Yahoo

ST. LOUIS  •  The cameras are perched on light poles throughout the city, trained on alleys that cut through stretches of town long forgotten and filled with piles of trash. In the Baden neighborhood, on the city's northern border, three of the 100 cameras are mounted in a one-block area just off North Broadway, a dumping ground so popular that a few days after city workers pick up truckloads of garbage, tires, drywall, mattresses and tree limbs, the area looks like the crews were never there. The eyes in the sky are part of a full-throttle effort by the city to clean up a mess that has been decades in the making. A trash fee hike approved by the Board of Aldermen last year paid for the cameras, and also is funding new trash trucks and overtime for police officers to go after the culprits causing the messes.

"It was the craziest thing I've ever seen"