US Attorney General Todd Blanche attends a lunch at the Rose Garden, hosted by US President Donald Trump, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, October 15, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
Attorney General Todd Blanche was repeatedly talked over by a passerby who insisted St. Louis is “pretty safe,” as he argued the heavily Democratic city has a violent crime problem.
The exchange came Monday at a downtown news conference, carried live by LiveNOW from Fox, where Blanche announced that St. Louis has been awarded $68 million through the Justice Department’s Model Cities Initiative.
St. Louis is one of four jurisdictions sharing nearly $300 million under the program, according to the Justice Department.
Blanche measured the city by its murder rate, while the woman measured it by her own walks downtown.
“St. Louis has the second-highest murder rate among large U.S. cities, at almost four times the national average,” Blanche said in his opening remarks.
“I live in California,” the woman said later, during the question-and-answer session. “I feel pretty safe. I’m staying at the hotel. I just happened to come outside.”
“I live here half of the time,” she said. “I always walk downtown, so I’m able to observe what needs to happen and what doesn’t need to happen. … It’s pretty safe, honestly!”
She also complained about police pay and the vacant buildings downtown.
“The city — the police of St. Louis does not make enough money,” she said. “They’re barely at $40,000 to $50,000. … It’s not a Republican or Democratic type of thing here.”
“There’s so many vacant buildings downtown,” she said. “… When I go to other cities, I have something to see. There’s nothing to see.”
Blanche twice tried to answer her and was cut off mid-sentence.
“Well, look — so look, this isn’t —” Blanche began as the woman kept talking.
“So sorry,” he said, trying again. “I don’t know if you have a question, but just to restate what we’ve been saying for the past 20 minutes, OK? There are —”
“Sorry,” Blanche told her as she kept going. “I let you talk, OK? So let me talk, all right?”
“So there are still parts of this city — and the city overall has a violent crime problem, OK?” he said. “A lot of cities in this country do. You’re right.”
“But St. Louis does,” Blanche said after she cut in again. “And so while we have seen great strides … over the past year to see some of these numbers come down, they’re not where they should be. The murder rate is still way too high here.”
“So, other questions?” Blanche then asked.
The city’s mayor did not sign off on the grant Blanche came to deliver.
Mayor Cara Spencer, a Democrat, leads a city that gave Democrat Kamala Harris about 81% of its vote in the 2024 presidential election, according to certified state results.
“Not just the police chief, not just the senator, not just the governor, but the entire city is making a commitment to work with the Department of Justice and invest in law enforcement,” Blanche said in his remarks.
“[I] was really truly floored to learn that the president of the board of police commissioners signed for the mayor,” Spencer told St. Louis Magazine last week. The state-run police board applied for the grant without city officials’ blessing, the magazine reported.
St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy has said the department applied after the federal delegation approached it, and he promised Spencer that the city will be involved as the grant is carried out, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
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