(NewsNation) — Crime is on the decline in St. Louis, according to the local police department, which has reported a 50% reduction in homicides from 2020.
The drop comes months after Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill appointing a state board to govern the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, citing a need to restore order and encourage economic growth.
“It’s 50% reduction from what we were in 2020. I call that progress very difficult,” police Chief Robert Tracy said. “Of the 85 murders that we have right now, you try to tell a family member a crime is being reduced, in their world, it isn’t because they’ve lost a loved one.”
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For more than a century, control of the St. Louis Police was under similar state oversight, with the Board of Police Commissioners, made up of the mayor and a group of commissioners appointed by the governor…