THE “BIG EASY” TO THE “BIG DEATH”

‘It’s disheartening’: New Orleans sees at least 11 murders in five daysHow to Pronounce New Orleans' Street Names | Where Y'at New Orleans

Published: Jun. 10, 2022 at 11:21 PM EDT

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – There have been at least 11 murders in just the past five days across New Orleans. We’re now up to at least 135 homicides this year as police start 12-hour shifts to try to fight back.

“It’s disheartening, first and foremost,” NOPD Chief Shaun Ferguson said.

Reacting to that statistic, Ferguson says we need to take a hard look at personal conflict resolution.

“We are making decisions in haste, zero to 1,000,” Ferguson said. “I think there are some mental issues we are not addressing as a society.”

He said although disparities in educational opportunities and job opportunities do exist, we need to stop using that as an excuse.

“I grew up in a single parent home I never once thought about picking up a gun to shoot someone,” Ferguson said. “I had conflicts. I had a fight with a guy in the ninth grade. We went to the principal’s office, we were suspended and we walked home from the principal’s office together, had a three-day vacation but we walked home together and never once did we think about shooting each other.”

He also brought up the need for us to look outside of the home.

“There are too many weapons on the street, we have to think about our gun laws and how easily accessible they are,” Ferguson said.

Too many weapons, not enough officers and that includes homicide detectives according to Rafael Goyeneche with the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

“If their workload is up 50% this year versus last year, the pace that we are on for a homicide and violent crime rate is being shouldered by fewer and fewer officers,” Goyeneche said. “The best practice is they get four or five cases a year that’s a bad month in New Orleans for a homicide detective. This isn’t sustainable.”

He thinks the path forward is through replicating the Landrieu-era multi-agency gang task force, which is what the VCAIT unit that was announced in January looks like.

“If you just pick off and arrest one or two people you’re going to continue to see the retaliatory street justice and more than one of the homicides that were committed this week were related to feuding drug organizations, so, if we can start to dismantle some of the organizations and groups that are responsible for some of these homicides, not only are we holding them accountable but preventing them from future homicides,” Goyeneche said.New Orleans Travel Guide

Pedestrians take in the vibrant French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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That, paired with the continuation of last summer’s Operation Golden Eagle.

“I expect a similar result this year but you can’t keep that up and the state police are only here for three months,” Goyeneche said.

Goyeneche still thinks it will be tough to keep up. He says we’ve lost 80 officers this year and only have eight cadets in the academy.

“Whenever the next class starts with recruits it will be 10 months before they’re on the streets operating as police officers, so, the police department is going to have to be strategic in using their resources and partnering with as many agencies as they can to identify the most violent offenders and arrest prosecute and remove them from the streets,” Goyeneche said.

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NEW ORLEANS — Shevelle Fontenette says the growing number of young people gunned down on the streets of New Orleans touches her heart.

“It really saddens me to know that so much crime and it’s the younger kids that are doing it,” Fontenette said.

Her 19-year-old son Haushon Miller is one of three people shot and killed outside a Gentilly music studio in September 2020.

The alleged killer was just 15-years-old.

“These kids are lost because these kids are raising themselves,” Fontenette said.

There have been 148 murders in the city so far this year.

That’s a 44-percent jump over the same time last year.

“If we keep the same pace that we had for the first 6 months for the second six months of the year, we have a murder rate that would rank, I think as the fourth worst compared to 93, 94 and 2007, the only years we reported a worse murder rate,” City Council Public Safety Consultant Jeff Asher said.

Asher’s unofficial tally showed the city had 31 homicides in June.

That’s the most in a month since July 2004.

“It’s only the second time since Katrina they’ve been above 30 murders in a month. We had 122 for the entirety of 2019,” he said.

Asher points out the city has already exceeded the total number of murders in both 2018 and 2019 with 6 months left to go in the year.

“It really is a call to do better, at least identifying the necessity to do better,” Asher said.

Fontenette says parents and the community need to play larger a role in stopping the killings.

“We need to turn these kids in,” Fontenette said. “Some of us believe that I don’t see anything. I won’t say anything. My kid didn’t do anything. But you know your kid is wrong for doing this.”

She’s not surprised by the city’s high murder rate so far this year.

“I think it’s going to get worse,” Fontenette said. “I think it’s going to get worse if leaders are not leading.”

Earlier this week, Police Supt. Shaun Ferguson said the NOPD will continue to press forward and do what needs to be done to ensure safety in the city.

Friday, the NOPD released a statement that gives context to the city’s murder rate:

Of the 148 murders that have occurred in New Orleans this year, 53 are incidents in which the perpetrator had, or is believed to have had, a prior relationship with the victim.

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