What Is Our Problem?
Far from NOPD to admit it while they themselves are gunned down, but violent crime is on the New Orleans front-burner once again. As a friend escorted me to my car late Friday night, he recited a litany on safety and said, “You have to understand one thing about New Orleans. The poor really hate the rich here, and you will probably never see as much distrust between blacks and whites anywhere else.”
“Yeah? In that case, why does the majority of violence in New Orleans involve people killing their own?” I asked back.
The next morning, five kids were killed at the corner of Danneel and Josephine, not far from where I live. My knee-jerk reaction was to demand the military - our police force is way beyond over-its-head and drowning, and the city is open to new types of criminal activity - and immediately realized the even-worse situation that can turn into in the long run:
- We had the military here for a while and things reverted once they left
- More police = more police to shoot at
Enough police state, i.e. treatment of symptoms, and on to a longer-term solution, i.e. prevention of problem.
If the money is indeed coming and New Orleans ought to have a plan ready, it should be one that talks mainly of youth enfranchisement. The most common way for a local youngster to feel pride should not be through the use of a firearm in petty vengeance, much less his martyrdom in another drive-by.
That a young man may not live to see 21, lacks viable choices, isn’t as productive as his potential and will never know the real meaning of power makes me ask the following:
- For whom will this city be rebuilt?
- Of what use is a jazz district, a new city hall, razing this and erecting that if we don’t grow and treasure the human resources who stand to inherit New Orleans?
- When do the rest of us turn into collateral damage if the situation worsens?
- Will this cause people to leave?
- What do we do to stop it?
What is our problem?
Talk to me, internet. Tell me what you think our planning priorities ought to be from a youth safety and empowerment standpoint? While I understand that history, previous mistakes and race relations figure into it greatly, please don’t turn this into a political shootout or a race rant. Let’s work with the current situation and towards the future. Discuss ideas that may be placed on a city plan, compiled and sent into the Mayor’s office.
Rebirth, rejuvenation, revival - just words until a real and worthwhile overhaul.
Related posts:
Judging from afar and knowing the city’s history a bit there’s a few things that might be considered:
1) Better salaries and benefits for police officers might attract more quality personnel. Of course that might not be as feasible financially speaking.
2) More community involvement with the youth. This might help kids them off the streets and involved in projects that not only benefits their community but also themselves as well. It would take a strong leadership to create effective programs and keep them running.
3) This one’s going to sound somewhat insensitive, but no matter what is done to improve the situations, there will always been a small, violent group of individuals who will tear down rather than build up. There’s nothing that can be done with those individuals. Those individuals have to be dealt with via the court system and subsequent penal system.
Anyway those are some ideas that come to mind early on.
The National Guard is coming back. I feel pretty safe when they are here.
Yeah, I feel safer in Beirut, too.
The government is too corrupt. The Federal Government CAN’T take care of those. It’s a money problem when the fed money is stolen.
Elect a non corrupt government that can run the city.
Listening to WWL this evening, one of the biggest problems is that the DA’s office and the police department have a really hard time convicting repeat criminals as no one is willing to testify against them. In fact, the ex- head of the New Orleans Homicide division said that typically the department knows 90% of the time who committed the crime, but they are unable to prosecute without corroboration. I have an art gallery two businesses down from the former Jenny’s grocery. I was there the day that the wife of the owner was murdered. To tell you the truth as much as I would come forward if I had witnessed the shooting, it’s a relief that I did not see anything.
This is a deeply rooted cultural issue that there is no quick fix for. I think a step in the right direction would be to infuse money into the public school system. A lot of these kids have never had the opportunity to enjoy a music or art class. They have never been taught the appreciation of reading nor read to. Call in The National Guard, The State Police and The Calvary - but they are only a band-aid.
Community involvement is the key to the reversal of the crime issue. I am willing to volunteer!
I don’t understand why witnesses are needed to put people in jail. I thought that’s what evidence is for. Ya know, finger prints on spent rounds, that kind of thing. How do other city’s handle witness intimidation. Why is this a problem here and not all over the country?
I think I blame judges most of all. I know if I witness something and come forward, that person, even if convicted, first of all will be out on bail before cleanscene gets done and will be after me. Secondly, if that doesn’t happen then his gangbanger friends will do it. And if all that doesn’t do it, in 18 months, or whenever he/she gets out of jail, I’m going to be right up there at the top of the list of things to do.
Crime went up twenty something percent last year, but I bet it won’t be that high next year. See, the one thing Texas does right is that if you kill someone, you are going to jail for the rest of your life and as soon as they get around to it they’ll put you to death. How many lives would have been saved last year if the first time someone went to jail for murder, they stayed there the rest of their life? I bet it would be quite a few.
I’m becoming very conservative on this issue very fast. If its a violent crime you commit, I never want to see you out in public again - ever.
I was in the Tchoup Wal-Mart the other day and some guy has on a T-shirt with what looks like the Warner Brothers shield on it. You know — the WB shield they showed on all the Looney Tunes? But above it, the shirt said, “when you see a cop Warn A Brother.”
Seems to be that kinda summed up a lot of the problem. I’m not saying the feeling isn’t justified. I’m saying that someone stepping forward with usable info would be a step in the right direction.
“We had the military here for a while and things reverted once they left
More police = more police to shoot at”
I’m sorry, but this statement is not well considered. Things didn’t revert. The gangsters hadn’t returned yet. Now they’re coming back.
And police’s only function is to be targets. That’s just stupid.
I’m all for fixing the causes, but at this point we also have to deal with the symptoms. Because the symptoms are killing us. Literally.
The people who were killed Uptown the other night were mere children. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who killed them were not much older. To me that is prime facie evidence that we are somehow making children into killers and victims. I have always thought that I would rather push my sons in front of a bus than have them in a New Orleans public school. The politicians here are criminals and they are grabbing more and more power right this minute as I write this comment. If the caring people in this city lose every battle we show up at, it will be worth it if we can win just ONE - the battle to bring education to the children of the poor of New Orleans. Their parents have been beaten down so much they don’t know which way is up. Now, there is a displacement of poor refugees, exposing these kids to all kinds of elements. When you look at the leadership we have, from Bush to Blanco to Jefferson to the entrenched N.O. school system power structure, why would a poor kid think it makes any sense to play it straight? The example we have provided them with is the absolute worst I could have ever imagined.
And, Jack Ware, get back in touch with your liberal heart. You know as well as I do that Texas executes its POOR and DARK SKINNED murderers, and not any other kind. Even Andrea Yates, white girl, who murdered her 5 kids, is getting a new trial, but not a poor black guy or Mexican who murders one adult, no matter how retarded or crazy. Dangerblond is totally against the death penalty, no exceptions, because we as a society are not evolved enough to apply it with anything resembling justice. I have NO problem with locking them up and throwing away the key. If there isn’t enough room, let some of the pot smokers out. And end them over to my house.
If you were here right after the storm, criminals got out of the way of the military but didn’t go away. Crime in French Quarter and Bywater resumed quite rapidly after the military left, for your information.
Also, until you remove the reason people here are willing to shoot at / kill cops, cops are nothing but targets. You think law enforcement is revered by the criminal element here? More cops applied to the situation temporarily will only prolong the cycle and not break it.
Education is all well and good but I’m afraid that the necessary basis for this proposal is absent.
For too long, the example of someone getting ahead has been the successful drug dealer in his fancy car and bling. What if that was your most accessible rags-to-riches capitalist story? You’d find it irrational to continue in school, wouldn’t you? Or would you decide that you should stay in school and get the dream job washing dishes in a fine restaurant.
I say the best solution is to support the hip hop music business in New Orleans ! Let’s see some alternate success stories !
For too long, the example of someone getting ahead has been the successful drug dealer in his fancy car and bling. What if that was your most accessible rags-to-riches capitalist story?
Why is the most accessible story the successful drug dealer in his fancy car and bling? Shouldn’t that story be the one of the drug dealer in the making who was killed in a gang vendetta along with his friends? They are smart kids - they can do the math that there are a lot more people dead for one that makes it to the big-time. With those odds, they’d be stupid to take that risk.
I’d find it more rational to keep my life intact, stay in school, wash dishes in a restaurant and work my ass out of what I was born into.
I grew up in New Orleans but moved to Texas when my dad was transferred in ‘80. Even after all these years, I don’t consider myself a “Texan,” nor would a native allow me in that exclusive club. But one thing I like about Texas is its tough stance on crime and punishment. If you do the crime here, you’ll face the punishment you deserve. Criminals in NO know that even for murder, they can get off in six months. They have that system down pat, which is a shame. Knowing that, Houston PD and other law agencies went to the Dome when it opened as a shelter, pulled the known gang members off to the side and said, “We don’t play around here. You commit a crime, you are going to jail and then to prison.” Crime stayed pretty low in the Dome as a result. (well, then they got out on the street, and Houston crime has shot up.) Because of that, Friday HPD announced that it was pulling officers out of other departments and putting them full time on patrol in several high-crime apartment complexes. They drive, walk and bike on patrol 24 hours a day, and this will last indefinitely.
Texas has executed 11 people this year. The races are close to evenly split — 5 blacks, 3 whites and 3 hispanics. To make death row here, you have to be convicted of killing someone while committing a felony. Just straight murder won’t get you on death row — there has to be another felony crime involved.
Here is a website with all sorts of stats on Texas’ death row:
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm
I love New Orleans and have been back 4 times since the storm. She is home to some of the best people on the planet, but she also has some of its worst. The shootings over the weekend, sadly, display that for all of the nation to see. Just as Houston floods made national news yesterday, those five killings made national news. NO needs tourism back to help boost her coffers, and national news of murder will only scare off those potential visitors. That same crime could have happened in any city and not made the evening news. But these days, everything that happens in NOLA is under a media microscope, so any measure that can help the city clean up and start fresh is a good thing.
I think education is a huge part of the problem, but I think Skeeter88 has a point. Where is the opportunity in New Orleans? There is none, especially if you have no education. New Orleans needs to bring businesses to the city and promote entrepernership in the city. In order to do those things though the educational system in the city has to be fixed. You will never attract business or opportunity if you don’t have the workforce.
I think the fact that the population has now been exposed to other cities, to other ways of living might be an advantage. It might make the math easier for them at least.
“Texas has executed 11 people this year. The races are close to evenly split — 5 blacks, 3 whites and 3 hispanics.”
According to 2004 census data, the racial split in Texas is 83.3% white, 11.7% black. The statistics you gave work out to 45% black, 27%white/non-Hispanic, 27% white/Hispanic. That doesn’t seem “evenly split” to me. It is disporportionately affecting blacks, especially black males. The questionis why - why do black males make up a disproportionate part of the prison population relative to their percentage of the total population? Poor education systems and lack of opportunities in the inner cities. This is not a NOLA problem, or a poor pitiful Houston problem (poor Houston - it was Eden until those nasty refugees showed up. Now look - our lily white town is all brown and crime ridden. What did Barb say - living in the Astrodome was fun for those people?)
Anyway - it is a national problem - I live in Memphis and see the same thing everyday. L.A., Chicago, Detroit, NYC, Boston - Come to think of it - add France with its disaffected Muslim youth rioting, England, Palestine, Moscow, Amsterdam. Whereever you go if you have festering pockets of poverty and a sense of disenfranchisement or persecution - ethinic, religious, whatever - you’ll have a similar situation. New Orleans is unique to be sure, but not in this.
I agree with Dangerblond - let the pot smokers out.
I knew someone would come along and say “Texas executes plenty of white people!” And yeah, they do, but how many of them are represented by public defenders? I said they were POOR and dark skinned, and they are - 100% of them. The problem with the death penalty everywhere is that the rich or those with a support system can pay to have good lawyers and the poor have no resources so another name for poor is “Guilty.” Remember the NY millionaire who killed his neighbor in Galveston, dismembered him and threw his body in the Gulf? Not Guilty. Wealthy murderers in Texas go on “60 Minutes.” Poor murderers go to death row. Same in Louisiana.
The problem is complex, but can be solved beginning with the lousy District Attorney’s office. That corrupt mf has a 40% incarceration rate for homicide. The other 60% just walk.
No wonder all the criminals come back to New Orleans. There is no easier place to murder and get away with it.