Local News

Gravois Park Buildings Are Catnip for St. Louis Copper Thieves | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

September 11, 2023

[ad_1]

click to enlarge Courtesy photo This photo by a security guard shows an alleged scrap thief working in broad daylight at the old St. Alexius Hospital’s Jefferson Campus.

A pair of large vacant buildings in St. Louis’ Gravois Park neighborhood are proving popular with scrap metal thieves, who have gone to incredible lengths to pilfer from them.

So far this year St. Louis police have been called more than 80 times to the Jefferson Campus of the shuttered St. Alexius Hospital and the abandoned National Graphics building next door. The two buildings sit on adjacent blocks of Miami Street, near Jefferson Avenue.

“It’s the copper,” says Jeff Ahlholm, who owns the land the old hospital sits upon. “Literally they will pass over taking other stuff that might even have greater value. But [copper] is what they know.”

Ahlholm says the thieving operations are often sophisticated.

“That’s what’s been shocking,” he says. “Some of the arrests have involved groups that are doing this slowly and strategically, almost like it’s their profession. It’s staged over days and days, even weeks.”

According to Ahlholm, a group of thieves were in the middle of methodically disassembling a large boiler in the basement of the old hospital over a period of days when he had new fencing put up. He says the thieves destroyed the fencing in what he calls an act of “retribution.”

“We have video of them ramming their truck into the fencing, almost like a tank,” he says. “Then, once they smashed up the fencing so that they could actually go in if they wanted to, they didn’t. They just packed up and drove away.”

Ahlholm says that he has security at his building virtually 24/7 and that people mostly break in at night, but that more than a few have been spotted during the day, too.

Videos and still images shared with the RFT show scrap thieves in broad daylight, leaving the building in pick-up trucks and large vans, carrying tool bags and even wearing ear protection. Other surveillance video shows them hauling scrap away in makeshift hand carts and large trash bins.

One of the people Ahlholm hired to provide security for the property talked to the RFT under the condition we not use her name, saying she didn’t want to draw the ire of the scrap thieves more than she already has.

“They all know me,” the security worker said of the thieves. “They hate me.”

She showed the RFT numerous photos she took herself of thieves leaving the premises. She says she calls the police if she thinks there’s a chance they might arrive in time to make an arrest, but if the thief has already run away, she usually doesn’t bother calling 911. “I don’t want to waste the police’s time,” she says.

The thieves have established a quasi center of operations at a vacant house on nearby Ohio Avenue, the security worker tells the RFT. One scrapper was even forthcoming with her about their game plan, saying that a scrap yard in Illinois is the best place to take the metal, no questions asked.

Carl Walter has lived near the two vacant buildings for a little more than a year and a half. “It’s a dangerous place,” he says of the empty hospital campus and the vacant building next door.

Not long ago, Walter was walking home around 1 a.m. after a night out when he saw a woman walking out of the old hospital building with a young girl he guessed was around age 11.

“They were pushing a shopping cart with pipes and copper and all kinds of stuff that they jacked out of that hospital,” he says. “That scares me. ”

“I understand that people are not housed, so I’m not tripping so much off people who are living in there, trying to seek shelter. But there should never be children in there,” says Walter.

Walter says he’s heard stories of as many as 20 people being pulled out of the empty hospital at the same time.

On August 20, police arrested two men after spotting them exit the National Graphics building with a large chunk of copper and load it into a Dodge SUV. Police found reciprocating saws, bolt cutters and other tools in the SUV. Officers found what they described as “industrial tools” stacked inside the building as well.

Two weeks later, on Labor Day, police found a 35-year-old woman’s vehicle in the hospital’s parking garage. She and a 38-year-old man, both found hiding in the boiler room, were charged with burglary.

“It’s like whack-a-mole,” Walter says.

Of the more than 80 calls to the two properties this year, 19 have been coded as burglaries and the rest are a mix of suspicious person calls, building checks and responses to accidents.

Ahlholm, the property owner, says that while the pilfering can be combated, it’s likely only going to end when they start redevelopment. Ahlholm says he is confident that will happen sooner rather than later, though he’s limited in specifics he can share.

“It’s going to be broken up into some smaller component parts, and developed in different ways,” says Ahlholm. “So there will be some commercial; there will certainly be some residential that will be priced to the community.”

Walter, the nearby resident, says he’s skeptical that redevelopment will get underway soon, though he wants to see it happen.

“Back in the day, when there was a hospital there, nurses, janitors, landscapers, a whole host of people worked there,” he says. “That property could transform our community.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

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.

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

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

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

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.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

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.”

[ad_2]

Source link