NOPD struggling to get a handle on violent crime
15th June 2015 · 0 Comments
With the police force continuing to lose NOPD officers faster than it can replace them and an anticipated spike in the city’s murder rate as temperatures continue to rise, the undermanned NOPD is scrambling to get a handle on violent crime.
The NOPD lost 120 officers last year and added 76 new officers.
The Landrieu administration said recently that it would ask the Feds to lift NOPD consent decree rules that prevent the department from stepping up it pace of hiring new police recruits.
The city’s dwindling police force has been getting help from the Louisiana State Police, the hiring of off-duty officers to patrol the French Quarter and the newly created Civilian Officer Patrol that was launched to allow NOPD officers to tackle serious crimes while maintaining law and order in the French Quarter.
While still searching for the persons responsible for recent shootings in City Park and the French Quarter, the NOPD is also investigating the death of a 16-year-old girl on the I-10 in Eastern New Orleans and the murder of a man in the 7th Ward.
On Monday, police were called to the scene of a non-fatal shooting in Gentilly.
Police said an unidentified person was shot in the 2200 block of Robert E. Lee Blvd. at the corner of Elysian Fields Avenue.
FOX 8 News reported that the victim went to the hospital by ate conveyance.
No further information was available.
A standoff with the New Orleans SWAT team ended after a man barricaded inside a motel room in eastern New Orleans shot himself. He later died at an area hospital, according to New Orleans police.
FOX 8 News reported that the incident started around 9 a.m. Wednesday at the New Orleans Inn, located in the 5000 block of Chef Menteur Highway.
Police said that a task force was serving a warrant for murder to a man living at the location. When officers knocked on the door, police say the suspect refused to come out. Officers say he was armed with a gun.
Family members identified the armed man as Kernell Harrell, Jr., 25. They reportedly showed up not long after the standoff started and asked police to let them speak with Harrell in hopes of convincing him to give himself up.
“We control the negotiations, he requested to talk with his mother at some point, we control the negotiations so he would engage in conversations with us,” Captain James Scott with NOPD told FOX 8. “Generally that’s not a good idea, because you don’t know if he’s going to be saying something, apologizing, he wanted to speak to his mother at some point, so generally you cannot control that, so you don’t allow it.”
No one else was inside the room. The standoff lasted more than five hours.
Harrell was wanted for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Melissa Hunter, 23. The incident happened the previous week inside a Desire area residence in the 3600 block of Metropolitan Street.
In other news, police said that a man was shot multiple times early Wednesday in the 7th Ward near the New Orleans Fair Grounds.
The incident was reported just after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday at the intersection of N. Broad Street and St. Bernard Ave, just blocks from the Fair Grounds Race Course.
Police said on June 10 that they had very little information about the incident and had not identified a suspect or motive for the shooting.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111.
NOPD officials said Thursday that there is no evidence that suggests two recent cases involving the remains of young Black females found on Interstate 10 — oneineasternNew Orleans and the other in Metairie, La. —are connected.
WWL News reported that NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison said police have found nothing that suggests that two deaths over a six-day span are connected. Still, the NOPD is working with the Louisiana State Police and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office to determine whether there is anything linking the two cases..
On June 4, the body of 16-year-old Kaylan Ward was found early in the morning on I-10 in New Orleans East. A coroner’s report said that Ward died from multiple blunt force trauma wounds. Her body was found near the I-10 overpass at Bullard Avenue.
On June 10, the body of 19-year-old Jasilas Wright was found on I-10 in Metairie. A coroner’s report released Thursday indicated that she died of multiple blunt force trauma wounds, likely caused by being struck by several cars.
Harrison said police are desperately trying to help Ward’s family find some answers in her death. He said that initially the traffic department was in charge of the investigation and that now the homicide division is working jointly with traffic on the case.
“No family should have to go through this,” said Harrison, citing the uncertainty of what happened.
“The family is devastated,” Kaylan’s cousin, Deiadra Ellis, told WWL. “We just want answers because she didn’t deserve what happened to her. You know, she is only a child.”
Police say Ward was last seen the night before near Earhart Boulevard and Magnolia Street, miles away from where she was found. Her mother said she does not believe her daughter’s death was an accident.
“She had no need to be on the interstate,” Martin-Nelson told WWL. “Whoever she was with, something happened in that car. She would not be on the interstate walking.”
After five people were shot in Faubourg Tremé two weeks ago=o, residents who were fed up with the rising tide of crime and violence decided to forma Neighborhood Watch network to make the community safer.
“The interesting thing about this crime and violence wave is that it is happening throughout the city and hitting people from all walks of life,” Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly. “Residents are starting to get it: None of us are safe until all of us are safe.
“We need to come together as a community and find holistic solutions to the conditions that lead to unsafe and unstable communities,” he added. “That includes dealing with poverty, an inequitable educational system and social, political, environmental and economic injustice.”
He added that another problem on the horizon is the willful destruction of street lighting by bandits looking to cash in on the sale of copper used in the newly implemented street lights.
“It’s becoming a serious issue and one with long-term ramifications as neighbors and potential witnesses can’t report what they can’t see,” Aha said.
During a recent meeting with the Nation of Islam, the Rev. Raymond Brown, a community activist and president of National Action Now, said the city needs to provide more job training for young Black males who have fallen through the cracks and fall prey to street crime and the illegal sale of drugs.
Brown was challenged by New Orleans City Councilperson Nadine Ramsay, who pointed to Delgado Community College’s job-training program as proof that the city is providing critically needed job-training for young people in New Orleans.
Brown disagreed, saying “That’s not enough to meet the needs of the thousands of young Black males in this city who have been undereducated and kicked out of school by the charter school system.
“Delgado doesn’t address the needs of Black males who have dropped out of school and don’t have a diploma or a GED,” he continued. “We need job-training and educational services that reach these young men where they are and help them to move beyond violence, street crime and low-wage, dead-end jobs.”
Brown said that city and community leaders need to come together to increase educational and economic opportunities for young Black males who more often than not are exploited, neglected and mistreated by the local school system, business community and the criminal justice system.
“Until that happens, we are going to see a rising tide of violence and murder,” Brown told The Louisiana Weekly. “We need to make creating better opportunities for the city’s poorest and underserved residents Priority No. 1.”
This article originally published in the June 15, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
