New Orleans experiencing a sharp rise in non-fatal shootings
7th March 2016 · 0 Comments
NOPD crime stats show that there were 15 homicides over the first two months of 2016. If that rate continues, the city would finish the year with 90 murders — its lowest murder total since 1969.
While those numbers are obviously encouraging, local officials are accepting the promising news with a grain of salt.
“There have been such changes during a year that it wouldn’t take all that much to turn it back to a regression to the norm,” LSU criminologist Dr. Peter Scharf told Nola.com/The Times-Picayune.
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison credited the recent drop in homicides to the department’s efforts to target known gang members and others believed to be responsible for violent crimes.
“It’s about being surgical and specific on the method of going after the people we know are committing these crimes,” Harrison said.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that non-fatal shootings are up over the first two months of 2016 — way up.
Records show that the NOPD investigated 48 non-fatal shootings over the first two months of 2016 —a 60 percent increase over the 32 non-fatal shootings reported over the same period last year.
Dr. Scharf cautioned against reading too much into crime stats from the first two months of 2016, noting that things can change quickly and without warning.
“Short-term stats in New Orleans have never been predictive of the year,” he told Nola.com. “We were predicting disaster for 2015. And it was really a modest increase. The best thing is to monitor the trends over the next two or three months. Hopefully, we’re seeing some success.”
As part as a new “bias-free immigration policy” the NOPD has enacted new measures to improve relations between immigrant communities and the police department, WWL News reported.
As of Feb. 28, “Unless there is a direct threat to public safety, officers will no longer engage in the enforcement of federal immigration policy without a warrant or court order. This new measure ensures that undocumented immigrants can interact with the local police force without fear of deportation,” New Orleans City Councilmember LaToya Cantrell said in a statement, citing an NOPD release that was sent out last week.
“This is an incredible step in transforming New Orleans into a more inclusive city for all residents,” says Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who authored the Council’s Welcoming Cities resolution. “Chief Harrison truly stepped up to get this new policy in effect, and none of this would have been possible without years of work from the Council, the administration and our many immigrant support groups including the Congress of Day Laborers, Puentes New Orleans, and the Asian American Chamber of Commerce.”
The NOPD also said last week that it will hire and train more police officers with Spanish or Vietnamese language skills.
The city also installed new electronic, multilingual static boards in the City Hall lobby, making it easier for residents to locate specific departments.
In other news, law enforcement agencies in New Orleans find themselves grappling with many challenges but most agree that there is a common denominator to much of the criminal activity they combat on a daily basis in New Orleans. The single factor, a drug that has replaced cocaine as a major problem, is responsible for the share rise in violent crime and gun violence in the Crescent City, law enforcement officials say.
Special Agent Debbie Webber of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s New Orleans Field Division told WWL News last week that the city is in the midst of a major heroin epidemic that makes fighting crime an uphill battle.
“It’s still a growing problem,” she said.
But heroin is far from the lone problem drug. Prescription opioid drugs, such as hydrocodone and oxycodone, both powerful pain killers, are common and often a gateway drug to heroin, Webber said. On the street, marijuana, cocaine and crack-cocaine are bought and sold with regularity.
The nature of heroin is perhaps the largest obstacle to overcome and why its use is so widespread.
“It’s highly addictive,” Webber said.
WWL reported that increased heroin use has also been a problem for local medical professionals who in recent weeks have seen a spike in overdose cases.
Earlier in February, officials at University Medical Center reported that over a two-day period, 14 people were rushed to the ER and seven people died of overdoses.
The heroin problem has become so severe that doctors and the city’s health department have made Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan, available over the counter. That drug is sprayed up the nose of a person not breathing to reverse the effects of a heroin overdose.
Medical officials told WWL that they see a broad spectrum of heroin users.
“It covers all socioeconomic boundaries,” Dr. Peter DeBlieux, UMC’s chief medical officer, recently told Eyewitness News.
Also problematic are drugs known as “uppers,” those like Adderall designed to give a feel-good high.
Local DEA officers also regularly see cocaine and crack-cocaine, a version that can be smoked, on the streets, Webber said.
Less common in the metro area is meth, though that is a drug the DEA battles to keep a lid on in more rural areas.
“Nothing is still as prevalent as heroin,” Webber said.
A number of reports in 2015 said that heroin use is growing most rapidly among whites who live in rural or suburban areas like the parishes surrounding New Orleans.The drug has become an attractive option to those who once used painkillers because it is cheaper and easier to obtain.
A number of policy experts, law enforcement agencies and health agencies have said that this increased demand for heroin has led to increased violence among drug dealers seeking to cash in on the growing market for heroin, which, some say, might in part explain the growing violence in parts of the city like the Lower Ninth Ward and eastern New Orleans.
While the DEA generally is involved with law enforcement, the area of crime prevention isn’t outside of the agency’s realm.
There are outreach efforts designed to educate the public about the effects drugs can have on people and to curb use at a young age.
And that – stopping the problem before it starts – is key, Webber said.
This article originally published in the March 7, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
