Last year, St. Louis, Missouri, saw its highest murder rate since 2008, but with 101 killed already this year, the murder rate in the Gateway City looks poised to pass last year’s deadly tally.
Residents of St. Louis were shocked with last year’s death toll, which reached 159 victims. It was the highest murder rate since 2008, authorities said.
Last year, St. Louis saw 39 more murders than in 2013, but this year, authorities are shocked to report that with just over half the year completed, there have already been 101 murders in the city, and it seems highly likely that the murder rate will surpass last year as the bloodiest in seven years.
One man is protesting the growing violence in the city by holding a vigil on top of a billboard at the corner of Washington Avenue and North Sarah Street. The man has been there since July 10.
Daniel “Boone” Fuller, 50, of south St. Louis owns the billboard company and decided that he needed to make a statement against the mounting violence in his city.
Fuller said he would end his vigil once the city has seven days without a homicide.
“I don’t want to be up here for six months,” Fuller said. “But I have no limit. Because I’m confident the prayers will go out and we will have a murder-free week in St. Louis.”
“It just needs to stop,” Fuller said about last weekend’s killings. “I mourn for the dead, but I want to lift up the living.”
The billboard company owner has been there now for eleven days and the killings haven’t stopped. Many fear that his gesture will be for naught.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.