Due to an uptick in violent crime, the St Louis police department last month enacted a policy of not sending anyone out to investigate crimes like stolen cars or auto break-ins (and taking reports over the phone instead), because they needed more cops on the street dealing with crimes against people.
That was after one weekend where a 22 year old woman was shot and killed over an iPhone, in addition to several other armed robberies.
You'd think whoever was in charge of awarding this grant would look critically at the situation here in STL and think "gee, this money would be better spent putting cops on the streets fighting crime, rather than behind desks looking for intellectual property infringements."
If you're a victim of a crime and want to have it investigated, make sure to mention the assailant tried to kill you with bootleg DVDs or perhaps counterfeit gun.
I live in one of the better parts of STL and a woman was killed only 4 blocks from my apartment a few weeks ago. It's definitely becoming more and more of a problem here.
I live in one of the better parts of San Francisco and a man was killed by an ex-coworker about two blocks from my apartment about 15 years ago. At the time there was a lot of hysteria, but as it turns out it hasn't happened since and so was a freak occurrence rather than an indicator of a trend.
That was after one weekend where a 22 year old woman was shot and killed over an iPhone, in addition to several other armed robberies.
You'd think whoever was in charge of awarding this grant would look critically at the situation here in STL and think "gee, this money would be better spent putting cops on the streets fighting crime, rather than behind desks looking for intellectual property infringements."