ST. LOUIS — Eighteen people shot.
Six of those victims were children.
Of those victims, three adults and three children were killed.
It's another in a long list of violent weekends in St. Louis this summer.
City leaders announced $25,000 rewards for information leading to arrests in each of the three cases involving the children, another idea to solve crimes and curb the violence in St. Louis.
On Sunday, Mike Bush sat down with Mayor Lyda Krewson, St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden and Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards to figure out what city leaders plan to do to fight what seems to be an epidemic of violence.
"It's a difficult problem," Krewson said. "It goes from early childhood education, up through summer jobs for teens, to our education system, to drugs, to domestic disputes, so it's a very broad issue."
And with a broad issue, everyone needs to be on board to find a solution.
Historically, Edwards said, people in the community have been hesitant to trust the police and their neighbors. But he thinks that is changing.
"People are tired," Edwards said, "and people feel like they have an obligation to help in public safety."
Edwards pointed to the quick arrest made in the shooting death of 7-year-old Xavier Usanga as an example of a change in the culture.
But Chief Hayden said they haven't seen the kind of cooperation everywhere, like the Friday night shooting death of an 8-year-old girl at a football event at Soldan High School.
"When you have the incident from Friday night, for example, we know there were a lot of people out there," Hayden said. "But we're not getting a lot of information, we're not getting a lot of feedback from witnesses, so I would say that is the biggest challenge our homicide division faces."
One way leaders hope to increase cooperation with police officer is the Cure Violence program. The project, which Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed has been pushing for more than a year, treats crime like a public health crisis and enlists the help of community members to identify and prevent crimes.
RELATED: St. Louis mayor approves funding for 'Cure Violence' project to treat gun violence as health crisis
Krewson said she has requested the comptroller would use her emergency power to greenlight the project so they can get started right away.
Before becoming the public safety director, Edwards created Innovative Concept Academy, which educates juveniles who have been expelled from public school or are in the juvenile court system. The school has educated hundreds of students from the St. Louis area.
He said education is important, but so is holding criminals accountable. That, he said falls on the police, prosecutor and judges.
"We're sending the wrong messages, the message has to be very clear, that these types of offenses and these types of crimes will not be tolerated in the city of St. Louis," Edwards said.
Edwards said people should be so fed up with the violence that politics should not play a role, but Krewson said it does.
"Two and a half years ago, the state of Missouri changed the law where now, you don't need a permit, you don't need any training, you don't need anything to carry a gun almost anywhere, any time," Krewson said. "And that has really escalated the crime, we believe."
She said that is just one of many factors in this issue, but it is one that needs to be addressed.
Another factor for the city of St. Louis is a shortage of officers. Chief Hayden said the residency requirement is a major part of the issue for a department that has 150 openings for officers.
"We have the most demand for officers, but no other police department in this region has a residency rule," Hayden said, "and our recruiters have told us that's the biggest barrier to inviting people into our department."
Krewson said she issued an executive order to waive the residency requirement for the next 50 officers hired by the department, but changing the rule permanently is not so simple.
The rule is in the city charter, making it harder to change, but they are in the process of making that change.
"Righ now, there is a bill before the Board of Aldermen, we are encouraging, pressing, lobbying the Board of Alderman to put that on the ballot so that the citizens of St. Louis can vote, and we hope will vote, to lift residency for city employees," she said.
While the department is understaffed, Edwards said they are utilizing help from outside departments to help fight crime. The DEA, FBI, and the U.S. Marshall Service to prevent and solve crime in the area.
Hayden said a lot of the homicides in the area are drug-related, overdoses have taken more than 100 lives this year.
"To date, there have been 152 overdose deaths, and so clearly we would attribute a lot of the increase in violent crime to a lot of drug activity in the city right now," Hayden said.
When it comes to fighting this crime, Edwards said it is all about making the community safe, and making the members of the community feel safe.
Watch the full interview below, or click here.