ST.  LOUIS • As of Friday afternoon, St. Louis police unofficially reported a total of 114 homicide victims in 2011, which stands to be a 20 percent drop from 2010.

But the count wasn't anywhere close enough to call off the candlelight vigil held each New Year's Eve to commemorate victims of violence in the region.

"In an ideal world, this vigil would not be necessary, but here we are," Mayor Francis Slay told a crowd of about 100 mourners, officials and preachers gathered Saturday at Williams Temple Church of God in Christ in the 1500 block of Union Boulevard.

Slay called on residents and family members to teach young people "the value of life."

"We must all cooperate to achieve a peaceful society," he said. "This cannot just be a Police Department problem or a city problem. It's a problem shared by all of us."

Most of the homicide victims were young African-American men killed during shootings.

James Clark of Better Family Life, a nonprofit job training and social services provider, told the group that black-on-black violence has become "too serious for words" and that action is needed.

"We cannot talk or rally our way out of this one," he said. "Last time around it was us versus them. This time it's us versus us. … It's time to put down the pistols."

Jeanette Culpepper started the vigil in 1991, after her son Curtis Johnson, 22, was shot in the back. She said his unsolved killing was only briefly mentioned on the news.

"There are many others that are the same way," she said.

So each New Year's Eve, she and others with Families Advocating Safe Streets, the anti-crime group she founded, gather and listen to the names of the year's victims being read aloud.

Lorna Alexander, a friend of Culpepper's, has often come to the ceremony to support her and the other families. But in February, Alexander's nephew, Tommy Smooths Jr., 23, was fatally stabbed during a quarrel.

"I've attended the service in years past, but now it's more real because it's my nephew," she said.