ST. LOUIS â On the last day of 2020, St. Louis leaders read 262 names aloud from a church podium â each name representing a person killed in the city over the previous 12 months. Their deaths brought the cityâs homicide rate to a level 30% higher than any of the past 50 years, records show.
â2020 has been a very difficult year on so many different levels,â St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said at the 29th annual New Yearâs Eve vigil for homicide victims. âBut weâre all here today because we are hurting from the violence in our community. We are hurting from the trauma it causes.â
One in an occasional series about Philadelphia’s unchecked gun violence. Every trip outside the house for Jackee Nichols brings a new reminder of the pain. Nichols is from a part of South Philadelphia that has been embroiled in a shooting conflict for as long as anyone can remember. In October 2018, that violence claimed her 15-year-old grandson. Police believe he was gunned down for living on the wrong block but, like most shootings in Philadelphia, no one has been charged in the crime. Now Nichols faces the daily torment of living among the people she suspects killed her grandson, Rasul Benson, leaving trauma to resurface in unexpected moments.