By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – New FBI statistics once again show St. Louis is worst in the nation for major crimes per resident, at least in 2006.
But city police say they're seeing a dramatic improvement so far this year.
The Post-Dispatch reports that every month in 2007 has shown a big drop in crime from the previous year. And August was the safest it has been since 1990.
Police credit an undercover unit formed this year to fight street crime and target specific repeat offenders.
Mayor Francis Slay's office is making its own push to argue that numbers can be fudged to make any data look good or bad - officials note crime numbers look low when using data from the entire St. Louis region, not just the City.
Last year, the city took a public relations hit when a survey ranked St. Louis as the most dangerous city in the nation.