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After 2 Shootings Last Month, Ely Walker Residents Say the Building Is in Chaos | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

April 13, 2023

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LINDSAY BRASWELL The glass was blown out of the front doors after a shooting at Ely Walker Lofts last year.
When the shooting started at the Ely Walker Lofts in the Washington Avenue Loft District on the morning of March 25, Lindsay Braswell was alarmed but not shocked. It was the second shooting the building had seen that month.The first was on March 10, in an apartment with frequent domestic disputes.“All of the residents have heard them fighting,” Lindsay’s husband Scott Braswell says.In the March 10 shooting, the assailant allegedly “argued with, insulted and threatened the victim; threw and smashed household items in the apartment; and then fired a semiautomatic pistol at the victim while in a common hallway,” according to a probable cause statement from St. Louis police.What shocked the Braswells, though, was that the assailant’s access to the building wasn’t revoked and she was able to return hours later. They were also frustrated that the resident wasn’t evicted before what they saw as a pattern of domestic violence turned into a shooting.Then came the second shooting, involving a different unit, on March 25. Someone leaving the unit pulled out a gun, which went off near the building’s elevators. No one was hurt.The building “is just chaos,” Lindsay says.The Braswells have been living in the Ely Walker Lofts since 2007. Everything in the building was fine until 2015, they say, when STL CityWide bought it.“About a year ago, a 16-year-old was murdered in the building the weekend of the St. Patrick’s Day parade,” Lindsay says. “No one told us, and so I walked my dog downstairs into a crime scene. The windows were shot out; there was blood everywhere. I was traumatized. Imagine if a kid came across it.”STL CityWide did not respond to two requests for comment through their lawyer, Ira Berkowitz.The St. Louis-based leasing agency is run by brothers Victor Alston and Sid Chakraverty. The brothers previously used the name Asprient, and have engendered complaints under both their old and new names as well as Lux Living, their development arm. Most recently, residents at the Raphael in the city’s Central West End have detailed a litany of problems.
Scott Braswell says the problems started within six months of CityWide’s takeover.At first it was repairs not being made. Then the parties started. Some apartment owners were renting out their units as short-term rentals on sites like Airbnb and VRBO. Young people and teens would use the apartment and the building’s rooftop to throw big parties. Last year’s murder victim, Terrion Smith, had been letting people into the lofts for a party before he was shot, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.As security concerns grew, CityWide hired a security guard. “He was a known sex offender,” Scott says — something residents in the building easily found out with a quick Casenet search. That person left, something that has become a bit of a trend in Ely Walker. “We’ve had three property managers in the last eight months because CityWide is hard to work with and they quit,” Scott says. The Braswells now say they have no idea who to call if issues arise — not that calling someone previously had done much to fix problems.
In March, a leak began in the building’s lobby. After almost a week of it not being fixed, an inspector came out and said that he would send a summons to CityWide to get it fixed. The company came out and patched it up, but the leak has returned, Lindsay says. The fire panel is also on the fritz.“The fire alarm goes off every single morning and someone resets it,” says Madelyn Munsell, a tenant who recently moved out. The Post-Dispatch reported about the fire alarm being broken last fall.The Braswells own their unit, and Ely Walker Lofts has a condo association, which would normally be the forum for residents to discuss repairs, safety issues and staff. But CityWide owns 51 percent of the units in the building and never holds meetings for residents to air their concerns, tenants attest.Tenants are also unhappy. Munsell, for instance, rented a unit from CityWide, but due to a threatened eviction, recently left. She is fighting the eviction in court. click to enlarge LINDSAY BRASWELL The Braswells were skeptical that a CityWide repair of a leak would take, and now it has returned. Munsell claims that CityWide fabricated lease violations against her because she asked management to “hold tenants accountable by enforcing the rules of the lease.” Munsell had also threatened to post flyers to try to organize the tenants.At issue, Munsell says, was safety. In addition to having residents who have OD’d on fentanyl, there was the domestic violence situation, and Munsell was trying to get the tenants evicted.CityWide cited Munsell’s use of flyers as the reason for her eviction. “There is a rule in the lease that says we’re not allowed to post flyers,” Munsell explains. “However, I said that I would do so in the future, but I never have.”CityWide also claims that Munsell’s husband was an unauthorized tenant because he wasn’t on the lease. Munsell says the two applied for the apartment together, paid the application fees together and that CityWide got her husband’s proof of income and social security number.She is also disturbed by a lease update that went into effect in December 2022. “It specifically says you should not call either nonemergency or the emergency police lines for loud music and noise complaints, disputes with neighbors, vagrants, unwelcome visitors, missing mail and packages and maintenance issues,” Munsell says.The tenants are hoping to hold CityWide accountable, but they don’t have much hope.“This isn’t just Ely Walker,” Scott says. “I think all the other lofts they’ve owned have had complaints, too.”Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

8 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

8 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

8 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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