East St. Louis, or as we describe it to out-of-town friends “…I know it sounds like part of this city, but it’s not. Totally different city.”, instituted a new curfew recently and it’s already paying dividends after four kids were arrested violating the curfew while trying to break in to a home.

Parks says the officer who caught them was out looking for minors breaking curfew.

The curfew was put in place earlier in the week after a wave of violence in the city including the shooting deaths of three young men last weekend.

The curfew was put in to place because of a “wave of violence”…that apparently everyone over there just now noticed? Can some one that works over in the East St. Louis mayor’s office describe to us the moment that Mayor Alvin Parks looked up and said “It’s ridiculous! …that’s the answer to 34 down ‘Absurd, as in how you would describe anyone’s decision to live in East St. Louis’. Finally! Also it says here next to the crossword puzzle that crime is getting to be a problem. Who’s up for a curfew?!”

It’s great that the curfew is already leading to arrests, but you’d think there’d be even more since the curfew starts at 10 pm and goes until 9:30 pm the next day, giving the residents of East St. Louis a quick 30 minutes to run out and steal some groceries. That seems rough, but it’s the only curfew time that made sense considering it’s never a safe time to go out in East St. Louis. Sunday nights are the worst though because if you have to go out at 9:30, you’ll miss the end of The Mentalist. You’ll just never know if this is the week he doesn’t figure out who the murderer was at the end, and then say something funny to lighten the mood and make his gruff partner roll her eyes and be all like “This guy! …I’m tough, but he manages to crack my hard exterior with his quips, fine detective work, and that great head of hair.”

via KMOV