By Jim Salter, The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) - City officials Thursday acknowledged 2003 crime figures were way off. What looked like a drop in crime to historic lows turned out to be a 4 percent rise.
It was an “honest mistake,” Police Chief Joe Mokwa said at a news conference, blaming the error on a change in the way reports are filed. He said he learned of the mistake in June, but didn’t tell Mayor Francis Slay until Tuesday.
“I wish I would have yelled from the rooftops that this was happening,” Mokwa said. “But I didn’t want to diminish what was happening in 2004.”
Crime is down sharply this year in all major areas - except murder, officials said. And while 100 murders have been committed so far compared with 74 all of last year, it’s still on pace to be the second-lowest total in four decades.
“St. Louis is a safer place than it was three years ago,” Slay said. “It is a safer place than it was last year.”
The crime figures released in the spring were widely reported as an indication of St. Louis’ resurgence: Car thefts were up, murders hit a 41-year low, robberies were down 18 percent, assaults were down 13 percent.
Police officials later realized they had failed to count 5,760 crimes; the number of murders cited in the original report was off by only one.
The department corrected the figures in its report to the FBI in July, but made no effort to publicize the changes.
“I do wish we had made this public before, but it does not erase the fact that this department and this city are making progress,” Slay said.