Jennifer Lu

Jun 9, 2024 | themarshallproject.org | Rachel Lippmann |Tom Scheck |Jennifer Lu

By Rachel Lippmann, St. Louis Public Radio; Tom Scheck and Jennifer Lu, APM Reports From 2014 through 2020, St. Louis had the highest homicide rate in the country among cities with 250,000 people or more. St. Louis Public Radio and APM Reports spent nearly two and a half years fighting to access public information about the police department’s efforts to solve these killings. Here are five takeaways from our reporting.

Jun 5, 2024 | apmreports.org | Tom Scheck |Jennifer Lu |Rachel Lippmann

In the first months of 2019, St. Louis leaders were facing a crisis. The city had endured the highest homicide rate in the nation for five straight years. By May, 70 people had already been killed, including a quadruple homicide. The city had budgeted for 100 more officers than were on the job; detectives were scrambling to solve cases. Police would solve only about a third of the homicides that year, according to department records.

Jun 4, 2024 | apmreports.org | Rachel Lippmann |Tom Scheck |Jennifer Lu

In the summer of 2019, a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer named Ronald Vaughan was assigned to the overnight homicide squad supervised by Sgt. Heather Taylor. Vaughan had somewhat of a checkered past. Two years before, he allegedly shoved and pepper-sprayed a pastor and shocked a local activist with a Taser during a peaceful protest, according to a lawsuit.

Jun 3, 2024 | apmreports.org | Tom Scheck |Jennifer Lu |Rachel Lippmann

On Shulte Avenue on the northside of St. Louis, the sites of the killings are just steps away from each other. Terrell Hall, 47, was killed near a brick one-story home at the intersection of Shulte and Mimika avenues in 2020. About 90 paces down the street, Andre Brookfield was shot to death in a car parked in the alley in 2012. A few steps away, a drive-by shooter gunned down Whitney Brown and Devon Fletcher on the sidewalk in 2015.

Jun 2, 2024 | apmreports.org | Jennifer Lu |Rachel Lippmann

In February 2021, St. Louis Public Radio and APM Reports began an investigation — later joined by The Marshall Project — into the struggles of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to solve homicides. While St. Louis’ record-high homicide rate was well-known, the police department’s ability to solve those homicides had received less scrutiny. APM Reports and STLPR wanted to know what percentage of homicides police were solving and whether this figure differed by race.