New Orleans murder toll continues to rise in 2015
13th July 2015 · 0 Comments
The July 3 shooting death of an NOPD officer’s daughter, two weeks days after the murder of NOPD Officer Daryle Holloway, underscores the city’s ongoing struggles to get a handle on rising violent crime and to boost the police department’s ranks. FOX 8 News reported July 5 that the July 3 shooting is also contributing to what one criminologist describes as a 35 percent increase in the number of murders so far this year, compared to 2014.
“It’s a disaster, and there’s no way that it’s a statistical anomaly,” LSU School of Public Health criminologist Dr. Peter Scharf told FOX 8.
“In 2014 we had 72, this year we have 96 so it’s an increase of about 35 percent,” added Scharf, who tracks every murder in the Crescent City.
Scharf listed some of the factors that he believes contribute to the city’s rapidly rising murder toll: The NOPD’s manpower shortage, the lackluster performance of preventive programs for youth and a criminal justice system with a revolving door.
In fact, 20-year-old Will Reed, the man recently arrested for the murder of a police officer’s daughter has a lengthy criminal history. According to court documents, Reed was previously charged with attempted first-degree murder. After years into a plea agreement with the state for lesser charges and received credit for time served. Just last month, a warrant was issued for Reed’s arrest after he failed to pay fines and fees associated with his court appearance. Now he sits behind bars at Orleans Parish Prison, facing a second-degree murder charge for the death of Milan Arriola.
“Until we step out and make a change, this unfortunately will happen again,” Silence is Violence Executive Director Tamara Jackson told FOX 8.
Jackson says that she’s concerned about the rising number of murders and the fact that just two weeks after an NOPD officer was gunned down in the line of duty, a relative of another officer was killed. “It’s definitely a black eye for the City of New Orleans that an officer has lost her daughter to violent crime. However it’s the gory truth of what exists here,” Jackson stated.
Jackson believes the community needs to step up and do more to stop the violence. It’s a sentiment echoed by Scharf, who places some blame on the reluctance of residents to help police and testify in court. “People have to wake up. If you want a safe city, you have to become part of the solution not part of the enablement,” Scharf told FOX 8.
Last year the city saw 150 murders, a 36-year record low. Scharf predicts this year, that number will be closer to 185.
Earlier this spring, Dr. Scharf and SUNO criminology Dr.John Penny predicted that the city’s murder total would rise sharply with the onset of warmer temperatures.
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison said last week that he is “disgusted and pissed off” by what he called the lazy police work of an NOPD officer who failed to gather and report evidence and then tried to cover up his misdeeds from the original arrest of Travis Boys, who several hours later shot and killed Officer Darryle Holloway, WWL News reported.
Wardell Johnson, a 12-year veteran of the NOPD, is facing criminal charges of obstruction of justice, one count of malfeasance in office and one count of theft. The NOPD placed him on emergency suspension following his arrest.
“I can’t tell you how disgusted and appalled that I am that he did what he did,” Harrison said. “It’s sloppy police work and clear intent to cover up his sloppy police work. There’s no room for bad apples in our office.”
Harrison said that Johnson, along with Officer Ryan Morgan, responded to an aggravated assault call on June 20 at about 4 a.m. Travis Boys, the 33-year-old man accused of killing NOPD Officer Daryle Holloway, had fired a .40 caliber weapon once at a 47-year-old woman. She wasn’t injured.
Harrison said that Johnson, through what he called “sloppy and lazy” police work, tried to leave a .40 caliber casing at the scene and removed a box of .40 caliber bullets from the home, without ever putting them into evidence.
WWL reported that investigators were able to recover a .38 caliber weapon belonging to the victim, but officers also recovered a spent .40 caliber casing. Investigators say Boys was arrested, and while being transported to Orleans Parish Prison, he would later in the day kill Holloway with a .40 caliber gun.
In trying to investigate how Boys was able to get a gun after being arrested, the Public Integrity Bureau revealed Johnson “deliberately” tried to leave the bullet casing on the scene and not process it. Police say he also did not process an unused box of .40 caliber bullets.
Johnson reportedly told investigators he didn’t remember where he left the box of bullets and he didn’t explain why he chose not to report it.
After the interview, detectives saw Johnson removing the box of bullets from his vehicle and throwing them out of the window while driving near Morrison and Downman roads. Johnson later admitted doing so in a follow-up interview.
NOPD investigators could be seen Tuesday morning searching for that box of bullets in a canal in eastern New Orleans.
This article originally published in the July 13, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
