Polls haven’t opened yet but emotions are raw in my neighborhood. It’s not just the election, it’s the unsolved murder of University City police seargeant Michael King, whose funeral is today.

At QuickTrip in Bel-Ridge, at 5:10 a.m., clerk Curtis Jamerson was selling a plug for Obama to a Hillsdale cop who just wanted his pack of Dutch Masters.

Jamerson was incredulous that the officer, who is black, wouldn’t want to help elect an African-American president.

“I’m just tired of this talk about change,” the officer said. “Change what? What has he done?”

“I’m just trying to get him to vote,” Jamerson told me.

I borrowed the cop’s pen to scribble some notes on my QT bag. Jamerson readily gave me his name. Not so the officer, who didn’t want it in the paper.

Everyone wants his name in the paper, I said, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan. They just don’t know it yet.

His concern: Not upsetting his constituents.

“People trip over me, I shoot them,” he said.

Staff writers Christine Byers reports in from High Ridge, and David Hunn from the north side, but each with the same story:

Long lines.

Byers says there are more than 200 people lined up outside Little Brennan Elementary in High Ridge, some sitting in lawn chairs. Cars are lined up on an access road, parked on a basketball court.

Hunn called at 5:55 to say he counted 108 people at Laclede Elementary in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood, and called again just before 6 to say that had doubled. One couple, Carol and Roderick Johnson, told Hunn they’d been in line since 4:30 a.m.

“This is like history in the making,” Carol Johnson told him.

Hunn asked people who they were voting for.

“Ain’t no McCains out here,” said Mike Wells, 51. “If you find one, let me know.”