Bullet Grazes South St. Louis Woman, Narrowly Misses Her 5-Year-Old Niece

CBS St. Louis

February 18, 2021

St. Louis City police are searching for the gunmen who shot through Kendra Booth's south St. Louis home early Saturday morning. Booth said she was braiding her 5-year-old niece's hair on her bed when rapid fire gunshots were fired into her home, one of the bullets grazed Booth's back.
“All I heard was gunshots and I heard the plastic and the wood popping and flying," said Booth.
She counted 12 shots. “I grabbed her and the pillow, and that’s when I ran over here to the floor and I just ducked down," said Booth. One of the bullets went through her bedroom into the kitchen, through her kids' bedroom and into the living room. Booth said she was doing a Facebook Live video from her bedroom while she was braiding her niece's hair. She said the gunfire started about three minutes after she ended the Facebook Live. Booth wonders if the gunmen were watching the video and shot through the back of her home knowing that's where she was sitting. "They knew where I was in the house," said Booth. “Whoever it was, was aiming for my head." Booth is not sure why she would have been targeted. Sadly, she said she hears gunshots almost every night in her neighborhood but never had them come this close to her home.

"I'm always looking at my window, I'm always opening the door checking out, it's very scary," said Booth. Booth's home near Compton and Winnebago in the Gravois Park neighborhood falls in what St. Louis police call the "south zone rectangle." Police have designated more resources in that area in hopes of decreasing the high violent crime rate. Two weeks ago, just blocks from Booth's home, Kanisha Hemphill and her two little girls were murdered at their home.
The city has a problem with children being caught up in crimes. Booth's incident and the Hemphill murders come less than a month after a 7-year-old and her dad were murdered in the Central West End. "You’re not safe anywhere anymore," said Booth.