Answers sought in wake of Bourbon Street shooting
5th December 2016 · 0 Comments
Local elected officials, police, business leaders and residents are all wondering what can be done to improve public safety in New Orleans after a shooting on Bourbon St. late last month that left one man dead and wounded nine others.
The Nov. 27 shooting, which made national headlines, left many wondering how safe the French Quarter is after the fourth major shooting on Bourbon Street in four years during major events.
Last year, on Nov. 28, 2015, there was another shooting on Bourbon Street. And just four days before the Nov. 27 shooting, there was a nonfatal shooting on Bourbon Street in which no one was injured but the police found two guns.
In the 2015 shooting over the Bayou Classic weekend, a bouncer was shot during a fight at a Bourbon Street nightclub. WWL News reported last week that the suspect in that shooting, 22-year-old Terry Mack, was arrested and is scheduled to appear in court this month.
In June of 2014, a violent gun battle in the 700 block of Bourbon Street left one woman dead and nine others wounded. The City of New Orleans was criticized by some for initially not releasing the names of the victims. It was later discovered that most of the victims were not from New Orleans.
Police ultimately arrested Trung Le in that case and he was sentenced to 60 years behind bars.
Although police believe there was another gunman, no one else has been arrested in the case to date.
On Mardi Gras Day in 2013, four people were shot in the 400 block of Bourbon Street after an argument. One man, who police believe was the intended target, was shot three times along with three innocent bystanders.
While some have attributed the gun violence in the French Quarter and across the city to a culture of violence, others have said that public safety in New Orleans has been negatively impacted by a severely undermanned police department.
Since New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu took office in 2010, the NOPD has lost more than 400 officers to retirement, defections and termination.
The department, which has been in the midst of a federally mandated consent decree since August 2013, has sought to utilize Louisiana State Police, sheriff’s deputies from several parishes, retired NOPD officers and campus police from the University of New Orleans and Tulane University to supplement its manpower. Other efforts to improve public safety have included the formation of a Civilian Police Force to free up police to work more serious cases and the creation of a crime app by New Orleans businessman and French Quarter resident Sidney Torres. French Quarter business owners have also hired off-duty officers to work details.
While the city’s murder rate has seen drops in recent years, violent crimes like non-fatal shootings have risen.
Overall, the 427 shooting incidents so far in 2016 is 35 more than all of 2015, five fewer than 2014 and 65 more than 2013, WWL News reported.
The murder of Demontris Tolliver, 25, on Bourbon Street over the Thanksgiving and the wounding of nine others over a bloody holiday weekend guaranteed that this year’s total of homicides and non-fatal shootings would eclipse those of 2015. Tolliver was the 163rd person killed in New Orleans this year, just one short of last year’s total of 164. The tally of non-fatal shootings is on pace for a 34 percent hike this year compare with last year’s total.
The rise in fatal and non-fatal shootings in the city is a major concern for everyone who lives here, not just tourists or business owners.
“We’re killing way more people and shooting way more people than (many other places) in America, and that’s not acceptable,” NOPD Capt. Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, told Nola.com last week.
The Nov. 27 Bourbon Street shooting capped a four-day holiday weekend during which there were nine separate shootings that left two people dead and nine others wounded.
While the city’s murder rate is expected to exceed the total for 2015 after a slight increase last year, NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison said last week that comes on the heels of a four-year downward murder trend from 2010 to 2014.
In 2014 there were 150 homicides, compared to 200 in 2011. While he acknowledge that the City of New Orleans still has a lot of work to do in improving public safety, Harrison said that things are not as bad as they used to be.
“We’re far less dangerous than we were five years ago, 10 years ago,” Harrison told Nola.com.
Glasser told Nola.com that no one should take solace from the fact that the city’s murder rate recently hit a four-decade low, especially when one considers that New Orleans is more deadly per capita than Chicago. Chicago’s murder rate in 2016 is 18.2 per 100,000 people, compared to 41.5 homicides per 100,000 residents in New Orleans.
Glasser said that New Orleans’ high rate of gun violence is more relevant than this year’s murder total.
“The fact that we may be more or less than last year is irrelevant,” he said.
Glasser added that perpetrators “don’t mind who gets hurt, who gets killed, who gets crippled.
“And that has come to be something we’re accustomed to. We don’t realize it’s not supposed to be that way.”
During a news story last week on WWL, Pastor Tom Watson of Watson Teaching Ministries expressed the frustration of many residents who are weary of hearing about how dangerous the French Quarter has become while most of the city is neglected by the severely understaffed NOPD.
“The whole city is unsafe,” not just the Quarter, he said.
He accused city officials of worrying about the recent mass shooting in large part because of upcoming events like the Sugar Bowl and Mardi Gras.
Among other things, police and city officials are considering the use of metal detectors in the French Quarter and the creation of “safe zones” designed to keep visitors safe, similar to the way Memphis police officers monitor visitors to Beale Street in that city.
Some say doing that may take more of an effort in New Orleans, where there are no fewer than 22 ways to get to Bourbon Street from the perimeter of the Vieux Carré,
Nola.com reported Friday that the city last year’s total of 164 homicides Wednesday with the murder of a 40-year-old man in Mid-City. although NOPD officials said the murder total is 163 because it did not count the Nov. 9 murder of Raven Neal’s unborn child. Regardless, the murder total has a lot of time to grow with a month left this year.
“It’s time for the Landrieu administration and NOPD officials to step up and admit that they have no idea what they are doing or how to get beyond this scourge of violence that is plaguing the entire city, not just the French Quarter,” Ramessu Merriamen Ana, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly. “This issue is too important and stakes are too high for city officials to be playing games with people’s lives and safety.
“Because the city has no plan for turning things around or addressing the root causes of crime and violence — poverty, hopelessness, despair and substance abuse — we are all at the mercy of criminals,” Aha added.
NOPD officials reported on Sunday afternoon Nov. 27, that 11 people were arrested during the Thanksgiving weekend in the French Quarter for illegal possession of a firearm.
Two of the arrests were made at the scene of the Nov. 27 mass shooting that claimed one life and left nine others wounded.
According to WWL News, the NOPD reported the following arrests: Saturday, Nov.26: Jamal Falls, 29; Ty’aaron Robinson, 22; Zavier Rogers, 25; Alton Whittey, 25 Sunday, Nov. 27: Robert Brown, 21; Jalen Baker, 23; Michael Martin, 23; Phillip Belone, 21; Shelvin Gray, 19; Naquael Tucker, 27 and a 21-year-old shooting victim,
This article originally published in the December 5, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
