David Carson Photojournalist

Projects and Stories: St. Louis, guns, shootings and crimes

  • A woman leans in to talk with her nephew who was shot in the 1800 block of O'Fallon Street in St. Louis on Friday, Oct. 6, 2017. Two 20-year-old men on foot were shot by a suspect driving a silver Nissan Altima at about 2:40 p.m. Both men were transported to the hospital. One was shot twice in the upper torso and is in critical condition and the other was shot in the leg and is in stable condition. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Destiny Mims, 6, watches as police work the scene of a fatal shooting on North 8th Street in St. Louis on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016. Mims ,who lives a block away from where the shooting happened, was walking home from school with her mother and brother when they stopped to view the scene. As police were investigating the shooting on North 8th Street more gun shots were heard in the distance, to the east near Interstate 70.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Police react to gun fire on West Florissant Avenue near the Ferguson Market on Sunday, March 12, 2017.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.c
  • Toni Martin (center) cries out on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014 as she talks to police at the scene were her son Antonio Martin, 18, was fatally shot Tuesday Dec. 23, 2014 at a Mobil gas station on North Hanley Road in Berkeley. Photo By David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Protester and open carry advocate Dhoruba Shakur stands outside the St. Louis city Justice Center at the end of a rally where about 1,000 people gathered on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017. Protesters raised money to bail people out of jail after police arrested arrested 123 people on Sunday. Protests began on Friday after former police officer Jason Stockley was found innocent in the 2011 fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith. St. Louis City Hall is in the background of the photo. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Dhoruba Shakur (left), and Anna Forder have a discussion at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and Maryland Avenue close to where a St. Louis police sergeant was shot on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. Shakur, a community activists and regular protester, was standing at the intersection with a sign that read {quote}How does it feel??{quote} when Forder approached him and the pair began talking. Forder, a retired St. Louis judge, told Shakur she felt the sign was {quote}taunting{quote}. Shakir said he was holding the sign {quote}So people feel disrespected the way I feel disrespected every day{quote}. Shakur feels that the United States was founded on white supremacy and that it still impacts his life. The pair talked calmly for more than 5 minutes debating issues of race and violence. The conversation ended politely and they parted with an exchange of smiles.{quote}He's a smart young man. He's educated. But I'm very upset about the shooting of the police officer{quote} said Forder who felt the conversation had been positive. Shakur felt differently about the conversation {quote}She was being condescending{quote}.Photo By David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • A man with a drawn gun watches police in his side rear view mirror as he drives slowly away from a line of advancing police trying to clear protesters off of Page Boulevard near the intersection of Walton Avenue on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015.St. Louis Post-Dispatch Photo
  • A motorist pulls his gun and keeps an eye on protesters who broke out the rear window of his minivan along Euclid Avenue in St. Louis on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Moments before the motorist had dangerously driven through a group Ferguson protesters standing in the intersection of Euclid and Maryland Avenue. The protesters chased him down the street and surrounded his vehicle when he became stuck in traffic.
  • Tiffany Spain, 29, covers her daughter Logynn Spain, 4, as she calls out to her other child to run to her for cover as gun shots ring out from a car driving by Sumner High School during a football game between Vashon High School and Gateway STEM High School on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015. The shots were so close that people could smell smoke from the gunpowder. The gunfire scattered fans game but no one at the game was hurt by gun fire. {quote}They're my kids...I'd rather for me to get hit than them{quote} said Spain. After a short interruption, the game started up again. Photo by David Carson, dcaroson@post-dispatch.com
  • Police investigate the scene of a triple homicide on 4500 block of Rosewood Avenue in Pine Lawn on Wednesday, April 26, 2017. The major case squad is investigating the shooting. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Vanita Walker (left) talks with North County Police Cooperative officer Albert Haller as police investigate the scene of a triple homicide on 4500 block of Rosewood Avenue in Pine Lawn on Wednesday, April 26, 2017. {quote}That's my son's car,{quote} said Walker as she pleaded to be let into the crime scene so she could identify her son. Walker tried to calm her and explain to her why she couldn't enter the scene as it was be investigated. {quote}As a human you just feel for her,{quote} said Haller a little later after Walker moved back from the police line.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Toddler Donovan Allen, 2, stands outside his home in the 1100 block of Dillion Street as police investigate a fatal shooting in the 1400 block of Kealty Lane in St. Louis on Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. Donovan's mother, not pictured, was sitting on the front steps of her home to the left watching police investigate the scene. Police tape and evidence markers denoting bullet casings were put up right outside the front steps of the Allens home. It was the third fatal shooting in a month that occurred within 100 yards of Donovan's home. The suspect in the shooting returned to the scene driving a minivan and surrendered to police, who recovered a gun from the vehicle.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Residents watch as police investigate the scene of a fatal shooting in the 1400 block of Kealty Lane in St. Louis on Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. The suspect in the shooting returned to the shooting scene driving a minivan and surrendered to police.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Donna Green and her sons Chris Allen (right), 3, and Donovan Allen, 2, crosses Chouteau Avenue shortly before 5 a.m. in the morning as they head to the bus stop on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Green works at a McDonalds in north St. Louis County and needs to leave her home in St. Louis City before 5 a.m. to catch two buses to drop her children at daycare. She then takes another bus to work.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Thursday September 17, 2009--St. Louis Police Department crime scene technician Tom Burgoon places evidence markers next to all the shell casings that littered the ground near the scene of shooting at Fountain Ave. and N. Eucid Ave on Thursday. The victim was transported to the hospital where he was listed in critical condition.David Carson dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Renee Swink (left) is framed in a bullet hole punched through the front window of Yeatman Market in the 4400 block of Athlone Avenue on Monday, Aug. 3, 2015. The bullet hole is from a shooting that injured three people at about 11:30 a.m. One man suffered a gun shot wound to the leg, another man was hit in his ankle and arm and a third victim sustained a graze wound to his arm. All three victims are expected to survive. The shots were fired from a car at a man who was walking in front of the market. {quote}It's shocking{quote} said Swink whose daughter lives in an apartment above the store. Stray bullets also shattered the store's front glass doors, damaged some wood work and a soda machine. Also pictured is Mustafa Hamed (right) who was helping sweep up the broken glass.Photo By David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Fourth grader James McClain, 9, watches as Illinois State Police troopers Grant Hentze (center) and James Randolph gather evidence from a long blood trail that stretched through the Ernest Smith housing complex in Centreville after three people were shot early Friday, Sept. 13, 2013. McClain has his arms tucked in his shirt to keep warm in the chill of the morning air.Photo By David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
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  • J'volte Jones, 8, holds up a cellphone to record video of St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson (left) as Dotson takes questions from the community after briefing the press about an incident where two St. Louis police officers shoot a 14 year-old boy in the 5000 block of Beacon Avenue in St. Louis on Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016. {quote}This shouldn't be their normal{quote} said J'vonte's mother Crystal Brown (not pictured). Dotson says the 14 year-old fired one shot at police who were chasing him, the police returned fire an unknown number of times hitting the boy.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • A Missouri State Trooper searches for suspects wanted in connection with a homicide in an area off of Golden Oak Drive in Fenton on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2017.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Thursday December 31, 2009--Byron Blassingame Jr., left, and Darrion Bassingame Jr., right, are comforted by their grandmother Jacqueline Heard, center, as the names of the 145 murder victims from the city of St. Louis are read aloud during the 18th Annual Families Advocating Safe Streets candle light service to remember 2009's murder victims at El Bethel Church of God in Christ on Thursday in St. Louis. Heard's son Byron Blassingame Sr. was shot and killed along with two other men in the same SUV as they were waiting at stop light near Union Station on May 8, 2009. Byron Jr. was Byron Blassingame Sr.'s son and Darrion Blassingame Jr. was his nephew.David Carson dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Shenelle Burgess (center) releases balloons with her family and friends at the grave of her son Pierre Childs at New Bethlehem Cemetery on Wednesday, March 5, 2014. Police believe that Childs,16, was the unintended victim of a shooting on May, 7, 2013. The family of Childs has been helped through the grieving and police investigation process by a minister assigned to the family by the police department. The family gathered to release balloons to mark what would have been Childs' 17th birthday. To date no one has been charged with Childs' murder.Photo By David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • At least 14 bullet hole are visible on the driver's side of the car in a gas station parking lot at Natural Bridge Avenue and Union Boulevard where a man who was shot in the back drove to on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. Police say the shooting occurred near Palm Street and Geraldine Avenue around 3 p.m. The man was conscious and breathing when he was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Another passenger in the car was unhurt by the gunfire. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Tuesday March 1, 2011--Grave digger Adam Osborne, 24, center, and other workers from Lake Charles Park Cemetery lower 16 year-old Jade Hamilton's coffin into her grave after her funeral. Hamilton had been sitting in a car at Mount Pleasant Park when three young men approached the car and began shooting, striking her in the neck, police said. David Carson dcarson@post-dispatch.com
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  • St. Louis Acting Police Chief Lawrence O'Toole (left) has a crime scene technician display the AK rifle used by a suspect who fired at police as he gives a press conference at police headquarters in St. Louis on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017. Police fired at and wounded the suspect at the scene in the 5900 block of Page Boulevard.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • A gun seen before (left) and after being run through the Gunbusters gun pulverizing machine at the company's headquarters in Chesterfield on Wednesday, May 31, 2017.Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • Blue balloons rise into the sky above Gilson Brown Elementary School in Godfrey on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016 during emotional ceremony in memory of Romell Jones, a former student at the school. Romell, 11, was killed by a stray bullet fired from a passing car as he was waiting at the Alton Acres public housing complex for his basketball coach to pick him up for practice. All the students at the school gathered on the playground for a brief ceremony where Romell's fifth grade classmates released balloons in his memory and presented a few gifts to Romell's family who attended the event. Photo By David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
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