Murder on the rise in N.O., despite recent lows
13th April 2015 · 0 Comments
For a while it looked as though the City of New Orleans might finally be on the verge of permanently shedding its image as the nation’s murder capital and one of America’s most violent cities. Those hopes have been dashed in recent weeks with a sharp rise in murders after finishing 2014 with a historic, 43-year low.
With 46 murders reported over the first three months of 2015, the 2014 murder total of 150 appears to be in danger of being eclipsed with spring and summer bringing warmer temperatures. The City of New Orleans is on pace to see 184 homicides committed by the end of the year.
With an embattled police department struggling to contend with its depleted ranks, a sharp rise in violent crime and a federally mandated consent decree, the NOPD has its hands full with a series of recent murders that have raised concerns among residents about just how safe the city really is.
These recent homicides include a fatal burglary in one of the city’s safest neighborhoods, a fatal robbery in the Lower Ninth Ward and a March 21 murder on Bourbon Street.
The latest Vieux Carré shooting took place after the Louisiana State Police and NOPD officials announced that the state troopers would remain in New Orleans through the end of 2015 thanks to a $2.5 million donation from the tourism industry.
Several weeks ago police were trying to identify and locate a man they believe may have critical information about the March 21 Bourbon Street double shooting that left one person dead and another wounded.
The shooting that claimed the life of Bruce Time, 20, and injured a 28-year-old man on March 21 about 5:00 a.m., occurred at the intersection of Bourbon and Conti streets, police said.
The NOPD is seeking to identify a man in a baseball cap and released a still photo of him from video surveillance in which he is referred to as a person of interest.
The police are asking anyone with information to contact NOPD Det. Rayell Johnson, who is leading the investigation at (504) 658-5400. Anyone with information may also call Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-7867.
What initially appeared to be a fatal burglary in the Lakefront neighborhood that sits across Elysian Fields Avenue from the University of New Orleans appears to have been a homicide committed by the victim’s son.
The son, Herbert Meyers III, told police that he found his father, Herbert Meyers II, lying in a pool of blood and went back to his car to retrieve a gun before two men fled from the Oriole Street home.
After checking out the son’s story, the police issued a warrant for his arrest late last month.
Herbert Meyers III was arrested by federal marshals late last month and faces a second-degree murder charge.
As tragic as the case was, some of the victim’s neighbors were relieved to learn that it was not a random killing. “For the most part this neighborhood has not been touched by the kind of crimes you see in other parts of the city,” a woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Louisiana Weekly. “Like everyone else, we do what we can to be safe and hope that the city gets a handle on the crime problem before it spins even further out of control.
“Right now, the criminals are winning,” she added.
The NOPD arrested a man suspected of killing a Domino’s pizza delivery driver in the Ninth Ward last month. Officers arrested Michael Portis, 24, April 1 at a residence in the 4900 block of Pauger Street.
The family of Michael Price pleaded for help finding the person who killed the husband and father of three children on March 23.
FOX 8 News reported that Price was making his final delivery of the shift just before 1 a.m. when he was shot and killed in his car before making the first delivery.
“This was a senseless killing. He did not deserve this,” NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison told FOX 8.
Price was found dead in his car in the 6100 block of North Roman Street with pizzas he intended to deliver.
After the murder of Price, Domino’s pizza drivers will now only accept credit cards after 10 p.m. in certain areas.
This change is one of several new steps Domino’s is taking to protect drivers. The pizza chain will no longer making deliveries to the Lower Ninth Ward after dark.
“If crime is the life you choose, then prison is the price you will pay,” Harrison said.
“All of the murders in this city put a dagger through the heard and soul of this city. They all matter,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu told FOX 8 He said that public involvement is critical to the safety of the city.
“We will continue to build our case to bring absolute justice for Michael Price,” Harrison said.
Some residents have objected to the way Black murder victims are treated differently than white murder victims by the mainstream media organizations.
“A tragic death is a tragic death, but Black murder victims are cleary treated differently than white ones,” resident Omoru Harris told The Louisiana Weekly. “Black murder victims’ lives are not shared the way white murder victims’ lives are. It’s like Black murder victims don’t have families, loved ones left behind to mourn their loss or hopes and dreams. It’s dehumanizing and systemic.”
Uptown resident Carol Sampson said she doesn’t like the way an entire group of people are blamed and penalized for the actions of a few criminals. “The entire Lower Ninth Ward can’t get a pizza after the sun goes down after a white pizza delivery driver is killed,” she said. “But what about when the Domino’s pizza driver got killed in Mid-City last year — were Mid-City residents able to still get pizzas delivered after the sun went down?”
As the city’s murder rate continues to rise and violent crime and armed robberies keep many residents off the streets, some say that they are trying to remain focused on keeping themselves and their families safe and citywide efforts to get a handle on the crime problem.
“You try to stay out of harm’s way as much as possible, but in this city that’s hard to do,” Gentilly resident Michelle Alexis told The Louisiana Weekly. “You don’t feel safe even in the daylight, and there’s guarantee that you’re safe once you make it home.
“I don’t see it getting better anytime soon,” she added.
“The Landrieu administration has refused to acknowledge that it has no idea how to reform a police department or improve public safety and refused to hire someone who knows what he or she is doing,” the Rev. Raymond Brown, a community activist and president of National Action Now, told The Louisiana Weekly.
“Rather than directly addressing the problem, the City of New Orleans continues to play political games and make cosmetic reforms to the NOPD rather than taking steps to implement real change,” Brown added. “As a result, the people of New Orleans continue to suffer and move around the city with a false sense of security, thinking that the city is safer than it actually is.”
You can count W.C. Johnson, a member of Community United for Change and host of local cable-access show “OurStory,” among those who don’t hold out much hope of the community-police relations improving with the relaxing of NOPD hiring standards.
“The influx of new officers from a more relaxed police agency will only increase the police brutality and police terror Blacks, poor and people of color will experience.,” Johnson told The Louisiana Weekly Thursday. “The experts have studied this problem for decades and all the data concludes police officers, who are not a part of the community, perform their duties with a mentality of occupying military force. The past 100 years have proven what occupying military forces create in foreign territory. Including foreign territory American troops have occupied. New Orleans can expect more of the same.”
Johnson shared his predictions about the end-result of these changes that will bring less-educated NOPD recruits from surrounding, mostly white parishes to majority-Black New Orleans. “You can expect a more combative and less-enlightened one that does not adhere to federal standards for constitutional policing and has no qualms about using unlawful, corrupt tactics and excessive force to do its job,” he said. “You will see a police department that is even more of an occupying force than the one we have now.”
This article originally published in the April 13, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
