St. Louis Named A 'Murder Capital Of America'

ST. LOUIS, MO — St. Louis is number four on a new list of the "Murder Capitals of America." East St. Louis, Ill., right across the river, was named number one. The list was prepared by NeighborhoodScout, a web-based platform from Location, Inc., and includes 30 cities in America with the highest number of murders per 1,000 residents. Kansas City, Mo., also made the list, coming in at number 27.

Both St. Louis and East St. Louis came in well ahead of Detroit and Chicago, cities notoriously plagued by gun violence — Chicago so much so that it's become a political talking point for many, including President Donald Trump.

NeighborhoodScout compiled its list, which includes cities with a population of 25,000 or more, using crime data from the FBI. The data was then compared to the population of each city provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In St. Louis, a city of just over 310,000 people, there were 188 murders and 292 rapes in 2016 — a tally the city smashed through last year, setting a 21-year record. That makes the city's murder rate 0.6 per 1,000 residents. According to NeighborhoodScout, your chance of being the victim of a violent crime in St. Louis is 1 in 52, compared with 1 in 193 nationally. Another way of putting the numbers in perspective: There were 375 crimes per square mile in St. Louis in 2016.

The St. Louis area's safest neighborhoods, the report says, are outside the Interstate 270 loop, while the most dangerous are concentrated in downtown St. Louis. Overall, the city's crime index is just one out of 100, where 100 is the safest.

St. Louis' safest neighborhoods, according to NeighborhoodScout, are:

1. Starhill Drive/Schmussler Road
2. Kerth Road/Dantonaire PI
3. Christopher Drive/Cripple Creek Drive
4. Oakville
5. White House
6. Baumgartner Road/Old Baumgartner Road
7. Gravois Road/Baptist Church Road
8. Telegraph Road/Forder Road
9. Concord
10. Baumgartner Road/Blackforest Drive

NeighborhoodScout's top 25 Murder Capitals of America include:

1. East St. Louis, IL
2. Chester, PA
3. Camden, NJ
4. St. Louis, MO
5. Gary, IN
6. West Memphis, AR
7. Baltimore, MD
8. Flint, MI
9. Detroit, MI
10. New Orleans, LA
11. Salisbury, NC
12. Danville, VA
13. Wilmington, DE
14. Compton, CA
15. Newark, NJ
16. Cleveland, OH
17. Petersburg, VA
18. Jackson, MS
19. Goldsboro, NC
20. Orlando, FL
21. Memphis, TN
22. North Charleston, SC
23. Elkhart, IN
24. San Bernardino, CA
25. Chicago, IL

Click here to see the full list of NeighborhoodScout's Murder Capitals of America.

Kara Seymour, Patch National Staff, contributed to this report.

Photo by Renee Schiavone/Patch