St. Paul may be ailing, but the city has sharply reduced gun violence

Saint Paul is a mess these days. 

Hannibal Buress once joked about St. Paul at a Turf Club show by saying, “fraternal twins,” i.e., there’s Minneapolis and then its runtier, sleepier, duller twin. 

We’ve lost our only grocery store downtown, which is looking like a modern day Dickens novel since the pandemic. Most of the downtown real estate is owned by a zombie outfit called Madison Equities, whose neglect of its own buildings has eroded downtown property values. 

A failed rent control policy hamstrung development that might have increased housing options and bring more life — and taxpayers — to the city. Our dysfunctional city government — featuring a council that struggles to make it to their own meetings — had to declare an emergency just to get the trash picked up. 

No doubt you’ve driven the roads of our glittering state capital, so you know what that’s like. 

We also have the highest sales tax in the state and among the highest property taxes. 

But you know what we don’t have much of anymore? Shootings. 

We’ve had just two homicides this year, compared to eight last year at this time, and neither from gunfire. 

The Pioneer Press’ Mara Gottfried has been covering this remarkable story. 

One key to this success is that St. Paul police are solving non-fatal shootings. 

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry credits Mayor Melvin Carter — whose father was among St. Paul’s first Black police officers — with asking this question: 

“How is it that the clearance rate for murders — when ‘your best witness is dead’ — is so much better than cases where there is a surviving witness?”

This question has bothered me for more than a decade, when I wrote about a different police department’s lackadaisical attitude toward non-fatal shootings.

More recently, Reformer reporters tracked the problem in 2021 in Minnesota and particularly Minneapolis, with this headline: “If you shoot someone, you’ll probably get away with it.” 

Think about it: The perpetrator of a non-fatal shooting is a wannabe murderer who is a bad shot, so why are we allowing so many of them — 90% in some communities — to roam free, especially when shootings often set off multiple rounds of violent retribution? 

Carter also delivered resources, which allowed SPPD to devote nine officers to investigating non-fatal shootings. 

What do you know: The clearance rate on non-fatals shot up, from 27% to 71% between 2022 and 2024, Gottfried reports. And as the risk of getting caught has gone up, the shootings have declined: As of early April, eight people had beeen injured in shootings, compared to 26 at the same time last year.  

Once you take the failed murderers off the street, you see a sharp reduction in murders. 

The city also created the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Project PEACE, which they credit with employing what we might call soft power to dissuade specific at-risk young people from going down the wrong path.   

Collective safety is the first responsibility of government, and St. Paul is making progress on this front. (Minneapolis has also made strides.) 

Consider how this reduction in violence will change lives, families, entire neighborhoods. 

Imagine what it’s like to go to bed without hearing gunshots, or living without the fear that your kids will catch a stray bullet or get caught up in a cycle of retributive violence. 

This governing success has other important implications. 

Some people will always believe crime hysteria, but many fair-minded Minnesotans will happily visit the cities or even move here if they know it’s safe. 

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is dominant in the cities, which means that urban governance plays an outsized role in how the party is perceived everywhere else. If the cities are plagued by gunfire, the DFL will own it, and it will drag down the brand, such as it is. 

Although the Minnesota DFL held their urban margins in 2024, Democrats in other major cities across the country lost ground in the face of urban disorder, including among Black and immigrant voters. 

If the cities can reduce gun violence, however, undecided Minnesotans may find new confidence in the DFL’s ability to solve problems. 

This is why it’s so important for local and state elected officials to prioritize tangible problems that can be solved with proven, local solutions. 

A counterexample: St. Paul could spend a billion dollars and have no measurable impact on climate change. 

But we can make the city safer and more vibrant. 

So, congrats, St. Paul. 

Let’s start a bonfire in the parking lot of the abandoned CVS on Snelling and have a party.