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Teen injured, officers use pepper spray after juveniles descend on downtown St. Louis apartment complex

A 15-year-old girl had to be taken to the hospital after cutting her leg while trying to break a window to the CityView Apartments.

ST. LOUIS — Swinging at a police officer.

Trying to break a window with an electric scooter, and lacerating a leg in the process that required a trip to the hospital.

Gesturing to police officers and residents as if they were armed.

Pulling a resident’s wig off.

Running the hallways, pulling fire alarms and running on the rooftop.

Police and residents say it all happened after a group of about 30 teens got into the CityView Apartments early Sunday in the 1600 block of Pine Street.

It’s just the latest incident involving a group of teens wreaking havoc in downtown St. Louis in recent weeks.

Police used pepper spray while attempting to arrest a girl who tried to hit the officer, police said. Officers were unable to arrest her, and after that, the crowd scattered.

The 15-year-old girl who cut her leg was released to her father at the hospital, according to police.

While officers were at the complex, they also saw a man walk out of the building with a shotgun to let his dog out, saying he didn’t feel safe doing so unarmed.

Andrew Underwood lives at the complex.

“They say St. Louis is like the crime capital of the world, and I didn’t believe it until I got here,” he said.

The problem has been brewing for weeks, as residents have taken videos with their cellphones showing large groups of juveniles running through downtown streets while gunshots can be heard in the background.

The issue has prompted Mayor Tishaura Jones’ Office to work with electric scooter companies to impose curfews on their products in an effort to crack down on how juveniles are traveling.

On weeknights, scooters in the Downtown and Downtown West neighborhoods shut off by 8 p.m., and by 7 p.m. on weekends, according to the mayor’s office.

However, people can still ride scooters into the downtown neighborhoods if they start the ride outside the curfew boundaries. They just can’t start a new ride once inside the curfew boundaries, or use any of the scooters already inside the curfew boundaries, according to the mayor’s office.

The I-Team emailed the Lime and Bird scooter companies. Bird has not responded. Lime responded with a statement, which read: 

"We take city regulations seriously and we are working hand in hand with our government and community partners to try and improve the e-scooter sharing experience for riders and non-riders alike. We have instituted a curfew that will keep our e-scooters inactive at night and we continue to have a strict, effective, hi-tech ID scan requirement to activate an account with us. This ID scan feature prevents underage riding before it happens so any issues on Lime vehicles should improve very quickly. We will continue working with the city to implement solutions that work for all of us."

Some juveniles have told officers their parents are dropping them off in Forest Park, where they are getting onto scooters and riding them into downtown, according to police sources.

Sunday’s chaos at the CityView Apartments began at midnight.

Underwood said he saw one man pull out a gun inside the lobby while he was getting off the elevator.

He said teens have caused problems at the building before, and the fire alarms go off frequently.

“I probably should pay more attention and leave the building when they're pulled, but because they have been pulled so frequently recently, I just choose to ignore them,” he said.

A board now covers the window the teenage girl tried to break.

“They'll do things like, you know, hit people in the elevator or, you know, smash people's cars and things like that,” Underwood said. 

St. Louis Police Maj. Renee Kreismann talked about the incident during Tuesday’s weekly downtown crime update via Zoom.

“We again remind parents, do not leave your children unsupervised in downtown St Louis,” she said. “It's not safe for unsupervised youth to be roaming the streets and this kind of nuisance behavior diverts officers from addressing crime in the rest of the city.”

Residents like Underwood asked police who responded Sunday for the police report number so they could use it to break their leases and leave downtown, according to police sources familiar with the investigation.

Underwood said he’s glad he only signed a six-month lease, and hopes to move closer to a federal building that is well monitored.

“It really just reaffirmed to me that I'm making the right choice by moving somewhere that is closer to a federal building,” he said.

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