Crime surges in N.O. East
22nd June 2015 · 0 Comments
Eastern New Orleans has experienced a surge in faxless payday loans for bad credit violent crime over the past few weeks, including the murder of a 16-year-old girl whose body was found on the I-10, a double homicide and a fatal shootout out on the interstate, WWL reported Thursday.
N.O. East residents gathered Wednesday with members of the NOPD’s 7th District to voice their outrage and concerns about unsafe conditions in the area.
“A lot of those thugs are hoodlums. They will cuss you out and pull guns on you,” N.O. East resident Ronald Walker told WWL News.
According to www.crimemapping.com, in the two weeks since June 1, there have been four murders, nearly 40 assaults and more than 30 burglaries, WWL reported.
“You don’t have visibility. Patrol cars when they’re in the area and the criminals see them, that’s a preventive measure. When you don’t see police, that’s trouble,” Walker said.
Concerns about a police presence and visibility were brought up at quick fast loans now the neighborhood meeting last Wednesday. NOPD Commander Lawrence Dupree of the 7th District told residents that came to the meeting that there are currently 95 officers assigned to the 7th District.
Dupree also talked about the Field Operations Bureau Task Force, comprised of 14 additional officers that will be helping patrol New Orleans East.
“They come out here, day in, day out to assist the 7th District,” Dupree said. “It isn’t one, it isn’t two, it isn’t three. It’s a lot of police officers. They’re not assigned to the 7th District officers.”
Residents said the surge in violent crime in eastern New Orleans is a problem, but what’s equally troubling for them is the slow emergency response time from the NOPD.
“It takes a day, a day and a half sometimes, for a police car to come to your home for a burglary. That’s ridiculous,” Walker told WWL.
NOPD fast cash payday loan emergency loan quick loan Commander Dupree explained that the amount of emergency calls they get far exceed the resources the district has to respond as quickly as they’d like.
The NOPD is in the midst of a severe manpower shortage caused in part by the fact that the department is losing police officers faster than it can replace them. At last count, the department had about 1,100 officers in a city that the Landrieu administration says needs 1,600 officers to keep it safe.
Last year the NOPD lost 120 officers and added 76.
In an effort to stem the “blue hemorrhaging,” the City of New Orleans and NOPD officials have convinced the New Orleans City Council to relax the residency rule that requires police, firefighters and EMS workers to live in Orleans Parish. The NOPD also convinced the Civil Service Commission to do away with the requirement that police recruits have completed 60 hours of college fast same day payday loans online credit and has given bonuses to veteran officers who successfully recruit new officers.
In the meantime, the Louisiana State Police have been deployed to New Orleans to keep the city safe while efforts to boost the NOPD’s ranks continue, thanks to a donation from the city’s tourism industry.. The City of New Orleans has also created a Civilian Officer Patrol to address minor problems in the French Quarter in an effort to free up police officers to tackle more serious crime. Finally, French Quarter businesses have pooled their resources to pay for additional security in the area by hiring off-duty officers.
In other NOPD-related news, the New Orleans City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to impose fines as high as $400 for people with faulty security alarm systems.
FOX 8 News reported that the council also approved an ordinance that could see repeat offenders forfeit the right to have police purpose cash payday loan respond to future alarm calls. The ordinance was approved on a 7-0 vote.
Pointing to last year’s nearly 50,000 false alarms, councilmembers said the City of New Orleans does not have enough cops to continue responding to false alarms.
Not everyone was pleased with changes to the way the City of New Orleans responds to repeated false alarms.
“The new ordinance I think basically is just for them to make money,” Marigny resident Charles Murphy told FOX 8.
Murphy said he is opposed to amending an already-existent ordinance that is designed to lower the number of false security alarms.
“They have an ordinance that is currently on the books from 1997 and it hasn’t been enforced since Katrina,” he said.
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison said responding to false alarms is tying up his officers in a department that is already short-staffed.
“Eleven percent of their time is spent responding to advance cash faxless loans alarms and above 98 percent of those alarms are false. So we could do so many more things with that free time,” Harrison told FOX 8.
The ordinance gives offenders a warning for up to three false alarms, a fine of $25 for the fourth and fifth times, and on the 10th time officers would no longer respond to the home.
Harrison wants offenders to pay a $75 fine the second time, a $150 fine for the third time, and the fourth time would carry a $225 fine — and officers would then stop responding.
The murder rate continued to rise last week as police investigated several homicides throughout the city.
On Tuesday, police were investigating a Mid-City murder that was committed just after 4 p.m. near the intersection of Ulloa and S. Pierce streets.
According to police, a 41-year-old man was shot and killed at that location. He advance fee loan won’t be identified until his family is notified.
Police said Tuesday night that they do not have a suspect ora a motive in the case.
WWL reported Thursday that police are investigating a deadly shooting in the 7th ward that left a young man dead.
The NOPD responded to a call reporting shots fired around 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning near the intersection of St. Anthony and Urquhart streets.
Upon arrival, police found the victim in a red Monte Carlo suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was taken to the hospital where he later died.
No suspects or motives have been identified. Police have not released information about the victim.
Anyone with information on either of these crimes is asked to call Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111.
This article originally published in the June 22, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
