While Mardi Gras was quite a success for the city, tucked away in the parts of town the tourists and revelers rarely see the continuing cycle of violence continued unabated. Last Thursday night 3 boys (14,16, and 19) were shot in Bywater. The two younger ones were dead at the scene and the third is still hanging on by a thread. In Mid-City, someone opened fire at a club hitting 6 people, 1 of them died over the weekend in the hospital. The weekend was relatively quiet except for an 8-year old boy getting shot in the leg while in the car with his mother, and then Fat Tuesday brought the beginning of another round. A young man was found shot to death under the I-10 along one of the parade routes frequented by people from some of the poorer black neighborhoods. In East N.O. a man was shot twice in the head and died in the middle of the street. Two men previously from New Orleans, but now living in Baton Rouge were shot in their car on Canal St. A man was stabbed to death in the Garden District after trying to set someone’s car on fire. Another man was shot to death in Gert Town.
It really starts to wear on people living here. At a parade on Saturday, some ass lit off fireworks and everyone in the crowd visibly winced, ducked down, and started looking around. After we all realized what it was, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but we all knew what each other were thinking. When you walk along the city streets to the parades you find yourself watching any young black man you see that is obviously a local and just as obviously, not in his usual neighborhood. For a long time people here have relied on the fact that murders occur somewhere else, but not in your neighborhood. With crime occurring at the current rate, how long can this hold true? When 8 people die in half as many days, simple statistics are all you really need to see that it’s just a matter of time before the whole city is overrun. Everyone here has a story of being held-up at gunpoint, or their house broken into, or hearing gunshots in the night. Something has to be done.
The city promised to crack down on this. The FBI and DEA have added people here and Alberto Gonzalez promised to add a significant amount of money to help, including a new crime lab. I hope it’s enough but so far I can’t see how a thing has changed. The police are overstretched and half of them can’t be bothered to give you the time of day even if you’ve been robbed. The DA’s office is absolutely horrific- last year they had a 7% conviction rate. The thugs here know that even if the police get off their butts, the chances of them spending more than 90 days in jail is slim to none (in Louisiana, charges have to be filed in 90 days or the defendant walks- the DA failed to meet this deadline over 600 times last year). ‘Misdemeanor murder’ is what it’s called here. Only 1 of 162 murder arrests led to a conviction last year.
Anyway, I don’t know what really can be done. Staying informed can’t hurt though, and to that end here are three sites that do an excellent job of portraying this from the view of us living here:
b.rox.com
nolafugees.com
neworleans.metblogs.com
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