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Re: Shooting by Edward Jones Dome
Have any of you suggesting Atlanta or Orlando instead of St. Louis due to perceived lack of crime actually been to the downtown areas of either of those two cities? I suspect not.
St. Louis gets a bad rap crime statistic-wise because the city limits are legally restricted to a small land area size - while other cities just expand and take in more suburban areas, the city of St. Louis legally cannot. Since FBI crime statistics are taken by total number of crimes divided by city area size, St. Louis comes out higher than it accurately should.
Atlanta is a sprawling city that gets to count its nice suburban areas in its crime statistics because it has annexed them as part of the city. It is 132 square miles, while St. Louis is 62 square miles. Believe me, if St. Louis could take 70 additional miles of suburban St. Louis County and divide its crime rate by that land size, there is absolutely no way Atlanta would have "less" crime than St. Louis. Orlando is 110 square miles, same phenomenon.
Bottom line - FIRST attendees are as safe as they would be in the downtown area of any city, if not safer. St. Louis does not have a history of violence at major events, like Cardinals games and that sort of thing, and its crime is generally confined to certain neighborhoods, not prime areas of downtown. That's why it is major news when anything happens downtown.
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