Why haven’t St. Louis police solved over 1,000 murders?

Although St. Louis detectives solved more cases in 2022 and 2023, more than 1,000 cases from between 2014 and 2023 remain unsolved. Many victims' families say police haven't returned their calls, and resources have dwindled along with community trust in law enforcement. But police overlook the underlying reasons for that loss of trust, say some violence prevention workers.

✍️: Alysia Santo / @marshallproj, Rachel Lippmann / @stlpublicradio, Tom Scheck and Jennifer Lu / @apmreports

🎥: Chris Vazquez / The Marshall Project

#stlouis #missouri

Transcript:
CHRIS VAZQUEZ: St. Louis police have failed to solve more than 1,000 homicides over a decade. There were roughly 1,900 homicides in the city from 2014 to 2023, represented by these blue dots mapped by my colleagues at The Marshall Project. And these orange dots are all the ones police haven’t solved. That’s according to never-before-seen data that APM Reports and St. Louis Public Radio spent years fighting to get from police. The impact of these unsolved cases falls more heavily on Black residents, who made up 90% of people killed between 2014 and 2023. Police solved less than half of their cases while solving nearly 2/3 of cases involving White victims. And as murders in St. Louis rose over the past decade before falling across the country, city officials cut the homicide unit’s budget and spent more on overtime pay for police. But it’s not just about the money. Some detectives have failed to do basic tasks. Like, this memo said a detective didn’t complete basic follow-ups or stay in contact with victims’ families. One of those victims was Dominique Lewis, who was 24. She was close with her family, and took care of people, like her grandparents, when she wasn’t reading or spending time with childhood friends. Many families, including Lewis’, say their calls to St. Louis detectives were never returned.