‘Wildly unacceptable’: Shaw neighbors say police failed to respond to break-ins

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Victims in the Shaw Neighborhood are concerned after they say a few cars were broken into and police neglected to properly respond and investigate. Days later, the car break-ins grew to 60, according to the Shaw Neighborhood Ownership Model, a neighborhood security group.

Eve Bynum tells First Alert 4, last Thursday her car was broken while parked outside of her home along Shenandoah, three of her neighbors were also victims. When they called to report the crime, Bynum says officers told them ‘there’s nothing we can do unless a weapon was stolen.’

“What’s harmful here is that it has a message to criminals: if you come to Shaw Neighborhood, you can commit crimes with impunity,” said Bynum. “I find that wildly unacceptable. When the police message [is] ‘we can’t be bothered to be here, we won’t respond to crime,’ this is when people stop moving here, this is when people stop coming here. It actively harms our neighborhood.”

Gary Hosna is with the Shaw Neighborhood Ownership Model. She says dozens of neighbors alerted him about the break-ins and the lack of a police response.

“I know the south side is extremely busy, and you have 2-6 police officers overnight that patrol the southside and a lot of these calls do not get answered,” said Hosna.

First Alert 4 spotted piles of glass along Shenandoah Avenue and Klemm. Throughout Shaw, several cars were taped up with plastic.

“Nothing was done in that time frame to curb, investigate, prevent this rash,” said Bynum. “This might have been an M.O. that was familiar to them, but no one bothered.”

We reached out to St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department over neighbors’ claim of officers’ lack of response, and we were given five calls for service in Shaw. One call for service mentioned at least 20 cars were broken into.

Hosna would like to see more technology to help police with these low-priority cases.

Bynum says due to the lack of proper investigations, criminals could get more bold and brazen.

“A window is easy to fix; a reputation for a place where criminals can operate without consequence is much harder to fix.”

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