N.O. murder and rape rise sharply, but overall crime down in 2015
17th August 2015 · 0 Comments
Sen. Vitter says high-profile murder could cripple tourism summit group payday loans industry
Murders and rapes rose sharply over the first six months of 2015, but overall crime fell during the same period, according to recently released NOPD statistics.
The NOPD crime stats show that there were 92 murders during the first six months of 2015, compared with 71 homicides during the same period last year, a 30 percent rise. There were 152 rapes reported during the first six months of 2015, a 55 percent upturn from the 98 rapes reported during the same period in 2014.
The NOPD released its midyear crime statistics on August 7.
Robbery (13 percent), assault (20 percent), burglary (17 percent), theft (6 percent) and auto theft (3 percent) all fell over the first six months of 2015.
By August August 6, the city’s murder total had reached 114, with payday loans houston tx 77088 some predicting that the city would see 200 homicides by the end of 2015.
Last year’s murder total was 150, a record 30-year low for a city that has often been called the nation’s murder capital.
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison said August 7 that New Orleans is experiencing a new spike in homicides after several years of decreasing murders. “It’s happening all over the country,” he said.
While Harrison acknowledged that more work needs to be done to improve public safety in New Orleans, he also pointed out that crime has dropped in five of the seven categories listed in the NOPD’s midyear crime report.
“Regardless of how low we decrease crime, it doesn’t matter to the person who was just victimized,” Harrison told reporters. “But we want to be able to be happy fast cash medford nj about the fact we were able to reduce crime, and overall it’s a pretty good picture.”
U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said Thursday that one more murder in the French Quarter could be devastating to the New Orleans tourism industry and the state as a whole.
“We’re one high-profile murder away from seeing that tourism economy going into the cellar,” Vitter, a La. gubernatorial candidate, said in an interview with Gannett Louisiana on Thursday.
WWL News reported that Vitter also brought the New Orleans crime rate up in a roundtable with students at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. The senator had a similar meeting with students and administrators at Louisiana Tech University on Thursday before traveling to Alexandria to speak during a chamber luncheon.
“In New Orleans the biggest threat to tourism is the murder low interest personal loans mn rate,” Vitter told a student who asked him about tourism.
Earlier during the week, Vitter sent a letter to New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu criticizing Landrieu’s ability to get a handle on crime in New Orleans. In his letter to the mayor, Vitter told Landrieu that he should devote more of his time and energy to reducing crime and focus less on removing statues of Confederate generals in New Orleans.
Vitter continued to draw attention to what he said is a growing epidemic of crime in New Orleans, specifically in the French Quarter.
“We need to create a whole new (State Police) troop in New Orleans focused on the French Quarter and paid for with local revenue,” Vitter said. “We also need the State Police to pay a bigger role in training New Orleans installment loan bad credit not payday loan police.”
Landrieu reportedly told The New Orleans Advocate a week earlier that the city’s murder rate has reached a decades-long low and that the city already pays for extra troopers to beef up the city’s police presence in the French Quarter. “That’s old news,” Landrieu told The Advocate.
When asked if Vitter felt safe walking in the city, his hometown, he said, “Yes, but I know when and where to walk.”
Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, said Thursday that in addition to being concerned about the rising murder rate, he is concerned with the way the Landrieu administration and NOPD officials spin the problem in local media.
“We need to be very concerned about that,” Aha told The Louisiana Weekly. “When the city experienced a 30-year low in murders, the NOLA cash loans in augusta for Life initiative got all the credit. Now that the murder rate is on the rise again, it’s all being attributed to a ‘culture of violence,’ like it has nothing to do with chronic unemployment, underemployment, a failing school system and a host of other social conditions.
“If the Landrieu administration is going to accept all of the credit when things go well, it needs to be equally committed to accepting the blame when things go south,” he added.
Aha said the City of New Orleans needs to do more than pay more lip service to the goal of creating more educational and economic opportunities for troubled youth in New Orleans. “Actions speak louder than words, and the pudding is the proof.”
This article originally published in the August 17, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
