Violence in city rages on as NOPD grapples with manpower shortage

28th July 2014   ·   0 Comments

Nine people are recovering from gunshot wounds in New Orleans over the third weekend of July, FOX 8 News reported last week.

The violent spree began July 19 in eastern New Orleans and continued through July 20, culminating with a brazen shooting on a crowded South Carrollton Avenue in broad daylight.

Police said someone opened fire just after noon near Olive Street, injuring a 26-year-old man.

Earlier on July 20, two other people were shot; one on Bunker Hill, the other on Frenchmen Street.

The recent wave of violence comes almost two months after nearly 20 people were injured by gun violence over Memorial Day Weekend in New Orleans.

It also comes just months after the NOPD reported that murders were down in the city during the first three months of 2014 but violent crimes like assaults and armed robberies are on the rise.

Concerns about slow responses to 911 calls and instances in which the police never showed up to assist victims of crimes, including a woman who was being sexually assaulted uptown and another woman who reported a home invasion in her Lakeview home earlier this year — prompted the New Orleans City Council to relax the city’s residency rule in order to allow for the hiring and recruitment of cops, firefighters and EMS workers who live outside of Orleans Parish.

While that has paved the way for the NOPD to launch its first class of recruits this spring, it has not led to an avalanche of applicants interested in joining the embattled police department. Nor has it eased residents’ concerns about the rise in violent crime.

“People are going to be very afraid by the end of the summer if this keeps up,” Tulane University criminologist Dr. Peter Scharf told FOX 8.

FOX 8 News reported that on July 19 six people were injured by bullets, including a 17-year-old. Scharf said that while summertime heat is often blamed for spikes in violence, he’s got another theory.

“It’s not really the hot weather, it’s that you have opportunities for open air drug dealing and to assassinate your enemies,” Scharf said.

While the city’s murder rate has dropped, Scharf said non-fatal shootings still get major media attention and lead people to compare New Orleans to other cities struggling to get a handle on violent crime. He told FOX 8 that those comparisons don’t accurately reflect what’s going on in the Crescent City.

“People say ‘Don’t go to Chicago — they’ve had 47 shootings in a weekend.’ Chicago is two and a half million people, we’re 380,000 on the good days and if you multiply it, we’re about double the Chicago rate of shootings,” Scharf explained.

Scharf and NOPD Supt. Ronal Serpas agree that a big part of the problem is the criminal justice system’s revolving door, the failure of prosecutors and judges to keep violent criminals off the streets of New Orleans.

“In New Orleans, someone arrested for illegally possessing a firearm or using a firearm, within 12 months of that arrest without incarceration, is three times more likely to be re-arrested for murder, manslaughter, and five times more likely to commit a violent crime,” Serpas told FOX 8.

While fixing the criminal justice system isn’t something that can happen overnight, Scharf thinks hiring more police officers is something that can be done now to help deter crime. He says weekends with nine people wounded in separate shootings is simply unacceptable.

“What they don’t get is that this simply isn’t about revolving doors, summer heat or the number of cops on the street,” the Rev. Raymond Brown, a community activist and president of National Action Now, told The Louisiana Weekly. “Violence of the language of the oppressed and the city of New Orleans is filled with thousands of people whose life chances have been controlled by the public school system, local politics and the business community for decades. people are struggling to survive and the violence you see every day is a manifestation of the anger, dissatisfaction and frustration the Black masses in this city have with the status quo.

“They see those with the right social and political connections getting ahead while they continue to fall further and further behind,” added Brown, who is a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Bourbon St. shooting suspect Trung Le made his first appearance in court.

A newly hired lawyer for Le, 20, said he believes video footage will clear his client of the June 29 French Quarter shooting which claimed the life of Brittany Thomas, 21, and wounded nine others.

The shooting captured national headlines and prompted Mayor Mitch Landrieu to ask President Barack Obama and Louisiana Governor Piyush Jindal for help fighting violent crime in New Orleans.

After being extradited from Mississippi, Trung Le remains in jail without bond on one count of first-degree murder and faces attempted first-degree murder charges in the wounding of nine others.

Police have said they believe Trung Le fired the first shot in the early-morning shootout that led to widespread panic on Bourbon Street. Six of the victims shot in the incident, including Brittany Thomas, were tourists.

In a hearing Wednesday, de­fense lawyer Martin Regan lost a bid for broad authority to subpoena security video from French Quarter bar owners.

“The video recordings that were made will clear him,” Regan said in court.

But, Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell denied the request, saying that it was premature in the case of Le, who has been arrested and booked but not yet formally indicted by a grand jury.

Regan denied that his client was one of the shooters involved in the incident, telling reporters after the hearing that there is evidence “of an alibi nature,” but he did not provide additional details.

NOPD investigators have reviewing video from Bourbon Street and surrounding areas in the French Quarter in what they have described as a painstaking effort to find those responsible for the gunfire, The Associated Press reported.

Regan said he needs subpoenas for his independent effort to gather and preserve video evidence because bar owners will otherwise be reluctant to turn it over to him, for fear of upsetting police. “Many owners of these cameras don’t want to get involved,” Regan said.

Assistant Orleans Parish District Attorney Laura Rodrigue said Regan was on a fishing expedition, seeking evidence that he could use selectively to help his client. She noted that the defense will be entitled to see prosecution evidence before a trial.

Le was arrested July 4 in south Mississippi and had refused to waive extradition from Gulfport. He was brought back to New Orleans after Louisiana Gov. Piyush Jindal signed a document seeking his return.

Since the shooting, additional state troopers are being used to provide additional security in the French Quarter and lighten the load for NOPD officers, who have witnessed the departure of at least 73 cops thus far in 2014.

The suspect was initially assigned a public defender but Regan said he and attorney Adam Beckman were hired by Le’s family to represent him. The state troopers will continue to provide additional protection to visitors to the French Quarter through Labor Day.

Attorneys for Le were seeking to expedite the case late last meet and were scheduled to go to court Friday.

Police are still looking for a second suspect, who is believed to be African-American.

With fewer than 1,200 officers now, the department has launched a recruiting effort to hire 150 new officers.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the City of New Orleans needs 1,500 officers to keep the city safe. With only one recruitment class of 27 appliance currently training in the police academy, and three recruits waiting for the next class of recruits to begin their nine-month training, the NOPD is currently losing officers faster than it can replace them.

NOPD leaders estimated that the department is on pace to lose 150 officers this year.

Two recent reports, one by the city’s Office of Inspector General and the other by the Metropolitan Crime Commission, suggested that the NOPD could make better use of its available officers by hiring civilian workers to perform office duties currently being handled by officers. That would free up more officers to patrol the streets of New Orleans.

NOPD Supt. Ronal Serpas has taken heed, recently announcing that he has hired 22 civilian employees to perform various office tasks previously being handled by officers.

While IG Ed Quatrevaux said he does not believe the NOPD has a severe manpower shortage, Metropolitan Crime Commission executive director Rafael Goyeneche disagreed, saying that the current dip below 1,200 officers (1,139) represents a 30-year low for the department.

French Quarter and Faubourg Tremé residents gathered at a Wednesday town hall meeting to share their concerns about crime with City Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey and Serpas, WWL-TV reported.

“You hear about it almost every week that somebody has been mugged,” a longtime French Quarter homeowner said.

“In truth there’s been a real epidemic of crime that ranges from petty crime, thefts, to a lot of violent crime,” Meg Lousteau, executive director of Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents, and Associates, said.

Some of those who attended Wednesday’s meeting at St. Jude Community Center wore blue and carried signs demanding better compensation and working conditions for police officers as a solution to prevent more cops from leaving the NOPD.

“When you have boots on the ground, crime goes down. We need more police officer,” Faubourg Marigny resident and Cops 8 volunteer Ken Caron said.

Not surprisingly, the police district in the CBD has seen its fair share of “blur hemorrhaging.”

Serpas said the NOPD’s 8th District, which includes the French Quarter, has gone from more than 160 officers to less than 100 officers in the last three years, a 30 percent drop.

Residents said they won’t feel safe until there are more officers patrolling the streets of the French Quarter, Tremé and the rest of the city.

“We are getting the momentum, it’s starting to catch and I think it’s going to continue,” Serpas said.

Serpas told those at Wednesday’s meeting that the city expects to hire 90 new police officers before the year is over, short of the mayor’s goal of 150.

In an effort to retain officers, hundreds have been given pay raises and promotions in the last few years, Serpas said. He said that the city has started investing in new equipment, cars and infrastructure.

New Orleans City Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey said she will prepare a report listing residents’ key concerns after the final meeting in Algiers this week, and will work with Serpas to address those concerns.

This article originally published in the July 28, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.