Everybody knows something about crime prevention: Don’t leave your iPod on the car seat or your bike on the front walk. Keep your garage locked. Join neighbors in being alert to what’s happening on your block.

Suppressing crime, on the other hand, is much more complicated. But that’s what we expect police to do when crime — especially gun violence — seems to be getting out of control.

The St. Louis Police Department set in motion a crime-suppression initiative directed at gun-related homicides in two sectors of the city’s North Side. It started in mid-July and concluded 39 days later.

Nothing about it was easy, and there’s no guarantee of lasting progress. But there’s reason to believe that it made a difference and restored basic stability for now. It might do more than that, but it’s too early to tell.

Here’s a rough outline:

Within an area of about 100 blocks — roughly from Enright Avenue north to St. Louis Avenue and from Taylor Avenue on the east past Union Boulevard on the west — there were seven gun-related homicides in less than six weeks. During the same period, four homicides involving guns occurred in a 70-block area north of Penrose Park.

The police department’s crime-mapping division charted homicides and other crimes involving firearms, along with reports of “shots fired” and “nuisance property.” Then the department targeted the hot spots with every available resource.

Capt. Eddie Kuntz, commander of the crime-suppression unit, characterized it as the civilian equivalent of an “officer in need of aid” call, the most urgent police dispatch.

Still, resources were hard to muster. Patrol officers — which means most of the department — constantly respond to emergencies and answering calls in districts citywide. Detectives, meanwhile, use a triage system applied district by district and citywide to decide which cases are most urgent. Other officers are assigned to special units focusing on juveniles, sex crimes, narcotics, homicide, internal affairs, transporting prisoners and traffic.

But outside this daily vortex, there’s growing recognition that a critical mass of officers can make communities safer in more lasting ways — if they are given time the time they need to plan, analyze and act.

That’s what happened with the crime-suppression initiative on the North Side, and residents could see it happening because it included concentrating additional numbers of uniformed officers.

Curfews for children were enforced strictly. Inspectors converged on dozens of nuisance properties. Special units teamed up with federal agents to find fugitives and aggressively enforce gun laws. Authorities made 428 arrests and seized 67 firearms. There were three homicides during the 39-day period, a drop from 11 in the previous 39 days. Assaults and robberies fell from 68 to 31.

Maj. Alfred Adkins, who managed the project, acknowledges that although numbers are meaningful, they’re not everything. “Anytime you infuse these kind of resources into a troubled area, the criminal element will adapt,” he said.

For now, Capt. Kuntz seems progress in what he calls “soft measures” such as whether older people are out on their porches and whether parents are allowing young children to play outside more than before.

Lasting success, however, depends on whether the community feels confident enough to help police displace the criminals who inflict the most heartburn and heartache.
The dramatic “neighborhood in need of aid” call improved people’s lives in the short term. The challenge now is for police and people in the communities to sustain it.

(Pictured:  St. Louis Police Officer Mark O’Brien, second from the left, waits in line with the other academy graduates before marching into the auditorium at Harris Stowe State University for the Badge Ceremony in 2006. David Carson/PD)