Commissioner's Correspondence

COMMISSIONER’S CORRESPONDENCE – Reflecting on 2024:

As we approach the end of 2024, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year – including recognizing those affected by crime, as well as some of the progress we have made this year towards making our city safer, and enhancing the transparency of our department.

This past year was challenging for our community and our SLMPD family, following the tragic line-of-duty death of Officer David Lee in September. We continue to honor his memory by carrying on his legacy of service to St. Louis.

It is also important that we recognize those who have been affected by crime and violence this year. Every crime, every shooting, and every murder – including the recent killing of Colin Brown – reminds us that we have more work to do as we strive to make our city safer. Our investigators never give up in their efforts to deliver justice in each of their cases, and we will be relentless as we work towards a safer St. Louis.

And while more progress can be made, crime data for 2024 are encouraging. As of December 15, so far this year we have seen a 6% reduction in murders and a 15% reduction in overall Part 1 crimes compared with the same period in 2023.

The numbers we have seen are promising, and point to the success of the multi-layered crime strategies that we have put into place here in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

I would also like to highlight some of the initiatives we have undertaken during the course of this past year to enhance our agency’s transparency.

In June, we launched our newly redesigned website – still accessible at www.SLMPD.org – which represented the first overhaul of our web platform in more than a decade. This project, which was made possible with the support of the St. Louis Police Foundation, resulted in a more user-friendly platform that we can use to share more information than ever about our department.

This past year, we also began making available our weekly CompStat reports on our website. These are the same reports that we review in our weekly CompStat meetings, when commanders review crime stats in their areas of responsibility, speak on any crime trends that are occurring and present the steps they are taking to address crime and violence.

In October, we also announced the launch of our new Crime Mapping platform, which includes crime data that is updated daily. Through this free web portal, residents and visitors can map and explore incidents that occur in their neighborhoods.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to review our CompStat reports and visit our Crime Mapping platform, through www.SLMPD.org/Stats.

As we look towards 2025, I would like to thank each of our commissioned officers and civilian employees for the work they do each day to protect and serve our city. We look forward to making even more progress in the year to come!

Commissioner’s Correspondence

Commissioner’s Correspondence

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