Then, a resident and software programmer donated his expertise to come up with the technology that the secondary officers can monitor.
“It’s a pilot program that the neighborhood association has been doing the last 30 or 40 days, and it’s led to four or five arrests, I believe,” Oldenburg said.
He said it’s been a pattern of success — however, the Hampton Village carjacking happened at just 6 p.m. As for having unoccupied police cars in the neighborhood as a crime deterrent, Oldenburg said he isn’t sure how much of an impact it’d have.
“I would love to see the data if a plant car has the same success rate as actually an officer patrol the streets,” he said. “I’m not sure either one actually has a strong success rate.” But what does have a strong success rate, he said, is having police officers monitor a few square blocks.
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