This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, May 27, 2013 - News seldom occurs in a vacuum; it often grows out of indirect events that, when recalled, can add context and give readers deeper understanding of why something happened. An example is Monday’s story of a new city-county organization, the St. Louis Initiative to Reduce Violence or SIRV, to address, among other things, unseemly behavior among youth.
It’s worth remembering how this issue caught the public’s eye for at least a couple of summers in the wake of crowds and kids in the Delmar Loop, and unprovoked so-called knockout attacks by teens in south St. Louis.
While it might appear that SIRV came out of nowhere, something like it was waiting to be born. One indirect birther was probably University City Mayor Shelley Welsch, who has been working on the problem on her own, but has been pleading for at least two summers for a group to address issues involving youth, not only in the Loop but in the metropolitan area.
This initiative is beginning as a pilot, focusing on Jennings and the 6th Police District in north St. Louis. But in time, it’s possible that Welsch’s community will be well-served, too.
