City residents work to decrease gun violence as we ring in the New Year

By Jenna Rae

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    ST. LOUIS, Missouri (KMOV) — In just three days we’ll be ringing in 2023. While everyone has different ideas of celebrations, some city residents are asking you to avoid using your firearm in them.

Neighborhood associations across the city are trying to end shooting guns as a way of celebrating the New Year.

“If bullets aren’t falling, I’m not getting hurt, and I don’t want my neighbors to get hurt either,” Lane Foreman said.

Foreman’s lived in the Tower Grove East neighborhood for nearly two decades.

“New Years and Fourth of July are always very, very noisy,” Foreman said.

Foreman said he’s not concerned about parties, he’s referring to folks shooting guns and sending bullets flying into the air while ringing in the New Year.

“This spring I went up to my own roof and patched a bullet hole. I didn’t know it was there. I was just doing a spring check and I was like ‘oh my God’. What if that bullet had dropped on me, on my neighbor, on my dog?” Foreman asked.

So now, neighbors are taking matters into their own hands.

“We’re gonna put this on the door hanger, it says don’t shoot and talks about what you can do if you hear gunshots,” Danielle Langeneckert said.

Langeneckert also lives in the Tower Grove East neighborhood. She said they saw Shaw residents doing this for years, who saw a decline in shootings. Tower Grove East then followed suit last year.

“It did make a difference,” Foreman said.

Foreman said New Years’ Eve shootings in their neighborhood declined by more than 10%. Now, residents are spreading the positive message city-wide.

“We want that awareness out there. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. We wanna stop things before they happen, reduce the utilization of guns in the area,” Langeneckert explained.

This year Shaw, Botanical Heights, Tower Grove, Tower Grove East, Gravois Park, Dutchtown and Tower Grove Heights neighbors plan to hand out 10,000 door hangers. All in an effort to make their community a little safer in 2023.

“I can’t live with myself without trying to make the neighborhood better,” Foreman added.

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