New Year’s Eve gunfire down for first time since stat was recorded

ST. LOUIS – It seems some St. Louisans’ New Year’s resolution was to not celebrate the same as they had in years past. For the first time, the number of reported gunshots on New Year’s Eve has decreased – significantly.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department began tracking the number of calls for gunshots on New Year’s Eve in 2017.

“They go hard,” Alderman Brandon Bosley (Ward 9) said. “It’s a lot of shots that go off.”

In 2017-18, 396 calls were made to city police for New Year’s Eve gunshots. The numbers almost increased every year, topping out last year at 684 calls. This year, that number dropped to its lowest ever – 324.

Bosley grew up hearing gunshots on New Year’s Eve and admittedly told FOX 2 that he used to participate in the gunshot celebration as a teenager. A custom he now understands the ramifications of.

“There are real things that happen,” Bosley said. “Bullets can go into people’s roofs and even if it didn’t hit a person, they are going to have to end up getting that fixed or they have a leak, or somebody’s car gets hit.”

Reverend Burton Barr of the Westside Missionary Church in north St. Louis County told FOX 2 he didn’t hear as many gunshots this year.

“It was encouraging the numbers are lower,” he said. “Hopefully, they get lower and lower every year.”

Bosley credits the decrease in calls for gunshots to police efforts and to the efforts of residents who have passed out ‘Don’t Shoot’ flyers in years past.

“Whatever it is we are doing now, we need to keep doing that,” Bosley said. “Maybe (we need to) apply that to the other things that are going on within the city, and hopefully we will continue to see things decrease (that) we want to see decrease.”