Carjackings on the rise in N.O.

As an off-duty sheriff’s deputy recovers from a gunshot wound to the chest, neighbors in the Little Woods neighborhood of eastern New Orleans are calling for an end to the crime.

“All his windows were busted. He was screaming, he was crying. This is ridiculous,” said a neighbor.

Off-duty Orleans Parish sheriff’s Sgt. Delaney Jordan was visiting his mother when a gunman shot him during an attempted carjacking.

“You can tell he’s very family-oriented because he comes back and checks on his mom,” a neighbor told FOX 8 News.

A week prior, Jeannot Plessy was killed in Gentilly after carjackers backed over her while trying to drive away in her SUV. Her children and husband, Pastor David Plessy, are heartbroken.

“She did everything she could do for the community,“ said Plessy’s oldest daughter, Nadia Sanchez.

“My wife was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” said David Plessy.

Ashraf Esmail, a criminologist at Dillard University, says carjacking crimes are not only more common now, they’re on the rise.

“It’s been a trend not only in New Orleans but across the country,” said Esmail.

Esmail said carjacking is appealing to would-be criminals because it’s quick, hard to solve and easy to take advantage of unsuspecting drivers.

The NOPD classifies armed carjackings as armed robberies and unarmed carjackings as simple robbery in their crime statistics.

This article originally published in the December 10, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.