ST. LOUIS — Video of downtown St. Louis showed fireworks, construction equipment driving down the street and squad cars trying to get it all under control Tuesday night.
The video shows scenes in downtown St. Louis near Market and 10th streets after Tuesday night's fireworks show at the Gateway Arch. The video was shot a little before midnight.
In one of the videos, a person is seen throwing a firework into a portable toilet and closing the door while a second person was recording. After the explosion, sparks are seen coming out of the door.
Another video shows fireworks, which are illegal in the city of St. Louis, being fired into the air near Citygarden Sculpture Park and the AT&T Building.
A short time later, a person was seen joy-riding a scissor lift down Market Street.
The video showed marked St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department vehicles driving slowly down Market Street with their emergency lights and sirens active.
Police said the scissor lift was recovered by the owner at 8th Street and Market. While the owner did not request a police report, police are creating a "Recovered Article" report to document that the incident happened and the machine was recovered by the owner.
Police also shared there was another portable toilet on fire on the 100 block of North Broadway.
Investigators learned there was damage to a nearby building caused by the fire.
There were also two shootings downtown. One was shortly after midnight on 7th Street and Market.
Police say a 28-year-old woman was inside a car with multiple gunshot wounds and they said the victim was unable to provide a statement due to her injuries.
Witnesses inside the car said they were driving westbound on Market Street when they heard gunshots strike their car and then realized the victim had been shot. The victim was transported to the hospital by EMS and listed in critical condition. The investigation is ongoing.
Another woman was injured by gunfire on the 800 block of Market Street around 2:30 a.m. Police say she was standing with friends, watch people light fireworks downtown. Police were clearing the area when gunfire rang out. The woman had a gunshot wound to her forehead. The Bank of America building was damaged in the incident.
Police were investigating, but the shooting victim declined to make a statement to police.
Downtown resident Les Sterman with the group, Citizens for a Greater Downtown St. Louis, said the fireworks and nuisance went on until three in the morning.
"Downtown was taken by groups of young people. Kids were shooting fireworks out of cars, out of buildings, off of rooftops, shooting at each other," Sterman said. "I know the cops are really thin. I think there needs to be more enforcement."
Police acknowledged the problems Wednesday afternoon in its weekly news briefing.
Sgt. Charles Wall explained they had additional detail, which means it's all hands on deck.
"We addressed it the best we could," Wall said. "We tried to move our resources as we saw fit as those issues came up but it was a busy busy 4th of July. Downtown isn't a place to drop your kids off to have a good time unattended."
"I used to always say that if we lose downtown, we'll lose the city and I think the time is nigh, the time is right here for us to collectively understand that," said former St. Louis Mayor Clarence Harmon.
He was the first Black police chief of St. Louis. He reacted to videos shared on social media of the chaos on the night of the Fourth of July.
"If you were the police chief today, what would you be doing a day after that video?" 5 On Your Side asked.
"Well, I'm going to try to find out where were my police officers. Why didn't you see some of them when you saw all of that?" he said.
His concern comes weeks after police released a photo of a separate incident, teens toting guns following a deadly mass shooting downtown. Still, no word of any arrests.
"(It is) a wild west kind of attitude, we'll do what we want to do with their understanding that nobody else is going to do anything about it," Harmon added. "There needs to be a plan publicly broadcast talking about what it is we need to do. We need to have a whole lot of people from the community, (those) in government, in churches, in schools. ... The mayor, police chief, political organizations, churches, fraternal groups," he said.
Across the city, at least five separate shootings occurred in a matter of hours Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. One person was killed, and six others were injured.
In St. Louis' Penrose neighborhood, a 14-year-old boy was struck by a car while playing with fireworks. The car drove away and the boy lay in the street for several minutes before bystanders found him and called police. Responding officers rushed him to the hospital in a squad car because all city ambulances were unavailable at the time.
In a Facebook post earlier in the day, the department posted photos of fireworks seized by officers from the north patrol. The post said the fireworks were being sold illegally at various locations.
"We're at a crossroads in St. Louis. We can decide to change the trajectory of where it is we seem to be going versus what it is we think we can do," Harmon said.
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