Family mourns "fun loving kid" Alex Becker, the record 40th homicide victim in St. Paul this year
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Police in St. Paul remain on the lookout for the person or people who killed a 22-year-old man in St. Paul's North End neighborhood earlier this week, the city's 40th homicide this year.
According to investigators, Alex Becker died from gunshot-related injuries on the 500 block of Lawson Avenue West. Alex's family told WCCO that he was on his way home from work.
"He was the greatest kid," Tim Becker, Alex's father, said. "He worked hard, he loved video games. He was still trying to figure out his life and go to school after this."
Tim said he and his son worked together at a plumbing supply warehouse. Alex worked the evening shift and decided to walk home because of the warmer weather.
"He always came to work, and it was a tough job lifting steel pipes all day long, putting it on trucks," he said. "At work it made the day go faster being together."
Cheyenne Becker, Alex's younger sister, considered her older brother her best friend.
"He was just very nice and very open minded to everything," she said. "I'll keep his memory alive. I'm not sure how yet but I think I'll figure it out."
City officials "optimistic" despite homicide record
As tragic and unexpected as Alex's death, detectives say the investigation indicates the circumstances are more the exception and not the rule, as the vast majority of homicides are not random.
The city this year, moreover, launched a new Office of Neighborhood Safety to further engage communities on fighting and reducing violent crime.
"A lot of hope is what I've seen in the last year, but also knowing that there's a lot of work ahead and still issues to address," Brooke Blakey, the office's director, told CBS News Minnesota. "I would evaluate the last year as a year of growth, change and learning new realities."
Among Blakey's new initiatives is Project PEACE and the ASPIRE program, which promotes "prevention, environmental design, accountability, community action, and enforcement" as key tools in empowering residents to report about the presence of guns in their neighborhoods and communities.
"It's the community really saying 'We don't want this here,'" Blakey said. "They're calling, they're saying we don't want this in our community, but we want our person. We want to wrap that person around with support. We're not going to get out of this by putting more people in jail."
Data provided by SPPD shows the interventions appear to be working, as the number of aggravated assaults in 2022 are down 9.8% compared to 2021. Reports of shots fired, meanwhile, have been cut in half since July, when Blakey's office rolled out the programs.
