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ST. LOUIS – The warmer temperatures have come with more violence on St. Louis streets. Now, a St. Louis Alderman is calling for the National Guard.

“I’m trying to do the best I can to save my people from getting shot, to save these children from getting shot. Do you know how many kids get to come out here and play? You can go to all of our parks right now and you’ll probably see just a few kids because their parents are not going to let them outside,” says St. Louis Alderman Brandon Bosley.

He wants to bring in the Missouri National Guard before we have another violent summer. But some community leaders do not think that’s the best way to combat this bloodshed.

“Nobody’s going to come out and shoot, and your kids are not coming to the park when there’s a tank in the park either. When we start putting tanks in the park we’re going to get more innocent killings,” says Pastor Clinton Stancil.

Bosley says the police and the community need help to show that this violence won’t be tolerated.

“This isn’t about the military coming in to fight the black folks. This is about the military coming in to assist us within our neighborhood against those individuals that are murdering us,” says Bosley.

“Policing is not fair in our community. We have seen that and so when you begin to put troops on the street you are also going to get inequity on the street which is a problem,” says Stancil.

Instead, Pastor Stancil along with other churches and Better Family Life are going to start a program called Grill to Glory.

“What if every block you walk down churches on the corner were out grilling, telling people not only about the love of Christ but showing them the love of Christ, showing them the many resources that are available to them,” he says.

Bosley says, “The churches meet every Sunday. When is the barbecue realistically going to stop someone from getting shot?”

But with at least four shootings in the last 24 hours, Bosley thinks it’s going to take something more drastic to stop the summer spike.

“At least we can save some lives this summer and at the end of the summer, I can say my ward was safe. We probably didn’t like that we had military personnel at our parks, we probably didn’t like a tank at the gas station or tank at the firehouse, but nobody got shot,” he says.

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