195 homicides reported in St. Louis, surpassing all of 2019

ST. LOUIS – The shooting death of a woman in St. Louis marks the city’s 195th homicide this year, topping the 194 killings in all of 2019.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 24-year-old woman was killed Thursday night in the city’s Benton Park West neighbourhood.

Police responded to a shooting call and found the victim shot in the head, unconscious and not breathing. No further details have been released.

St. Louis has seen a huge spike in shootings, both fatal and non-fatal, since June, despite numerous efforts to curb the violence.

St. Louis is among a handful of cities where federal agents were sent this summer to help fight gun violence, part of a program called Operation LeGend, named after a 4-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, boy who was shot and killed while sleeping in his father’s apartment on June 29.

The federal task force had made more than 1,000 arrests in cities where it has been deployed since early July, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said last month.

The task force has sent more than 1,000 agents from several federal law enforcement agencies to cities that have high crime rates.