Seen on Saturday

Seen on Saturday

...after the big St Patrick's Day Parade downtown, about 4 pm, at 16th and Market Streets downtown:

Three police officers were riding on an official-looking golf cart. Two rode on the back; another drove.

The driver -- who appeared to be considerably older than his passengers -- was zipping across the street and onto the sidewalk via curb-cuts. His task: picking up and stacking traffic cones.

It was a pretty hilarious sight -- kind of like Shriners, but with guns and badges.

;-)

On a tangentially related note, I wonder why the super-slow "Safe City" web site online crime mapping service still does not reflect the adjusted district boundaries from a couple years back? I guess once the contractor got paid, no changes were made to the system.

Nevertheless, it's quite confusing that when you do an Advanced Search by district, you still get the old boundaries for districts 3, 4, and 9. But in the underlying data, the updated boundaries are accurately reflected.

In case you hadn't noticed, back in 2003 (I think), the infamous 3rd District was cut down a bit in geography, with the northern boundary moving south from Chouteau to I-44.

As a result, the 9th district picked up Forest Park Southeast, McRee Town, Tiffany, and the Gate District.

The downtown 4th district picked up Lafayette Square, Clinton-Peabody, and LaSalle Park.

Soulard and Kosciusko industrial area stayed within the 3rd district, so I guess the actual new boundary between the 3rd and 4th districts extends northeast via I-55 to Chouteau, and then returns to Chouteau from I-55 to the riverbank.

The 4th district - where the post-parade golf cart was patrolling - has been fortunate enough to have only had one murder in the past four months. That was the incredibly tragic vehicular manslaughter of Kitty Davis at Tucker and Park on the evening of November 29, 2005.

Downtown really is a safe place!