One person is dead after a shooting overnight in the Mark Twain neighborhood of North St. Louis, according to police. Details on the exact location, the victim’s identity, and any suspect information have not yet been released.
The fatal shooting was first reported by KMOV, which confirmed one death following the overnight incident. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s District 6, headquartered at 5076 West Florissant Avenue as part of the North Patrol Division, holds jurisdiction over emergency calls and homicide investigations in Mark Twain, along with neighboring North St. Louis neighborhoods including Penrose, Baden, and Walnut Park.
A Neighborhood That Keeps Landing in the Headlines
This is not the first fatal shooting to strike the area this year. St. Louis police responded to another deadly shooting in Mark Twain on June 21, when they found a 43-year-old man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds near the curb in the 5000 block of West Florissant Avenue. West Florissant Avenue, a major thoroughfare running through North St. Louis, has repeatedly figured into the neighborhood’s violence.
Just six days before this latest shooting, Hoodline reported a wheelchair user shooting an attempted robber on North Euclid Avenue after the suspect tried to disarm him using a handgun the suspect had previously stolen from him. That case, in which the suspect was charged with first-degree robbery and armed criminal action, is one of several violent incidents this year that have unfolded along the same handful of Mark Twain streets and intersections.
A Small Neighborhood Carrying a Heavy Burden
Mark Twain spans just 0.65 square miles between Interstate 70 and Bellefontaine Cemetery, with a population of 3,257 as of the 2020 U.S. Census, according to Wikipedia. That figure reflects a 22.2% population drop since 2010, and the neighborhood is 95.1% Black. The shrinking population underscores decades of disinvestment that residents say compound the effects of gun violence there…