News from Central Gulf Focus: La./Miss (Ala contributors)
Moderator: S2k Moderators
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Juvenile curfew begins tonight in New Orleans
NOLA.com archives update 6/23/06
A juvenile curfew proposed by city officials to help curtail a crime wave that prompted the return of National Guard troops this week will go into effect tonight, New Orleans Police said Friday.
Capt. John Bryson, an NOPD spokesman, said officers tonight will begin enforcing a curfew for children 16-years-olds or younger from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday.
Capt. Bob Bardy, whose 6th District patrols the violence’s vortex in Central City, said his officers are ready to impose the curfew as part of a crackdown prompted in part by the murder of five youths in the area Saturday.
Curfew critics have said the measure will not prevent the killings officials want to stop, since most murder victims and perpetrators are 17 or older.
A juvenile curfew was credited with curbing a runaway murder rate in the mid-1990s. Mayor Ray Nagin and City Council members proposed restoring it at a press conference Monday, as they announced the city had asked the state to send in 300 National Guard troops and 60 State Police officers to help NOPD stop a crime spike.
Those extra troops, which arrived this week, are now patrolling in mostly sparsely populated areas so NOPD can shift officers to hot crime areas in Central City, Algiers and parts of Uptown, among other neighborhoods.
Curfew violators will be taken to a Curfew Center, at 2614 Tulane Avenue.
NOLA.com archives update 6/23/06
A juvenile curfew proposed by city officials to help curtail a crime wave that prompted the return of National Guard troops this week will go into effect tonight, New Orleans Police said Friday.
Capt. John Bryson, an NOPD spokesman, said officers tonight will begin enforcing a curfew for children 16-years-olds or younger from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday.
Capt. Bob Bardy, whose 6th District patrols the violence’s vortex in Central City, said his officers are ready to impose the curfew as part of a crackdown prompted in part by the murder of five youths in the area Saturday.
Curfew critics have said the measure will not prevent the killings officials want to stop, since most murder victims and perpetrators are 17 or older.
A juvenile curfew was credited with curbing a runaway murder rate in the mid-1990s. Mayor Ray Nagin and City Council members proposed restoring it at a press conference Monday, as they announced the city had asked the state to send in 300 National Guard troops and 60 State Police officers to help NOPD stop a crime spike.
Those extra troops, which arrived this week, are now patrolling in mostly sparsely populated areas so NOPD can shift officers to hot crime areas in Central City, Algiers and parts of Uptown, among other neighborhoods.
Curfew violators will be taken to a Curfew Center, at 2614 Tulane Avenue.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Slidell gets visit from Indiana Congressman
By Paul Rioux
St. Tammany bureau
Nearly 10 months after Hurricane Katrina swamped southern Slidell, Mayor Ben Morris on Friday welcomed the first out-of-state Congress member to tour the damage: Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who is considering a run for president in 2008.
“He’s the first one to come here, and I sure hope he won’t be the last,” said Morris, who has lamented that Slidell’s plight has been overshadowed by the devastation in New Orleans.
Bayh, a former Indiana governor, said he came at the request of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, a fellow Democrat who accompanied him on the hour-long tour along with a handful of city and parish officials, including Parish President Kevin Davis.
“I just want to help,” Bayh said. “That’s what neighbors are for.”
Fittingly, the group boarded a swamp-tour bus to view the damage wrought by Katrina’s storm surge, which swept more than five miles inland, flooding several thousand homes and businesses in the Slidell area.
The first stop was on Rat’s Nest Road along the lakefront, where dozens of camps and docks were washed away.
“This is a classic example of what came through here,” Morris said as the bus stopped in front of a two-story house that had collapsed on its pilings like an accordion.
The group got off the bus for an impromptu visit to the “hurricane proof” house being built by Ted Modica on the lake side of the road. Raised about 15 feet, the round house is designed to minimize wind resistance, enabling it to withstand gusts up to 150 mph.
“Can we just crash your house?” Landrieu asked Modica, who was standing on the raised porch.
“Sure, come on up, Mary,” Modica said. “You know your cousin David (Landrieu) lives just across the street.”
“Oh, he moves so often that I had lost track,” said Landrieu, who said she spent time at camps on Rat’s Nest Road as a child.
The tour also made stops at Salmen High School and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Before boarding a helicopter bound for New Orleans, Bayh said he was encouraged by signs of progress in Slidell.
“A lot of good work has been done, but there’s a lot more to do,” he said, adding that the federal government should play a continued role in the rebuilding process.
Bayh said he supports a proposal backed by Landrieu and other Louisiana lawmakers to give the state a share of offshore oil and gas revenue to finance projects to restore the state’s dwindling coastline and wetlands.
“We’re more than just a collection of 50 states; we’re one country,” he said.
By Paul Rioux
St. Tammany bureau
Nearly 10 months after Hurricane Katrina swamped southern Slidell, Mayor Ben Morris on Friday welcomed the first out-of-state Congress member to tour the damage: Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who is considering a run for president in 2008.
“He’s the first one to come here, and I sure hope he won’t be the last,” said Morris, who has lamented that Slidell’s plight has been overshadowed by the devastation in New Orleans.
Bayh, a former Indiana governor, said he came at the request of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, a fellow Democrat who accompanied him on the hour-long tour along with a handful of city and parish officials, including Parish President Kevin Davis.
“I just want to help,” Bayh said. “That’s what neighbors are for.”
Fittingly, the group boarded a swamp-tour bus to view the damage wrought by Katrina’s storm surge, which swept more than five miles inland, flooding several thousand homes and businesses in the Slidell area.
The first stop was on Rat’s Nest Road along the lakefront, where dozens of camps and docks were washed away.
“This is a classic example of what came through here,” Morris said as the bus stopped in front of a two-story house that had collapsed on its pilings like an accordion.
The group got off the bus for an impromptu visit to the “hurricane proof” house being built by Ted Modica on the lake side of the road. Raised about 15 feet, the round house is designed to minimize wind resistance, enabling it to withstand gusts up to 150 mph.
“Can we just crash your house?” Landrieu asked Modica, who was standing on the raised porch.
“Sure, come on up, Mary,” Modica said. “You know your cousin David (Landrieu) lives just across the street.”
“Oh, he moves so often that I had lost track,” said Landrieu, who said she spent time at camps on Rat’s Nest Road as a child.
The tour also made stops at Salmen High School and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Before boarding a helicopter bound for New Orleans, Bayh said he was encouraged by signs of progress in Slidell.
“A lot of good work has been done, but there’s a lot more to do,” he said, adding that the federal government should play a continued role in the rebuilding process.
Bayh said he supports a proposal backed by Landrieu and other Louisiana lawmakers to give the state a share of offshore oil and gas revenue to finance projects to restore the state’s dwindling coastline and wetlands.
“We’re more than just a collection of 50 states; we’re one country,” he said.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Visiting senators get up-close picture of Katrina devastation
By Susan Finch
Staff writer
Standing with two of their colleagues near the spot where a levee break flooded the Lower Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana’s two U.S. senators said Wednesday that with federal money on the way to help the storm-ravaged area recover, local leaders now need to step up with plans for how it will be spent.
Calling the slow pace of pulling together such plans “a challenge,” U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said getting the recovery moving is in the hands of local elected officials “to do everything they can to get this rolling.”
U.S. Sen. Davis Vitter agreed: “We need a plan about where to focus” rebuilding efforts,'' he said.
Landrieu and Vitter were in the Lower Ninth Ward as part of their continuing effort to give fellow senators an up-close picture of the devastation wrought by Katrina.
Getting the tour Wednesday were Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and a former governor of that state, and Sen. George Allen, a Republican from Virginia, where he was once chief executive.
Both said they support having the federal government share its offshore oil royalty income with coastal states.
“It makes sense,” said Allen, who sees it as a step toward making the United States less dependent on foreign oil.
Bayh concurred: “It’s not only good for Louisiana; it’s good for the country.”
By Susan Finch
Staff writer
Standing with two of their colleagues near the spot where a levee break flooded the Lower Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana’s two U.S. senators said Wednesday that with federal money on the way to help the storm-ravaged area recover, local leaders now need to step up with plans for how it will be spent.
Calling the slow pace of pulling together such plans “a challenge,” U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said getting the recovery moving is in the hands of local elected officials “to do everything they can to get this rolling.”
U.S. Sen. Davis Vitter agreed: “We need a plan about where to focus” rebuilding efforts,'' he said.
Landrieu and Vitter were in the Lower Ninth Ward as part of their continuing effort to give fellow senators an up-close picture of the devastation wrought by Katrina.
Getting the tour Wednesday were Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and a former governor of that state, and Sen. George Allen, a Republican from Virginia, where he was once chief executive.
Both said they support having the federal government share its offshore oil royalty income with coastal states.
“It makes sense,” said Allen, who sees it as a step toward making the United States less dependent on foreign oil.
Bayh concurred: “It’s not only good for Louisiana; it’s good for the country.”
0 likes
Flossy 56 Audrey 57 Hilda 64* Betsy 65* Camille 69* Edith 71 Carmen 74 Bob 79 Danny 85 Elena 85 Juan 85 Florence 88 Andrew 92*, Opal 95, Danny 97, Georges 98*, Isidore 02, Lili 02, Ivan 04, Cindy 05*, Dennis 05, Katrina 05*, Gustav 08*, Isaac 12*, Nate 17, Barry 19, Cristobal 20, Marco, 20, Sally, 20, Zeta 20*, Claudette 21 IDA* 21 Francine *24
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
FEMA releases advisory flood maps
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has posted online its advisory flood maps for Jefferson and Orleans parishes. The maps are a rendering of the narrative advisories the agency released in April.
In general, they will effectively end construction of slab-on-grade homes in most of the two parishes by requiring homes be built on piers or at least three feet above the natural grade of a property.
Until the maps are approved by the New Orleans City Council and the Jefferson Parish Council, they do not have the force of law. Therefore, most rebuilding after Katrina will be guided by the less stringent maps adopted in 1984. However, the Louisiana Recovery Authority has said that its buyout and repair grant program will be governed by the new maps.
The Jefferson maps can be viewed at
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... erson.shtm
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... erson.shtm
The Orleans map can be viewed at:
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... leans.shtm
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... leans.shtm
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has posted online its advisory flood maps for Jefferson and Orleans parishes. The maps are a rendering of the narrative advisories the agency released in April.
In general, they will effectively end construction of slab-on-grade homes in most of the two parishes by requiring homes be built on piers or at least three feet above the natural grade of a property.
Until the maps are approved by the New Orleans City Council and the Jefferson Parish Council, they do not have the force of law. Therefore, most rebuilding after Katrina will be guided by the less stringent maps adopted in 1984. However, the Louisiana Recovery Authority has said that its buyout and repair grant program will be governed by the new maps.
The Jefferson maps can be viewed at
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... erson.shtm
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... erson.shtm
The Orleans map can be viewed at:
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... leans.shtm
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recove ... leans.shtm
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Twin span truckers will have to lighten the load
St. Tammany bureau
Truck drivers looking to cross the westbound Interstate 10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain may be forced to find alternate routes from now on, thanks to a reduced weight limit announced Friday by the state highway department.
Transportation officials lowered the bridge’s limit from 80,000 pounds to 70,000, after engineers found that stress from heavy trucks was wearing away the metal panels that patched the damaged westbound span after Hurricane Katrina.
The legal weight limit for trucks in Louisiana is 80,000 pounds; the majority of trucks on local roadways are at or above that weight, said highway department spokesman Dustin Annison. However, truck weight can exceed the legal limit, if drivers obtain special permits, he said.
The new weight limit will be in effect until further notice. If the change doesn’t reduce damage to the bridge, the state may impose more restrictions, Annison said.
Trucks weighing between 80,000 and 90,000 pounds can use the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway as an alternative. Trucks that weigh more than 90,000 must use Interstate 55 south at Hammond to reconnect to I-10.
The highway department also announced Friday that the westbound side of the I-10 bridge will be reduced to one lane much of Saturday, and on Sunday night both lanes will be closed.
The span will have only one lane open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The entire westbound span will be closed from Sunday at 8:30 p.m. to Monday at 4:30 a.m. The closures are necessary due to maintenance and repairs on the bridge, which was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Motorists opting to use the nearby U.S. 11 bridge are likely to encounter heavy delays, officials said.
St. Tammany bureau
Truck drivers looking to cross the westbound Interstate 10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain may be forced to find alternate routes from now on, thanks to a reduced weight limit announced Friday by the state highway department.
Transportation officials lowered the bridge’s limit from 80,000 pounds to 70,000, after engineers found that stress from heavy trucks was wearing away the metal panels that patched the damaged westbound span after Hurricane Katrina.
The legal weight limit for trucks in Louisiana is 80,000 pounds; the majority of trucks on local roadways are at or above that weight, said highway department spokesman Dustin Annison. However, truck weight can exceed the legal limit, if drivers obtain special permits, he said.
The new weight limit will be in effect until further notice. If the change doesn’t reduce damage to the bridge, the state may impose more restrictions, Annison said.
Trucks weighing between 80,000 and 90,000 pounds can use the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway as an alternative. Trucks that weigh more than 90,000 must use Interstate 55 south at Hammond to reconnect to I-10.
The highway department also announced Friday that the westbound side of the I-10 bridge will be reduced to one lane much of Saturday, and on Sunday night both lanes will be closed.
The span will have only one lane open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The entire westbound span will be closed from Sunday at 8:30 p.m. to Monday at 4:30 a.m. The closures are necessary due to maintenance and repairs on the bridge, which was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Motorists opting to use the nearby U.S. 11 bridge are likely to encounter heavy delays, officials said.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Police vow to swarm city's at-risk areas
Returning drug gangs are battling, FBI says
Friday, June 23, 2006
By James Varney
With its forces augmented by the arrival of National Guard and State Police reinforcements, the New Orleans Police Department will begin deploying a "massive physical presence" in Central City, Algiers and parts of Uptown today in an aggressive effort to spot and disrupt suspicious activity, the NOPD said Thursday.
A special force of 60 to 70 officers will patrol selected neighborhoods in search of patterns of street life that suggest trouble is brewing, Assistant Police Superintendent Steve Nicholas said.
The first officers will take to the streets today, and the full force likely will be in place by Sunday, he said.
Federal law enforcement officials also vowed Thursday to bring federal cases whenever possible against suspects charged with violent offenses, yanking them out of a crippled state criminal justice system struggling to cope with a surge in crime and arrests.
"We've made it plain that we are hungry to make as many cases as we can that might be viable in federal court," U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said. "In fact, I've stuck my neck out here and given the marching orders to my troops: Try to make as many cases as you can."
A recent FBI intelligence dossier blames the recent resurgence of crime in the city on a turf war among rival gangs that controlled the narcotics trade before Hurricane Katrina and have moved back into the city. Jim Bernazzani, special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans field office, said the May report, which summarizes intelligence from law enforcement agencies across the metro area, shows that nine family or neighborhood-based drug organizations have returned to New Orleans and most have taken up residence in and around Central City.
"The vast majority of the violence is being driven by street drug trade," Bernazzani said.
Recipe for trouble
Aggravating matters is the influx of residents who have returned to the city since the school year ended, many of whom do not yet have jobs and are living in flooded-out houses because of the lack of suitable housing.
"If you go to Central City at night, there are lots of people milling around with nothing to do, and that's a recipe for disaster," he said.
The NOPD's stepped-up police patrols are made possible by the arrival of 300 National Guard military police and 60 state troopers who began moving into the city Tuesday and who are expected to stay until mid-September.
Those forces are patrolling neighborhoods such as Gentilly, the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans, where the population is sparse and property crimes are more common than street violence, officials have said.
Freed from covering those areas, extra New Orleans police will shift into more violent neighborhoods, selected on the basis of recent crime statistics or intelligence data, Nicholas said.
When deployed, officers will set up a perimeter around a large neighborhood "so we just don't move things someplace else," he said.
Inside the perimeter, officers will look for patterns that experience tells them might be suspicious, such as cars repeatedly cruising an area, vehicles turning around as officers approach or cars sporting dark tinted windows.
In such cases, officers likely will stop and question people, check vehicle registrations and generally demonstrate a higher-than-usual profile in the neighborhood, Nicholas said.
"It's all about concentration of sources in one area," he said.
Guard, police criticized
But get-tough measures such as the National Guard deployment and more aggressive police tactics came under sharp criticism at a meeting of the City Council Thursday, where community activists said such an approach will never solve the city's crime problem.
What is needed, they said, are greatly expanded youth recreational and counseling programs, better treatment of those who are arrested or detained, intensified efforts to get guns off the streets and tighter control of the police.
Council members listened sympathetically. Although generally emphasizing the need for greater self-responsibility and parental control of young people, some members also said they don't think tougher police measures are the whole answer.
"I do not believe we can arrest our way out of this problem," Councilman James Carter said. Saying New Orleans already has "the highest incarceration rate in the country," Carter said locking up even more residents will not end the crime wave.
The activists alleged several instances of misconduct by the National Guard and local police since the Guard began patrolling this week, saying young people have been stopped and questioned without cause, abused, insulted and arrested on trumped-up charges. Carter promised that city officials will take a hard look at such reports.
Noting that the latest crackdown follows the weekend killing of five young men in Central City, David Utter of the Juvenile Justice Project said a juvenile curfew expected to be put in place in a few days would have done little to prevent those killings, because only one of the five victims was a juvenile and there is no evidence that the killer or killers were juveniles.
"Curfew enforcement has no discernible effect on the crime rate," he said.
No arrests have been made in the quintuple murder. The proposed curfew would require juveniles to be indoors starting at 9 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m on weekends. A start date has yet to be announced, but one council member said it will likely be before Tuesday.
Feds to step in
Meanwhile, federal law enforcement officials said they are seeking a more prominent role in prosecuting suspects, particularly because the city's storm-mauled judicial system is still woefully inadequate.
The huge Criminal District Court building at Tulane Avenue and South Broad Street reopened three weeks ago after being shuttered for nine months. But one day last week, almost every courtroom in the building was empty and the public defenders' office was dark and closed.
Evidence stored in the basement of the criminal court building was badly damaged by the flooding, making the prosecution of some cases even more difficult, and until two weeks ago, when it moved into a Poydras Street building, the district attorney's office was in a former Warehouse District nightclub with disco balls dangling overhead.
Even before the storm, the NOPD had been working with federal prosecutors to funnel more cases to federal court, largely because the bond requirements and sentencing guidelines are stricter, and criminals convicted in the federal system are not eligible for parole.
Letten's increased attempts to bring federal resources to bear will be welcomed by police, said Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission. NOPD officers are weary of seeing their work undone by a court system that sets low bonds and releases suspects quickly, a process that even before Katrina gave birth to the street phrase "a 60-day homicide," he said.
The FBI also has been working to conduct more proactive investigations, Bernazzani said.
In February, the FBI joined with the NOPD and the Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish sheriff's offices to form the Metropolitan Violent Crime Center. Through the center, which meets daily, local law officers share information and coordinate crime-fighting efforts.
Since the arrival of the National Guard and State Police this week, the FBI and U.S. attorney's office have also set up a Law Enforcement Coordination Center similar to one that operated after Katrina. The center will help coordinate the efforts of the various law enforcement agencies now working in the city, Bernazzani said.
Returning drug gangs are battling, FBI says
Friday, June 23, 2006
By James Varney
With its forces augmented by the arrival of National Guard and State Police reinforcements, the New Orleans Police Department will begin deploying a "massive physical presence" in Central City, Algiers and parts of Uptown today in an aggressive effort to spot and disrupt suspicious activity, the NOPD said Thursday.
A special force of 60 to 70 officers will patrol selected neighborhoods in search of patterns of street life that suggest trouble is brewing, Assistant Police Superintendent Steve Nicholas said.
The first officers will take to the streets today, and the full force likely will be in place by Sunday, he said.
Federal law enforcement officials also vowed Thursday to bring federal cases whenever possible against suspects charged with violent offenses, yanking them out of a crippled state criminal justice system struggling to cope with a surge in crime and arrests.
"We've made it plain that we are hungry to make as many cases as we can that might be viable in federal court," U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said. "In fact, I've stuck my neck out here and given the marching orders to my troops: Try to make as many cases as you can."
A recent FBI intelligence dossier blames the recent resurgence of crime in the city on a turf war among rival gangs that controlled the narcotics trade before Hurricane Katrina and have moved back into the city. Jim Bernazzani, special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans field office, said the May report, which summarizes intelligence from law enforcement agencies across the metro area, shows that nine family or neighborhood-based drug organizations have returned to New Orleans and most have taken up residence in and around Central City.
"The vast majority of the violence is being driven by street drug trade," Bernazzani said.
Recipe for trouble
Aggravating matters is the influx of residents who have returned to the city since the school year ended, many of whom do not yet have jobs and are living in flooded-out houses because of the lack of suitable housing.
"If you go to Central City at night, there are lots of people milling around with nothing to do, and that's a recipe for disaster," he said.
The NOPD's stepped-up police patrols are made possible by the arrival of 300 National Guard military police and 60 state troopers who began moving into the city Tuesday and who are expected to stay until mid-September.
Those forces are patrolling neighborhoods such as Gentilly, the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans, where the population is sparse and property crimes are more common than street violence, officials have said.
Freed from covering those areas, extra New Orleans police will shift into more violent neighborhoods, selected on the basis of recent crime statistics or intelligence data, Nicholas said.
When deployed, officers will set up a perimeter around a large neighborhood "so we just don't move things someplace else," he said.
Inside the perimeter, officers will look for patterns that experience tells them might be suspicious, such as cars repeatedly cruising an area, vehicles turning around as officers approach or cars sporting dark tinted windows.
In such cases, officers likely will stop and question people, check vehicle registrations and generally demonstrate a higher-than-usual profile in the neighborhood, Nicholas said.
"It's all about concentration of sources in one area," he said.
Guard, police criticized
But get-tough measures such as the National Guard deployment and more aggressive police tactics came under sharp criticism at a meeting of the City Council Thursday, where community activists said such an approach will never solve the city's crime problem.
What is needed, they said, are greatly expanded youth recreational and counseling programs, better treatment of those who are arrested or detained, intensified efforts to get guns off the streets and tighter control of the police.
Council members listened sympathetically. Although generally emphasizing the need for greater self-responsibility and parental control of young people, some members also said they don't think tougher police measures are the whole answer.
"I do not believe we can arrest our way out of this problem," Councilman James Carter said. Saying New Orleans already has "the highest incarceration rate in the country," Carter said locking up even more residents will not end the crime wave.
The activists alleged several instances of misconduct by the National Guard and local police since the Guard began patrolling this week, saying young people have been stopped and questioned without cause, abused, insulted and arrested on trumped-up charges. Carter promised that city officials will take a hard look at such reports.
Noting that the latest crackdown follows the weekend killing of five young men in Central City, David Utter of the Juvenile Justice Project said a juvenile curfew expected to be put in place in a few days would have done little to prevent those killings, because only one of the five victims was a juvenile and there is no evidence that the killer or killers were juveniles.
"Curfew enforcement has no discernible effect on the crime rate," he said.
No arrests have been made in the quintuple murder. The proposed curfew would require juveniles to be indoors starting at 9 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m on weekends. A start date has yet to be announced, but one council member said it will likely be before Tuesday.
Feds to step in
Meanwhile, federal law enforcement officials said they are seeking a more prominent role in prosecuting suspects, particularly because the city's storm-mauled judicial system is still woefully inadequate.
The huge Criminal District Court building at Tulane Avenue and South Broad Street reopened three weeks ago after being shuttered for nine months. But one day last week, almost every courtroom in the building was empty and the public defenders' office was dark and closed.
Evidence stored in the basement of the criminal court building was badly damaged by the flooding, making the prosecution of some cases even more difficult, and until two weeks ago, when it moved into a Poydras Street building, the district attorney's office was in a former Warehouse District nightclub with disco balls dangling overhead.
Even before the storm, the NOPD had been working with federal prosecutors to funnel more cases to federal court, largely because the bond requirements and sentencing guidelines are stricter, and criminals convicted in the federal system are not eligible for parole.
Letten's increased attempts to bring federal resources to bear will be welcomed by police, said Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission. NOPD officers are weary of seeing their work undone by a court system that sets low bonds and releases suspects quickly, a process that even before Katrina gave birth to the street phrase "a 60-day homicide," he said.
The FBI also has been working to conduct more proactive investigations, Bernazzani said.
In February, the FBI joined with the NOPD and the Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish sheriff's offices to form the Metropolitan Violent Crime Center. Through the center, which meets daily, local law officers share information and coordinate crime-fighting efforts.
Since the arrival of the National Guard and State Police this week, the FBI and U.S. attorney's office have also set up a Law Enforcement Coordination Center similar to one that operated after Katrina. The center will help coordinate the efforts of the various law enforcement agencies now working in the city, Bernazzani said.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Statutory rape gets 50-year sentence
Girl waited two years before telling mother
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
Sun-herald.com 6/23/06
GULFPORT - Children sexually assaulted by someone they know tend to be afraid to tell on the perpetrator, a detective testified in the trial of 30-year-old Samuel Parramore.
His victim, 12 now but 7 at the time of the incident, told jurors Wednesday she waited to tell because she "was scared of him and afraid of how her mother would react," said prosecutor Lisa Dodson.
Jurors in the day-long trial deliberated nearly two hours before finding Parramore guilty of statutory rape and touching of a child for lustful purposes. Harrison County Circuit Judge Steve Simpson sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
The girl waited two years to tell her mother about the 2001 assaults. She first talked about them in 2003, when she was 9, Dodson said.
"It's much more difficult for children to come forward when they know the person and it's even harder if the person is in the home, a caregiver or a relative," said Dodson, referring to testimony of Gulfport Police Detective Rosario Ing and a social worker trained as a forensic interviewer.
Parramore was a family acquaintance.
The child told her mother after the mother told her she could trust her enough to tell her anything.
"She and Mama were just having a conversation one night," said Dodson. "The girl left the room to take a bath and came back in crying. Her mother called the police immediately, as she should have."
Parramore testified and denied any wrongdoing.
The penalty for statutory rape of a child ranges from 20 years to life. For unlawful touching, the penalty is a minimum of two years but not more than 15 years.
Simpson ordered Parramore to serve 40 years for the rape and 10 years for touching, to run consecutively. Sex-crime convictions must be served day-for-day.
Parramore was arrested in November 2003 and released on $50,000 bond. He has remained in custody since Oct. 7 following a grand jury indictment.
It wasn't clear if Parramore's attorney, Eric Geiss, will appeal the convictions.
Girl waited two years before telling mother
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
Sun-herald.com 6/23/06
GULFPORT - Children sexually assaulted by someone they know tend to be afraid to tell on the perpetrator, a detective testified in the trial of 30-year-old Samuel Parramore.
His victim, 12 now but 7 at the time of the incident, told jurors Wednesday she waited to tell because she "was scared of him and afraid of how her mother would react," said prosecutor Lisa Dodson.
Jurors in the day-long trial deliberated nearly two hours before finding Parramore guilty of statutory rape and touching of a child for lustful purposes. Harrison County Circuit Judge Steve Simpson sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
The girl waited two years to tell her mother about the 2001 assaults. She first talked about them in 2003, when she was 9, Dodson said.
"It's much more difficult for children to come forward when they know the person and it's even harder if the person is in the home, a caregiver or a relative," said Dodson, referring to testimony of Gulfport Police Detective Rosario Ing and a social worker trained as a forensic interviewer.
Parramore was a family acquaintance.
The child told her mother after the mother told her she could trust her enough to tell her anything.
"She and Mama were just having a conversation one night," said Dodson. "The girl left the room to take a bath and came back in crying. Her mother called the police immediately, as she should have."
Parramore testified and denied any wrongdoing.
The penalty for statutory rape of a child ranges from 20 years to life. For unlawful touching, the penalty is a minimum of two years but not more than 15 years.
Simpson ordered Parramore to serve 40 years for the rape and 10 years for touching, to run consecutively. Sex-crime convictions must be served day-for-day.
Parramore was arrested in November 2003 and released on $50,000 bond. He has remained in custody since Oct. 7 following a grand jury indictment.
It wasn't clear if Parramore's attorney, Eric Geiss, will appeal the convictions.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Input taken on Chevron's LNG projects
By MIKE KELLER
Sunherald.com 6/23/06
PASCAGOULA - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held a meeting Thursday evening to hear public comments on two liquefied natural gas terminals proposed for Pascagoula's Bayou Casotte area.
The sparsely attended meeting falls in the middle of the permit process for Chevron's Casotte Landing LNG import terminal and Gulf LNG's Clean Energy Project.
Richard Lammons, Chevron's vice president of global gas, said the project would bring 30 to 60 permanent jobs along with an average 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
"We are committed to the proposition of this facility and to its safe design," Lammons said.
Officials heard from four members of the public concerning the recent draft environmental-impact statements that were released for both projects. FERC will also accept comments until July 10 at http://www.ferc.gov or through the mail.
Local environmental activist Paula Vassey was the most critical of the proposed projects, saying they would affect wetlands, fisheries and air emissions.
"Jackson County, Mississippi, is being asked to eat the pollution so Chevron can make more money," Vassey said.
FERC concluded in the draft statement that, with recommended measures employed, "the proposed facilities would have limited adverse impacts."
By MIKE KELLER
Sunherald.com 6/23/06
PASCAGOULA - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held a meeting Thursday evening to hear public comments on two liquefied natural gas terminals proposed for Pascagoula's Bayou Casotte area.
The sparsely attended meeting falls in the middle of the permit process for Chevron's Casotte Landing LNG import terminal and Gulf LNG's Clean Energy Project.
Richard Lammons, Chevron's vice president of global gas, said the project would bring 30 to 60 permanent jobs along with an average 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
"We are committed to the proposition of this facility and to its safe design," Lammons said.
Officials heard from four members of the public concerning the recent draft environmental-impact statements that were released for both projects. FERC will also accept comments until July 10 at http://www.ferc.gov or through the mail.
Local environmental activist Paula Vassey was the most critical of the proposed projects, saying they would affect wetlands, fisheries and air emissions.
"Jackson County, Mississippi, is being asked to eat the pollution so Chevron can make more money," Vassey said.
FERC concluded in the draft statement that, with recommended measures employed, "the proposed facilities would have limited adverse impacts."
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Strict curfew to be enforced
Police to be deployed to crime 'hot spots'
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/Nola.com
By Gordon Russell
New Orleans police were set Friday night to begin arresting minors younger than 17 for violating the city's curfew law, a move city leaders and police hope will put a dent in the recent uptick in crime highlighted last weekend by the wee-hours murder of five teenagers.
At the same time, about 50 police officers were set to be redeployed Sunday to "hot spots" in Central City and Uptown, a personnel shift made possible in large part by the arrival of National Guard soldiers and State Police in New Orleans this week.
The curfew will start at 9 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday and at 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. It will end at 6 a.m. daily. Under the law, anyone younger than 17 on the street during those hours may be arrested. The curfew law, which dates to 1994, had not been enforced since Hurricane Katrina damaged the building in which police housed curfew violators, the Police Department said. If offenders are caught near their homes, police are likely to take them home, police spokesman Capt. John Bryson said. If a parent is present to sign a release promising to appear with the minor in Juvenile Court, the minor will be released to the parent.
But if someone younger than 17 is out during curfew hours far from home and his or her parents are not home, the person is likely to be arrested, Bryson said.
No comforts of home
Violators will be detained on the third floor of an administrative building at 2614 Tulane Ave., which will be staffed by Police Department officers and deputies from Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman's office. The building, which can hold about 100 people, served as the detainee center when the curfew law was first passed, but had not been in use for years because police took over the function of monitoring curfew violators, said Gusman's spokeswoman, Renee Lapeyrolerie.
Parents will be allowed to pick up their children from the center any time after 3:30 a.m. through an entrance at 2400 Cleveland St.
The juvenile center has no beds, just desks and chairs.
"It's not housing," Lapeyrolerie said.
Though spending a night in the facility is clearly punitive, Bryson emphasized that curfew violations are not criminal offenses and that minors picked up on the charge will not be handcuffed.
They're treated with dignity and respect," he said. "They're kids."
Protecting young people
Although the law has been on the books for 12 years, police observers said enforcement had slackened over the years. When it was introduced by then-Mayor Marc Morial during the first months of his first term, picking up curfew violators was a high priority for police.
"Once we start picking up the young people late at night, I think parents will get the message that we're not going to tolerate them not supervising their children," Bryson said. "It's about our kids' safety."
Capt. Robert Bardy, commander of the Police Department's 6th District, which is based in Central City, sounded a similar note, saying the curfew law not only helps keep young people from committing crimes but keeps them safe from being victims as well.
"It's a double-edged sword," he said. "We're taking people off the streets who might be doing criminal acts. But we're also stopping youths from becoming victims of the drug trade, of violence, and other things they shouldn't be involved in."
Focus on trouble spots
Bardy said the 6th District, which is staffed by 101 cops, will receive an additional 27 officers, including two sergeants, on Sunday. All except five will be used in what he called a "proactive capacity," meaning they'll be seeking out offenders rather than responding to calls for service.
About 20 other officers will be sent to the 2nd District Uptown. Bardy said the 2nd District commander, Capt. Edward Hosli, plans to deploy that group mostly in the Pigeon Town and Gert Town sections.
The extra officers will remain in the new assignments at least until the end of September, when the National Guard and State Police reinforcements are expected to depart town.
Bardy declined to discuss when the additional police forces, which he called the "cream of the crop" of the department, would start spending most of their time on the street. But he said they will focus on several areas of the district that have long been "a thorn in the side of the community."
Three of the zones -- F, G and H -- are contiguous, covering the swath of Central City he called "the belt" of the district, bounded by La Salle Street and St. Charles, Louisiana and Howard avenues.
The fourth zone, Zone A, is the Irish Channel. In that area, police are especially concerned with the corner of Eighth and Chippewa streets, where narcotics officers carried out a bust last week, seizing guns and drugs.
Bardy said his officers have already made a dent in crime in some of the hot spots, which were identified with computer modeling. For instance, no major crimes have been reported in Zone F, on the Uptown side of the district, in the past two weeks, he said.
'Keep up the good fight'
Along with the reinforcements, Bardy said, his troops will continue to be helped by supplements from narcotics and traffic squads. For instance, he said, the traffic division set up a checkpoint at Tchoupitoulas and Religious streets Thursday night and made seven DUI arrests, three drug arrests and six arrests of people with outstanding warrants. Another checkpoint was scheduled for Friday night at the same site.
Bardy, who spent six years in the 6th District earlier in his career and returned as district commander five weeks ago, predicted that the various new measures, along with strong community support, would help bring the nagging crime problem in check.
After last weekend's killings, Bardy said, he gave his troops a pep talk. Then he left the room while three community activists came in and told the police how much they appreciated the work they were doing.
"They told our guys to keep up the good fight," he said.
As an example of the community leaders' willingness to work with police, Bardy said, the Rev. Emanuel Smith, pastor of Israelites Baptist Church, managed to patch Bardy in Thursday on a three-way call with a man suspected in Tuesday's killing of Michael Mack. With Smith's help, Bardy said, he nearly persuaded the suspect, Robert "Robi" Carter to turn himself in. When Carter ultimately decided against it, Bardy sent his name and picture to the news media.
"That's what this is really all about," Bardy said. "It's not the police. It's the community. And I don't think you'll find another police district more involved with the community anywhere."
Mother grieves
As efforts to curb the city's crime accelerated Friday, the pain of the recent violence was still palpable.
Angela Simeon, the mother of one of the five teens gunned down in last weekend's Central City massacre, spent Friday afternoon meeting with the pastor of a local church, working out last-minute details for the funeral of her boy, Warren Simeon, 17.
On June 17, Angela Simeon was awakened not long after 4 a.m. by the incessant ringing of her son's cell phone, which he'd left at home. Another son, 15, finally picked up. It was an out-of-town friend saying he thought Warren had been shot. Angela Simeon braced herself, but with no confirmation and a day shift at a local Burger King set to begin in just a few hours, she blocked the idea from her head. Another call came while she stood behind a counter at the restaurant. Her second oldest child had been killed with four of his friends.
She said her son was an out-of-school 11th-grader who was turned away from school in Houston, where he had evacuated, because he couldn't produce proper paperwork. She said school officials in New Orleans said he'd have to sit out the remainder of this year.
She called her son an "intelligent" and always "understanding" boy who wanted desperately to re-enroll in school, graduate and go to college to study business.
New Orleans and Jefferson Parish authorities have painted a different picture, saying all five of the dead teens had at least two run-ins with the law in gun-related crimes between 2004 and 2006.
In the most recent incident, police said, three of the teens, including Warren Simeon, were involved in a drive-by shooting May 1 in Jefferson Parish. No one was injured, and charges of aggravated assault and gun possession against the teens were dropped when the targets refused to talk, police said.
But Angela Simeon said she does not believe her son was involved in gunplay.
"Now if you told me he'd stolen something, I could believe that," Simeon said. "But nothing with a gun. He just wasn't violent."
The violence that claimed her son has Simeon questioning whether she'll stay in New Orleans or go. But she said her options are limited. She still doesn't have the money to bury her son, let alone start a new life outside of the city.
"I want to leave," she said, tears welling in her eyes. "But I have a job, and I'm trying to put my life back together after Katrina. I'm trying to make moves, but as far as funds, I'm not doing well."
Police to be deployed to crime 'hot spots'
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/Nola.com
By Gordon Russell
New Orleans police were set Friday night to begin arresting minors younger than 17 for violating the city's curfew law, a move city leaders and police hope will put a dent in the recent uptick in crime highlighted last weekend by the wee-hours murder of five teenagers.
At the same time, about 50 police officers were set to be redeployed Sunday to "hot spots" in Central City and Uptown, a personnel shift made possible in large part by the arrival of National Guard soldiers and State Police in New Orleans this week.
The curfew will start at 9 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday and at 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. It will end at 6 a.m. daily. Under the law, anyone younger than 17 on the street during those hours may be arrested. The curfew law, which dates to 1994, had not been enforced since Hurricane Katrina damaged the building in which police housed curfew violators, the Police Department said. If offenders are caught near their homes, police are likely to take them home, police spokesman Capt. John Bryson said. If a parent is present to sign a release promising to appear with the minor in Juvenile Court, the minor will be released to the parent.
But if someone younger than 17 is out during curfew hours far from home and his or her parents are not home, the person is likely to be arrested, Bryson said.
No comforts of home
Violators will be detained on the third floor of an administrative building at 2614 Tulane Ave., which will be staffed by Police Department officers and deputies from Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman's office. The building, which can hold about 100 people, served as the detainee center when the curfew law was first passed, but had not been in use for years because police took over the function of monitoring curfew violators, said Gusman's spokeswoman, Renee Lapeyrolerie.
Parents will be allowed to pick up their children from the center any time after 3:30 a.m. through an entrance at 2400 Cleveland St.
The juvenile center has no beds, just desks and chairs.
"It's not housing," Lapeyrolerie said.
Though spending a night in the facility is clearly punitive, Bryson emphasized that curfew violations are not criminal offenses and that minors picked up on the charge will not be handcuffed.
They're treated with dignity and respect," he said. "They're kids."
Protecting young people
Although the law has been on the books for 12 years, police observers said enforcement had slackened over the years. When it was introduced by then-Mayor Marc Morial during the first months of his first term, picking up curfew violators was a high priority for police.
"Once we start picking up the young people late at night, I think parents will get the message that we're not going to tolerate them not supervising their children," Bryson said. "It's about our kids' safety."
Capt. Robert Bardy, commander of the Police Department's 6th District, which is based in Central City, sounded a similar note, saying the curfew law not only helps keep young people from committing crimes but keeps them safe from being victims as well.
"It's a double-edged sword," he said. "We're taking people off the streets who might be doing criminal acts. But we're also stopping youths from becoming victims of the drug trade, of violence, and other things they shouldn't be involved in."
Focus on trouble spots
Bardy said the 6th District, which is staffed by 101 cops, will receive an additional 27 officers, including two sergeants, on Sunday. All except five will be used in what he called a "proactive capacity," meaning they'll be seeking out offenders rather than responding to calls for service.
About 20 other officers will be sent to the 2nd District Uptown. Bardy said the 2nd District commander, Capt. Edward Hosli, plans to deploy that group mostly in the Pigeon Town and Gert Town sections.
The extra officers will remain in the new assignments at least until the end of September, when the National Guard and State Police reinforcements are expected to depart town.
Bardy declined to discuss when the additional police forces, which he called the "cream of the crop" of the department, would start spending most of their time on the street. But he said they will focus on several areas of the district that have long been "a thorn in the side of the community."
Three of the zones -- F, G and H -- are contiguous, covering the swath of Central City he called "the belt" of the district, bounded by La Salle Street and St. Charles, Louisiana and Howard avenues.
The fourth zone, Zone A, is the Irish Channel. In that area, police are especially concerned with the corner of Eighth and Chippewa streets, where narcotics officers carried out a bust last week, seizing guns and drugs.
Bardy said his officers have already made a dent in crime in some of the hot spots, which were identified with computer modeling. For instance, no major crimes have been reported in Zone F, on the Uptown side of the district, in the past two weeks, he said.
'Keep up the good fight'
Along with the reinforcements, Bardy said, his troops will continue to be helped by supplements from narcotics and traffic squads. For instance, he said, the traffic division set up a checkpoint at Tchoupitoulas and Religious streets Thursday night and made seven DUI arrests, three drug arrests and six arrests of people with outstanding warrants. Another checkpoint was scheduled for Friday night at the same site.
Bardy, who spent six years in the 6th District earlier in his career and returned as district commander five weeks ago, predicted that the various new measures, along with strong community support, would help bring the nagging crime problem in check.
After last weekend's killings, Bardy said, he gave his troops a pep talk. Then he left the room while three community activists came in and told the police how much they appreciated the work they were doing.
"They told our guys to keep up the good fight," he said.
As an example of the community leaders' willingness to work with police, Bardy said, the Rev. Emanuel Smith, pastor of Israelites Baptist Church, managed to patch Bardy in Thursday on a three-way call with a man suspected in Tuesday's killing of Michael Mack. With Smith's help, Bardy said, he nearly persuaded the suspect, Robert "Robi" Carter to turn himself in. When Carter ultimately decided against it, Bardy sent his name and picture to the news media.
"That's what this is really all about," Bardy said. "It's not the police. It's the community. And I don't think you'll find another police district more involved with the community anywhere."
Mother grieves
As efforts to curb the city's crime accelerated Friday, the pain of the recent violence was still palpable.
Angela Simeon, the mother of one of the five teens gunned down in last weekend's Central City massacre, spent Friday afternoon meeting with the pastor of a local church, working out last-minute details for the funeral of her boy, Warren Simeon, 17.
On June 17, Angela Simeon was awakened not long after 4 a.m. by the incessant ringing of her son's cell phone, which he'd left at home. Another son, 15, finally picked up. It was an out-of-town friend saying he thought Warren had been shot. Angela Simeon braced herself, but with no confirmation and a day shift at a local Burger King set to begin in just a few hours, she blocked the idea from her head. Another call came while she stood behind a counter at the restaurant. Her second oldest child had been killed with four of his friends.
She said her son was an out-of-school 11th-grader who was turned away from school in Houston, where he had evacuated, because he couldn't produce proper paperwork. She said school officials in New Orleans said he'd have to sit out the remainder of this year.
She called her son an "intelligent" and always "understanding" boy who wanted desperately to re-enroll in school, graduate and go to college to study business.
New Orleans and Jefferson Parish authorities have painted a different picture, saying all five of the dead teens had at least two run-ins with the law in gun-related crimes between 2004 and 2006.
In the most recent incident, police said, three of the teens, including Warren Simeon, were involved in a drive-by shooting May 1 in Jefferson Parish. No one was injured, and charges of aggravated assault and gun possession against the teens were dropped when the targets refused to talk, police said.
But Angela Simeon said she does not believe her son was involved in gunplay.
"Now if you told me he'd stolen something, I could believe that," Simeon said. "But nothing with a gun. He just wasn't violent."
The violence that claimed her son has Simeon questioning whether she'll stay in New Orleans or go. But she said her options are limited. She still doesn't have the money to bury her son, let alone start a new life outside of the city.
"I want to leave," she said, tears welling in her eyes. "But I have a job, and I'm trying to put my life back together after Katrina. I'm trying to make moves, but as far as funds, I'm not doing well."
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Developers bidding for blighted properties in N.O.
Program may lead to housing gains
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/Nola.com
By Greg Thomas
In its most aggressive step yet toward reducing the city's overabundant supply of blighted homes, the Nagin administration has asked private and nonprofit developers to buy and rebuild 2,500 adjudicated houses so they can be returned to commerce.
More than 60 development groups responded to a city request for proposals to buy the sites, a response Brenda Breaux, chief deputy assistant city attorney for low-income housing, called "phenomenal." Results of the developers' bids -- and the value of the bids -- will be announced in a few weeks, she said.
This is the city's largest request for proposals on blighted housing and the largest response to date, Breaux said.
The interest among developers is a solid vote of confidence in the future of the city, Breaux said. It also offers the promise that much-needed affordable housing units are on the way.
"This is the first time in four years when finally we're actually trying to deal with the blighted-property issue," said Wade Ragas, a local real estate consultant. "Nagin deserves credit. He did something. It's speed that is important now."
The time is right for the sale of the adjudicated properties, Mayor Ray Nagin said in unveiling the program several weeks ago.
"The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provides the city with an excellent opportunity to utilize its adjudicated abandoned property to jump-start redevelopment activities throughout the city with a systematic approach," Nagin said.
Blighted properties
The city plans to sell to interested developers the titles to 2,500 adjudicated properties, or tax-delinquent properties the city has taken over because they are also vacant and blighted.
There are currently 6,000 adjudicated tax properties in New Orleans, and the city will eventually seek to sell the remaining properties to developers as well, Breaux said. The city also has another 20,000 blighted homes that are not adjudicated and not under city control. Historically, the city has had to follow a cumbersome legal process to pry those homes from the grasp of negligent or absentee owners, Breaux said.
Under the adjudicated property program, once the applicants have purchased the sites, they have 24 months to repair or rebuild the houses. Nonprofit groups seeking to take over properties through the program will not have to pay for their acquisitions. For-profit groups submitted bids equal to 50 percent of the site's current market rate, Breaux said.
Most of the adjudicated homes involved in the first round of sales are in Mid-City, Treme and Central City, but several eastern New Orleans sites also attracted bids.
And based on the list of developers that applied to acquire the sites, most of the purchases and repairs will be done by development groups from throughout the country that plan to tackle anywhere from 50 to several hundred units at a time.
Nonprofit developments
About half of the applicants, which are currently being screened by Deputy Executive Assistant for Housing Anthony Faciane, are nonprofit, Breaux said. Some of the applicants have teamed up to increase the number of homes they can take on.
The development arms of the local Catholic and Episcopal churches are among the groups applying for the properties. Both religious organizations' housing groups hope to expand rehabilitation programs that are already in place.
Brad Powers, executive director of the Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, said his group applied to buy more than 300 homes in Central City, where it has already started revitalization efforts on a much smaller scale. The fact that nonprofits such as Jericho will not have to pay for the sites means the housing that's developed can be more affordable, Powers said.
Jim Kelly of Providence Community Housing, the development arm of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, said his group has applied for adjudicated sites in three areas of town. Kelly said his group's application was submitted with the AFL-CIO, which has committed to providing money for housing redevelopment on the Gulf Coast.
The Preservation Resource Center and the community group ACORN have also applied for blighted sites.
New incentives
Nearly all of the proposals hinge on tax credits or other development incentives and subsidies from the state and federal government that were created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"This is the best opportunity to target redevelopment probably in 60 years with low-income tax credits, GO Zone (Act) Community Development Block Grants and the state and federal incentives," Ragas said.
"I expect you'll see this a zero-dollar transaction," said Ragas, who pointed out that the benefit of new or renovated structures generating property taxes and giving New Orleanians homes is the real reward.
Specifics on the proposals were uncertain, but Breaux said that many call for the demolition of existing structures. However, all regulatory requirements in historical neighborhoods must be followed in rebuilding and in requesting demolition permits.
Nagin's last major push to eradicate blighted housing never came to fruition.
In January 2005, Nagin announced an aggressive plan to revitalize seven of the city's most run-down neighborhoods by teaming with private developers to demolish thousands of decrepit buildings and replace them with new single-family houses in classic New Orleans styles.
The administration originally planned to use federal money to test the concept in three- to four-block areas in three targeted neighborhoods: Gert Town, Algiers and Central City. After the program's cost and effectiveness were evaluated, the city planned to ask the federal government for substantially more money to finance the larger anti-blight initiative.
But the ambitious plan, dubbed Neighborhood 1, was slow to get off the ground, and Katrina then put a halt to the project.
Program may lead to housing gains
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/Nola.com
By Greg Thomas
In its most aggressive step yet toward reducing the city's overabundant supply of blighted homes, the Nagin administration has asked private and nonprofit developers to buy and rebuild 2,500 adjudicated houses so they can be returned to commerce.
More than 60 development groups responded to a city request for proposals to buy the sites, a response Brenda Breaux, chief deputy assistant city attorney for low-income housing, called "phenomenal." Results of the developers' bids -- and the value of the bids -- will be announced in a few weeks, she said.
This is the city's largest request for proposals on blighted housing and the largest response to date, Breaux said.
The interest among developers is a solid vote of confidence in the future of the city, Breaux said. It also offers the promise that much-needed affordable housing units are on the way.
"This is the first time in four years when finally we're actually trying to deal with the blighted-property issue," said Wade Ragas, a local real estate consultant. "Nagin deserves credit. He did something. It's speed that is important now."
The time is right for the sale of the adjudicated properties, Mayor Ray Nagin said in unveiling the program several weeks ago.
"The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provides the city with an excellent opportunity to utilize its adjudicated abandoned property to jump-start redevelopment activities throughout the city with a systematic approach," Nagin said.
Blighted properties
The city plans to sell to interested developers the titles to 2,500 adjudicated properties, or tax-delinquent properties the city has taken over because they are also vacant and blighted.
There are currently 6,000 adjudicated tax properties in New Orleans, and the city will eventually seek to sell the remaining properties to developers as well, Breaux said. The city also has another 20,000 blighted homes that are not adjudicated and not under city control. Historically, the city has had to follow a cumbersome legal process to pry those homes from the grasp of negligent or absentee owners, Breaux said.
Under the adjudicated property program, once the applicants have purchased the sites, they have 24 months to repair or rebuild the houses. Nonprofit groups seeking to take over properties through the program will not have to pay for their acquisitions. For-profit groups submitted bids equal to 50 percent of the site's current market rate, Breaux said.
Most of the adjudicated homes involved in the first round of sales are in Mid-City, Treme and Central City, but several eastern New Orleans sites also attracted bids.
And based on the list of developers that applied to acquire the sites, most of the purchases and repairs will be done by development groups from throughout the country that plan to tackle anywhere from 50 to several hundred units at a time.
Nonprofit developments
About half of the applicants, which are currently being screened by Deputy Executive Assistant for Housing Anthony Faciane, are nonprofit, Breaux said. Some of the applicants have teamed up to increase the number of homes they can take on.
The development arms of the local Catholic and Episcopal churches are among the groups applying for the properties. Both religious organizations' housing groups hope to expand rehabilitation programs that are already in place.
Brad Powers, executive director of the Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, said his group applied to buy more than 300 homes in Central City, where it has already started revitalization efforts on a much smaller scale. The fact that nonprofits such as Jericho will not have to pay for the sites means the housing that's developed can be more affordable, Powers said.
Jim Kelly of Providence Community Housing, the development arm of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, said his group has applied for adjudicated sites in three areas of town. Kelly said his group's application was submitted with the AFL-CIO, which has committed to providing money for housing redevelopment on the Gulf Coast.
The Preservation Resource Center and the community group ACORN have also applied for blighted sites.
New incentives
Nearly all of the proposals hinge on tax credits or other development incentives and subsidies from the state and federal government that were created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"This is the best opportunity to target redevelopment probably in 60 years with low-income tax credits, GO Zone (Act) Community Development Block Grants and the state and federal incentives," Ragas said.
"I expect you'll see this a zero-dollar transaction," said Ragas, who pointed out that the benefit of new or renovated structures generating property taxes and giving New Orleanians homes is the real reward.
Specifics on the proposals were uncertain, but Breaux said that many call for the demolition of existing structures. However, all regulatory requirements in historical neighborhoods must be followed in rebuilding and in requesting demolition permits.
Nagin's last major push to eradicate blighted housing never came to fruition.
In January 2005, Nagin announced an aggressive plan to revitalize seven of the city's most run-down neighborhoods by teaming with private developers to demolish thousands of decrepit buildings and replace them with new single-family houses in classic New Orleans styles.
The administration originally planned to use federal money to test the concept in three- to four-block areas in three targeted neighborhoods: Gert Town, Algiers and Central City. After the program's cost and effectiveness were evaluated, the city planned to ask the federal government for substantially more money to finance the larger anti-blight initiative.
But the ambitious plan, dubbed Neighborhood 1, was slow to get off the ground, and Katrina then put a halt to the project.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
City budget swells with FEMA cash
N.O. reimbursed to tune of $50 million
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/Nola.com
By Bruce Eggler
FEMA money is starting to roll into the city's treasury.
At its meeting Thursday, the New Orleans City Council amended the city's 2006 budget to add $50.8 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements for damage that Hurricane Katrina did to city-owned buildings and other facilities.
When the ordinances amending the budget to add the FEMA money were prepared a few weeks ago, the total involved was only $766,000. Since then, it mushroomed to more than $50 million, requiring extensive amendments to the ordinances.
The number includes $18.7 million for the Public Works Department, $2.8 million for the Health Department, $2.5 million for the Safety and Permits Department, $1 million for the Police Department, $792,000 for the Property Management Department, $394,000 for the Recreation Department and $293,000 for the Municipal Yacht Harbor.
The total also includes $2.2 million for Criminal District Court, $577,000 for the district attorney's office and $163,000 for the coroner's office.
The individual items in the list given to the council added up to about $20 million less than the $50.8 million total budgeted. Asked about the discrepancy, an administration budget official said later that the list inadvertently omitted some items and would have to be corrected.
Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Cary Grant said the city also will be reimbursed $32 million for police, fire and other city vehicles that were ruined by post-Katrina flooding. That money is not covered by the ordinances approved Thursday.
All the budget changes were requested by Mayor Ray Nagin's administration.
In other actions, all by unanimous votes, the council:
-- Gave the local law firm of Bryan & Jupiter a three-month extension, to Sept. 30, to complete its report on how to revise the chapter of the city code that regulates taxis and other for-hire vehicles. The firm was awarded a contract in January 2005 to revise the chapter, which many people in the transportation industry have said is rife with contradictions, omissions and confusion. In its proposal, Bryan & Jupiter said it expected to bill the city about $147,650 for the work, although the figure could go higher. Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis said the extension was necessary because of delays caused by Katrina.
-- Approved allocating $350,000 from the city's Economic Development Fund to a Lafayette firm, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana, that will work with New Orleanians Susan Perry Hinton and Calvin Hinton in starting production of a portable toilet seat, the "Perry Potty." Initially, distribution of the seats will be handled from a site in eastern New Orleans, with manufacturing farmed out to companies in other cities. The Hintons hope to shift the manufacturing operation to the eastern New Orleans site within two years.
-- Approved spending $213,000 on the Washington lobbyists who represent the city and other local governmental bodies before federal agencies and seek federal grants for New Orleans. A little more than half the money will come from the Sewerage & Water Board, with the rest coming from Armstrong International Airport.
-- Approved the administration's plan to spend $500,000 on the "mayor's summer youth program," which apparently refers to the summer youth employment program that in recent years generally received $750,000 to $1 million and was intended to give about 1,000 teenagers jobs for six weeks. No details on this summer's program were available.
-- Approved spending $221,000 to buy insecticides that the Mosquito and Termite Control Board will use for spraying programs designed to combat West Nile virus and other insect-borne diseases.
-- Agreed to a pay plan for the city's Healthy Start Program that will pay director Pharissa Dixon $61,620 a year. The program, paid for with federal money, is designed to reduce infant mortality. At the moment, the program has four other employees. Nine positions, including a nurse, are vacant. The program is part of the city's Health Department.
N.O. reimbursed to tune of $50 million
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/Nola.com
By Bruce Eggler
FEMA money is starting to roll into the city's treasury.
At its meeting Thursday, the New Orleans City Council amended the city's 2006 budget to add $50.8 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements for damage that Hurricane Katrina did to city-owned buildings and other facilities.
When the ordinances amending the budget to add the FEMA money were prepared a few weeks ago, the total involved was only $766,000. Since then, it mushroomed to more than $50 million, requiring extensive amendments to the ordinances.
The number includes $18.7 million for the Public Works Department, $2.8 million for the Health Department, $2.5 million for the Safety and Permits Department, $1 million for the Police Department, $792,000 for the Property Management Department, $394,000 for the Recreation Department and $293,000 for the Municipal Yacht Harbor.
The total also includes $2.2 million for Criminal District Court, $577,000 for the district attorney's office and $163,000 for the coroner's office.
The individual items in the list given to the council added up to about $20 million less than the $50.8 million total budgeted. Asked about the discrepancy, an administration budget official said later that the list inadvertently omitted some items and would have to be corrected.
Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Cary Grant said the city also will be reimbursed $32 million for police, fire and other city vehicles that were ruined by post-Katrina flooding. That money is not covered by the ordinances approved Thursday.
All the budget changes were requested by Mayor Ray Nagin's administration.
In other actions, all by unanimous votes, the council:
-- Gave the local law firm of Bryan & Jupiter a three-month extension, to Sept. 30, to complete its report on how to revise the chapter of the city code that regulates taxis and other for-hire vehicles. The firm was awarded a contract in January 2005 to revise the chapter, which many people in the transportation industry have said is rife with contradictions, omissions and confusion. In its proposal, Bryan & Jupiter said it expected to bill the city about $147,650 for the work, although the figure could go higher. Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis said the extension was necessary because of delays caused by Katrina.
-- Approved allocating $350,000 from the city's Economic Development Fund to a Lafayette firm, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana, that will work with New Orleanians Susan Perry Hinton and Calvin Hinton in starting production of a portable toilet seat, the "Perry Potty." Initially, distribution of the seats will be handled from a site in eastern New Orleans, with manufacturing farmed out to companies in other cities. The Hintons hope to shift the manufacturing operation to the eastern New Orleans site within two years.
-- Approved spending $213,000 on the Washington lobbyists who represent the city and other local governmental bodies before federal agencies and seek federal grants for New Orleans. A little more than half the money will come from the Sewerage & Water Board, with the rest coming from Armstrong International Airport.
-- Approved the administration's plan to spend $500,000 on the "mayor's summer youth program," which apparently refers to the summer youth employment program that in recent years generally received $750,000 to $1 million and was intended to give about 1,000 teenagers jobs for six weeks. No details on this summer's program were available.
-- Approved spending $221,000 to buy insecticides that the Mosquito and Termite Control Board will use for spraying programs designed to combat West Nile virus and other insect-borne diseases.
-- Agreed to a pay plan for the city's Healthy Start Program that will pay director Pharissa Dixon $61,620 a year. The program, paid for with federal money, is designed to reduce infant mortality. At the moment, the program has four other employees. Nine positions, including a nurse, are vacant. The program is part of the city's Health Department.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Timeline of levee decisions promised
Chronology to detail pre-Katrina record
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Mark Schleifstein
The Army Corps of Engineers will publish a chronology of the decision-making involved in the construction of the New Orleans area levee systems by the end of the year, the agency announced Friday.
"The Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology will enable the corps and the nation to fully understand the long history of federal, state and local decisions that led to the design and construction of the New Orleans-area flood and storm damage reduction system," said Major Gen. Don Riley, the corps' director of civil works.
The chronology is designed as a companion study to the nine-volume final report by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which was issued in draft form June 1. That report delved into the physical causes for the failures of levees and levee walls during Hurricane Katrina, and concluded that those failures were the result of a combination of design flaws and the power of the storm.
The chronology will detail the record of planning, economic, policy, legislative, institutional and financial decisions that contributed to the design, scale, shape, construction, governance and maintenance of the levee system before Katrina's landfall, corps officials said.
"The engineering studies provided critical answers to questions about what happened to the system," Riley said of the task force report. "This chronology will document the facts regarding the sequence of decisions that resulted in the system that was in place pre-Katrina."
Engineers from several independent groups investigating the Katrina levee failures have said an even broader study of the management decisions that allowed the design flaws to occur is needed to facilitate recommendations for reforms in how future levees are built and maintained.
For instance, in January, Larry Roth, executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, urged the corps to address the fragmented decision-making process concerning levee construction that now includes numerous levee boards, city and parish governments and a number of state and federal agencies.
Friday, corps officials said the chronology will help the public in understanding what decisions were made, and the results of those decisions, and will help federal and state agencies and the public understand how to make similar decisions about the design and construction of repairs and replacement levees in the future.
The study is being overseen by Riley and Robert Pietrowsky, director of the corps' Institute for Water Resources. Team leader for the study committee is Douglas Wooley, director of the Center for Economic Education at Radford University in Virginia. Also on the committee are Leonard Shabman, a resident scholar in energy and natural resources with Resources for the Future and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Water Resources; and David Moser, the corps water institute's chief economist, who also is a member of the interagency task force.
A draft of the decision chronology will be reviewed by an independent technical review panel before being released. The public will then have 30 days to comment on it before its completion.
Chronology to detail pre-Katrina record
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Mark Schleifstein
The Army Corps of Engineers will publish a chronology of the decision-making involved in the construction of the New Orleans area levee systems by the end of the year, the agency announced Friday.
"The Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology will enable the corps and the nation to fully understand the long history of federal, state and local decisions that led to the design and construction of the New Orleans-area flood and storm damage reduction system," said Major Gen. Don Riley, the corps' director of civil works.
The chronology is designed as a companion study to the nine-volume final report by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which was issued in draft form June 1. That report delved into the physical causes for the failures of levees and levee walls during Hurricane Katrina, and concluded that those failures were the result of a combination of design flaws and the power of the storm.
The chronology will detail the record of planning, economic, policy, legislative, institutional and financial decisions that contributed to the design, scale, shape, construction, governance and maintenance of the levee system before Katrina's landfall, corps officials said.
"The engineering studies provided critical answers to questions about what happened to the system," Riley said of the task force report. "This chronology will document the facts regarding the sequence of decisions that resulted in the system that was in place pre-Katrina."
Engineers from several independent groups investigating the Katrina levee failures have said an even broader study of the management decisions that allowed the design flaws to occur is needed to facilitate recommendations for reforms in how future levees are built and maintained.
For instance, in January, Larry Roth, executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, urged the corps to address the fragmented decision-making process concerning levee construction that now includes numerous levee boards, city and parish governments and a number of state and federal agencies.
Friday, corps officials said the chronology will help the public in understanding what decisions were made, and the results of those decisions, and will help federal and state agencies and the public understand how to make similar decisions about the design and construction of repairs and replacement levees in the future.
The study is being overseen by Riley and Robert Pietrowsky, director of the corps' Institute for Water Resources. Team leader for the study committee is Douglas Wooley, director of the Center for Economic Education at Radford University in Virginia. Also on the committee are Leonard Shabman, a resident scholar in energy and natural resources with Resources for the Future and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Water Resources; and David Moser, the corps water institute's chief economist, who also is a member of the interagency task force.
A draft of the decision chronology will be reviewed by an independent technical review panel before being released. The public will then have 30 days to comment on it before its completion.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Parish may target windows, doors
Proposal prods owners of blighted homes
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times-Picayune/NOLA.com
By Karen Turni Bazile
A proposal by some St. Bernard Parish officials would require property owners who aren't demolishing their Katrina-damaged homes to have unbroken windows and doors 60 days after being cited for blight.
The Parish Council will consider the proposal on July 6.
Citations, however, would not be issued until after an already established deadline that gives homeowners until Aug. 29 to gut their homes and secure them.
The proposal also would give cited homeowners 120 days to repair their roofs and damaged exterior walls.
Officials said the plan would be the next step toward nudging homeowners to address their flooded properties and prevent massive blight that could stymie the parish's recovery.
"We want the fronts of the houses to look presentable," Acting Parish Chief Administrative Officer Dave Peralta said. "It's only fair for those of us who are coming back. People have to realize the better the houses look, the better chance they will have of selling them if they don't want to come back."
Councilman Craig Taffaro said it's important to make the homes safe, but residents need the chance to acquire building supplies that are often hard to get post-Katrina. He said the window requirement is intended to give police and neighbors visibility into the homes.
"We already are having problems with squatters. We have to be able to see in these gutted homes for sheriff's patrols and if there is a fire, boarded-up homes are much more difficult to handle," he said.
But Councilman Mark Madary said some residents will be hindered by unresolved insurance claims and other factors that could make the deadline hard to meet. "I don't see how we are going to enforce it," Madary said. "I think you have to keep the pressure on to have people respond to doing something with their property but I think there are going to be a lot of extenuating circumstances."
Under current parish law, officials can fine homeowners for having no doors or windows and for fostering mold and health hazards, though the council has suspended enforcement of that law until Aug. 29.
Peralta said that no matter what happens, people must cut their grass whether or not they plan to demolish their homes. After the Aug. 29 deadline, the parish will cut the grass and charge homeowners $300 for each cutting that must be paid or the charge will be levied as a lien against the property.
About 3,500 homeowners have signed up to have their houses demolished through a program financed by FEMA. In addition, 4,400 have signed up with a volunteer group, though owners may signed up in both lists.
But officials said there are 12,000 homes that owners have not indicated whether they will gut, demolish or rebuild. Because the parish doesn't know what their plans are, the houses are officially considered blighted, pending a visual inspection.
Once the parish has determined the owners already have gutted them, the addresses will be removed from the blighted housing list, Peralta said. Those remaining on the list will be considered for the parish's program of forced demolitions.
The current proposal also would give residents whose property is cited for not being cleaned by Aug. 29 five days to gut and clean. Then they would have two more days to board up the house. Within 60 days of boarding a structure, residents would have to install doors and windows, and within 60 more days they would have to repair their roofs. Residents will be charged for any action the parish must take against them.
Residents should let the parish know if their property is already cleaned so they are not placed on the blighted property list. They can visit the parish's Office of Community Development in the Recovery Department trailer behind the government complex or call the office at (504) 278-4301 or (504) 278-4302.
Proposal prods owners of blighted homes
Saturday, June 24, 2006 - Times-Picayune/NOLA.com
By Karen Turni Bazile
A proposal by some St. Bernard Parish officials would require property owners who aren't demolishing their Katrina-damaged homes to have unbroken windows and doors 60 days after being cited for blight.
The Parish Council will consider the proposal on July 6.
Citations, however, would not be issued until after an already established deadline that gives homeowners until Aug. 29 to gut their homes and secure them.
The proposal also would give cited homeowners 120 days to repair their roofs and damaged exterior walls.
Officials said the plan would be the next step toward nudging homeowners to address their flooded properties and prevent massive blight that could stymie the parish's recovery.
"We want the fronts of the houses to look presentable," Acting Parish Chief Administrative Officer Dave Peralta said. "It's only fair for those of us who are coming back. People have to realize the better the houses look, the better chance they will have of selling them if they don't want to come back."
Councilman Craig Taffaro said it's important to make the homes safe, but residents need the chance to acquire building supplies that are often hard to get post-Katrina. He said the window requirement is intended to give police and neighbors visibility into the homes.
"We already are having problems with squatters. We have to be able to see in these gutted homes for sheriff's patrols and if there is a fire, boarded-up homes are much more difficult to handle," he said.
But Councilman Mark Madary said some residents will be hindered by unresolved insurance claims and other factors that could make the deadline hard to meet. "I don't see how we are going to enforce it," Madary said. "I think you have to keep the pressure on to have people respond to doing something with their property but I think there are going to be a lot of extenuating circumstances."
Under current parish law, officials can fine homeowners for having no doors or windows and for fostering mold and health hazards, though the council has suspended enforcement of that law until Aug. 29.
Peralta said that no matter what happens, people must cut their grass whether or not they plan to demolish their homes. After the Aug. 29 deadline, the parish will cut the grass and charge homeowners $300 for each cutting that must be paid or the charge will be levied as a lien against the property.
About 3,500 homeowners have signed up to have their houses demolished through a program financed by FEMA. In addition, 4,400 have signed up with a volunteer group, though owners may signed up in both lists.
But officials said there are 12,000 homes that owners have not indicated whether they will gut, demolish or rebuild. Because the parish doesn't know what their plans are, the houses are officially considered blighted, pending a visual inspection.
Once the parish has determined the owners already have gutted them, the addresses will be removed from the blighted housing list, Peralta said. Those remaining on the list will be considered for the parish's program of forced demolitions.
The current proposal also would give residents whose property is cited for not being cleaned by Aug. 29 five days to gut and clean. Then they would have two more days to board up the house. Within 60 days of boarding a structure, residents would have to install doors and windows, and within 60 more days they would have to repair their roofs. Residents will be charged for any action the parish must take against them.
Residents should let the parish know if their property is already cleaned so they are not placed on the blighted property list. They can visit the parish's Office of Community Development in the Recovery Department trailer behind the government complex or call the office at (504) 278-4301 or (504) 278-4302.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Truck tips, damaging Ormond sign
Driver is injured; brick base shattered
Saturday, June 24, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com River Parishes Bureau
By Matt Scallan
A dump truck with a load of dirt tipped over on top of the wooden entrance sign to the Ormond Estates subdivision at Airline Drive on Friday morning, damaging the sign and shattering its brick base.
The accident led to the full or partial closure of the intersection of Ormond Boulevard and Airline Drive for several hours after the 8:30 a.m. accident.
The sign itself has a few dings, but seems to be salvageable, said Dennis Naquin, the head of the Ormond Civic Association's beautification committee
After hearing about the accident, Naquin rescued the 14-foot-long carved wooden sign from the pile of rubble and took it home for safekeeping. The sign depicts an oak tree and a horse-drawn carriage.
The truck's driver, whose identity was unavailable Friday, was injured in the accident.
St. Charles Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Dwayne LaGrange said the truck's driver was traveling east on Airline Drive when he drove into the southbound turn lane at Ormond Boulevard to avoid an accident, but was traveling too fast to negotiate the turn and went over.
Parish spokesman Steve Sirmon said the parish is responsible for maintaining the sign, but would try to recoup the costs from the truck's insurer.
Driver is injured; brick base shattered
Saturday, June 24, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com River Parishes Bureau
By Matt Scallan
A dump truck with a load of dirt tipped over on top of the wooden entrance sign to the Ormond Estates subdivision at Airline Drive on Friday morning, damaging the sign and shattering its brick base.
The accident led to the full or partial closure of the intersection of Ormond Boulevard and Airline Drive for several hours after the 8:30 a.m. accident.
The sign itself has a few dings, but seems to be salvageable, said Dennis Naquin, the head of the Ormond Civic Association's beautification committee
After hearing about the accident, Naquin rescued the 14-foot-long carved wooden sign from the pile of rubble and took it home for safekeeping. The sign depicts an oak tree and a horse-drawn carriage.
The truck's driver, whose identity was unavailable Friday, was injured in the accident.
St. Charles Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Dwayne LaGrange said the truck's driver was traveling east on Airline Drive when he drove into the southbound turn lane at Ormond Boulevard to avoid an accident, but was traveling too fast to negotiate the turn and went over.
Parish spokesman Steve Sirmon said the parish is responsible for maintaining the sign, but would try to recoup the costs from the truck's insurer.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
GCN Recovery News Report
This report will constantly be updated as information becomes available
Updated 6/24/06 10:31 AM - gulfcoastnetwork.com
MDOT officials say contractors should begin removing the debris from the Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge starting this coming week. For nearly ten months, he remnants of the destroyed bridge has been where Katrina left them.
An additional $45.01 million in Public Assistance grants for Mississippi has been awarded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). That brings the state's total FEMA Public Assistance reimbursement for Hurricane Katrina recovery to $1.33 billion. The largest single grant, for $9.58 million, is for replacement of a large warehouse operated by the Mississippi State Port Authority. (Details Here)
Governor Haley Barbour announced Friday that the Coastal Family Health Center, headquartered in Biloxi, will receive a $6.1 million grant to help restore primary health care services to people in Harrison, Jackson and Hancock counties. Pre-Katrina, CFHC had 5 free-standing clinics in the three counties, two school-based clinics, and two mobile medical units with a service area population of 370,000 people. (More on this story Here)
There has been a delay in distributing checks to homeowners who qualified for the state's Homeowner Grant Program. That program was set up to help homeowners that lost their homes to Katrina's storm surge who live outside the federal flood zones. The program would pay up to $150,000 to homeowners, but most will not be receiving that much. About 16,000 homeowners qualified for the program. The state had anticipated that 30,000 would participate. Barbour said the program has a period for comment before the money is released, and a filing by the National Mortgage Bankers Association has held up the funds. The bankers want the money distributed to them instead of to the homeowners.
This report will constantly be updated as information becomes available
Updated 6/24/06 10:31 AM - gulfcoastnetwork.com
MDOT officials say contractors should begin removing the debris from the Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge starting this coming week. For nearly ten months, he remnants of the destroyed bridge has been where Katrina left them.
An additional $45.01 million in Public Assistance grants for Mississippi has been awarded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). That brings the state's total FEMA Public Assistance reimbursement for Hurricane Katrina recovery to $1.33 billion. The largest single grant, for $9.58 million, is for replacement of a large warehouse operated by the Mississippi State Port Authority. (Details Here)
Governor Haley Barbour announced Friday that the Coastal Family Health Center, headquartered in Biloxi, will receive a $6.1 million grant to help restore primary health care services to people in Harrison, Jackson and Hancock counties. Pre-Katrina, CFHC had 5 free-standing clinics in the three counties, two school-based clinics, and two mobile medical units with a service area population of 370,000 people. (More on this story Here)
There has been a delay in distributing checks to homeowners who qualified for the state's Homeowner Grant Program. That program was set up to help homeowners that lost their homes to Katrina's storm surge who live outside the federal flood zones. The program would pay up to $150,000 to homeowners, but most will not be receiving that much. About 16,000 homeowners qualified for the program. The state had anticipated that 30,000 would participate. Barbour said the program has a period for comment before the money is released, and a filing by the National Mortgage Bankers Association has held up the funds. The bankers want the money distributed to them instead of to the homeowners.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Downtown mixed-use proposal on council agenda
City of Biloxi: Your City at Work: 6/23/06
A proposal for a mixed-use development that would include 220 residential condominiums and commercial uses on a three-acre site off Water Street in downtown Biloxi will be among the measures before the Biloxi City Council during its meeting on Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 p.m.
The development, known as City Place, would involve the former Dees Chevrolet site and land stretching along Water Street from Main to Dukate streets. Two buildings – one five-stories and one standing 11 stories – would house commercial uses on the ground floor, with one-, two- and three-bedroom residential condominiums above.
Developers are seeking to expand the Central Business District zoning to allow the mixed-use.
Another proposal on the council’s agenda is a request for a zoning change that would allow Benachi Place, a development that would include one residential lot and seven duplexes off Querens Avenue.
To see the complete agenda and available resolutions for Tuesday’s meeting, click here.
Biloxi has established a great track record, Holloway tells analysts
If you’re wondering how Biloxi will recover from Hurricane Katrina, just check the city’s track record over the past decade or so, Mayor A.J. Holloway told two groups of financial analysts in New York City this week.
Holloway was asked to update the city’s recovery efforts and future outlook for the two groups, whose members monitor factors influencing the economy and advise would-be investors and developers.
“Today, I come before you to say that right now in Biloxi we’re dealing with some issues that some cities in this country ‘wish’ they had to deal with,” Holloway declared, adding with a smile: “Well, some of them, anyway.
“We have a ways to go, but a lot of people are coming to realize that we were making history before this storm, and we stand poised ready to make history again.”
To read the complete story on Holloway's New York presentations, and see video from a previous appearance, click here.
More than three-fourths of major traffic signals in place
Motorists traveling U.S. 90 in Biloxi these days will find that traffic signals have been restored at three more locations – at the Beau Rivage parking garage, at Treasure Bay Casino Resort and at Eisenhower Drive – and that all but three of the 52 intersections along U.S. 90 have been re-opened.
Police are advising motorists to use caution in these areas, since the improvements were made in only the last week or so.
In all, about three-fourths of the most vital of the 61 signalized intersections throughout Biloxi have been restored, and city contractors and engineers are working to restore the dozen or so signals on less-traveled roadways, including along Howard Avenue, Division Street and Back Bay Boulevard. The city also has a number of flashing red Stop lights and school crossing signals to replace.
“We’re aware of these signals, and we appreciate everyone’s continuing patience,” Mayor A.J. Holloway said this week. “We’re making sure to follow the proper federal and state procedures in doing this work so that taxpayers in Biloxi are not left with the bill. It’s obviously a time-consuming process, but we’ll get there.”
The three neighborhood streets that remain closed at U.S. 90 are at Kuhn Street in east Biloxi, and at Sadler Beach Drive and Chalmers Drive in west Biloxi.
City of Biloxi: Your City at Work: 6/23/06
A proposal for a mixed-use development that would include 220 residential condominiums and commercial uses on a three-acre site off Water Street in downtown Biloxi will be among the measures before the Biloxi City Council during its meeting on Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 p.m.
The development, known as City Place, would involve the former Dees Chevrolet site and land stretching along Water Street from Main to Dukate streets. Two buildings – one five-stories and one standing 11 stories – would house commercial uses on the ground floor, with one-, two- and three-bedroom residential condominiums above.
Developers are seeking to expand the Central Business District zoning to allow the mixed-use.
Another proposal on the council’s agenda is a request for a zoning change that would allow Benachi Place, a development that would include one residential lot and seven duplexes off Querens Avenue.
To see the complete agenda and available resolutions for Tuesday’s meeting, click here.
Biloxi has established a great track record, Holloway tells analysts
If you’re wondering how Biloxi will recover from Hurricane Katrina, just check the city’s track record over the past decade or so, Mayor A.J. Holloway told two groups of financial analysts in New York City this week.
Holloway was asked to update the city’s recovery efforts and future outlook for the two groups, whose members monitor factors influencing the economy and advise would-be investors and developers.
“Today, I come before you to say that right now in Biloxi we’re dealing with some issues that some cities in this country ‘wish’ they had to deal with,” Holloway declared, adding with a smile: “Well, some of them, anyway.
“We have a ways to go, but a lot of people are coming to realize that we were making history before this storm, and we stand poised ready to make history again.”
To read the complete story on Holloway's New York presentations, and see video from a previous appearance, click here.
More than three-fourths of major traffic signals in place
Motorists traveling U.S. 90 in Biloxi these days will find that traffic signals have been restored at three more locations – at the Beau Rivage parking garage, at Treasure Bay Casino Resort and at Eisenhower Drive – and that all but three of the 52 intersections along U.S. 90 have been re-opened.
Police are advising motorists to use caution in these areas, since the improvements were made in only the last week or so.
In all, about three-fourths of the most vital of the 61 signalized intersections throughout Biloxi have been restored, and city contractors and engineers are working to restore the dozen or so signals on less-traveled roadways, including along Howard Avenue, Division Street and Back Bay Boulevard. The city also has a number of flashing red Stop lights and school crossing signals to replace.
“We’re aware of these signals, and we appreciate everyone’s continuing patience,” Mayor A.J. Holloway said this week. “We’re making sure to follow the proper federal and state procedures in doing this work so that taxpayers in Biloxi are not left with the bill. It’s obviously a time-consuming process, but we’ll get there.”
The three neighborhood streets that remain closed at U.S. 90 are at Kuhn Street in east Biloxi, and at Sadler Beach Drive and Chalmers Drive in west Biloxi.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Biloxi has established a great track record, Holloway tells analysts
City of Biloxi: You're City At Work: 6/23/06
If you’re wondering how Biloxi will recover from Hurricane Katrina, just check the city’s track record over the past decade or so, Mayor A.J. Holloway told two groups of financial analysts in New York City this week.
Holloway was asked to update the city’s recovery efforts and future outlook for the two groups, whose members monitor factors influencing the economy and advise would-be investors and developers.
“Today, I come before you to say that right now in Biloxi we’re dealing with some issues that some cities in this country ‘wish’ they had to deal with,” Holloway declared, adding with a smile: “Well, some of them, anyway.
“We have a ways to go, but a lot of people are coming to realize that we were making history before this storm, and we stand poised ready to make history again.”
Looking to Aug. 29, when Beau Rivage Resort and Casino is scheduled to re-open, Holloway cautioned audiences that they may not see the same 35 percent jump in gross gaming revenue that the city saw in 1999, when Beau Rivage originally opened.
“You have to realize that today we’re looking at attracting people to what is either perceived as a disaster zone or a construction zone,” the mayor said. “People with disposable income to go anywhere they want, may not have a disaster or construction zone at the top of their vacation list. You also have to consider that the 70 percent figure on gross gaming revenue might be a little misleading.
“You’re looking at thousands of entertainment-starved volunteers and FEMA workers in town, so you have to add that to the mix. That 70 percent is not coming from 70 percent of the pre-Katrina visitors.
“I say these things because I’m conservative by nature,” Holloway continued. “and I wanted you to know my thinking on these numbers.
“But there’s no mistake to this: When we get more hotel, rooms, when we get more restaurants, when we get more of our amenities like the beach, and the golf courses and the museums back in operation we’ll start seeing a steady and sustainable level of growth.”
To read the prepared text of the mayor’s remarks, click here.
Incidentally, you can get a firsthand look at one of Holloway’s out-of-town presentations regarding the city’s recovery from the mayor’s address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors back in January. To see the 16-minute video, click here.
City of Biloxi: You're City At Work: 6/23/06
If you’re wondering how Biloxi will recover from Hurricane Katrina, just check the city’s track record over the past decade or so, Mayor A.J. Holloway told two groups of financial analysts in New York City this week.
Holloway was asked to update the city’s recovery efforts and future outlook for the two groups, whose members monitor factors influencing the economy and advise would-be investors and developers.
“Today, I come before you to say that right now in Biloxi we’re dealing with some issues that some cities in this country ‘wish’ they had to deal with,” Holloway declared, adding with a smile: “Well, some of them, anyway.
“We have a ways to go, but a lot of people are coming to realize that we were making history before this storm, and we stand poised ready to make history again.”
Looking to Aug. 29, when Beau Rivage Resort and Casino is scheduled to re-open, Holloway cautioned audiences that they may not see the same 35 percent jump in gross gaming revenue that the city saw in 1999, when Beau Rivage originally opened.
“You have to realize that today we’re looking at attracting people to what is either perceived as a disaster zone or a construction zone,” the mayor said. “People with disposable income to go anywhere they want, may not have a disaster or construction zone at the top of their vacation list. You also have to consider that the 70 percent figure on gross gaming revenue might be a little misleading.
“You’re looking at thousands of entertainment-starved volunteers and FEMA workers in town, so you have to add that to the mix. That 70 percent is not coming from 70 percent of the pre-Katrina visitors.
“I say these things because I’m conservative by nature,” Holloway continued. “and I wanted you to know my thinking on these numbers.
“But there’s no mistake to this: When we get more hotel, rooms, when we get more restaurants, when we get more of our amenities like the beach, and the golf courses and the museums back in operation we’ll start seeing a steady and sustainable level of growth.”
To read the prepared text of the mayor’s remarks, click here.
Incidentally, you can get a firsthand look at one of Holloway’s out-of-town presentations regarding the city’s recovery from the mayor’s address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors back in January. To see the 16-minute video, click here.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Offers of aid for 79-year-old widow pour in
But we need a way to get in touch with her
6/24/06
SUN HERALD --Gulfport/Sunherald.com
The collective spirit that has carried South Mississippi through Hurricane Katrina wants to assist a widow needing help, if she will come forward.
"I'm calling about the 79-year-old widow who needs help with her yard. My family's willing to help," said a caller to the Sun Herald, essentially repeating the message of dozens of others.
The woman called Sound Off on Thursday, saying she is recovering from hip-replacement surgery and living on Social Security.
"I need to get my yard in shape again, and I can do very little work myself. I cannot afford the $50 an hour or more charged by some lawn-care services. I would greatly appreciate if someone would help me."
Unfortunately, the widow failed to leave her contact information. If she would call Sound Off at 896-2123, or if someone who knows her would call and let us know how to contact her, we'll be happy to put her in touch with some of these people wanting to help her.
"For the 79 year-old lady who needs someone to clean up her yard, she needs to call me. I'll see if I can't get Boy Scouts to help her," said one caller.
Another, from Ocean Springs who has been living in Louisiana since the storm, said if someone could call him, he'd go take care of her yard for free.
A couple from Wiggins is willing to drive wherever is necessary to help.
Churches have inquired and are offering help, as are volunteer groups.
And there are those who have finished up their own land and are willing to help another - " I know how hard it is to look at a trashed yard. We finally have ours in pretty good shape. I would love to be able to help the 79-year-old widow."
They're out there - mowers and trimmers ready - but none can cut the yard, edge the walk or trim the shrubs until they know where to go.
But we need a way to get in touch with her
6/24/06
SUN HERALD --Gulfport/Sunherald.com
The collective spirit that has carried South Mississippi through Hurricane Katrina wants to assist a widow needing help, if she will come forward.
"I'm calling about the 79-year-old widow who needs help with her yard. My family's willing to help," said a caller to the Sun Herald, essentially repeating the message of dozens of others.
The woman called Sound Off on Thursday, saying she is recovering from hip-replacement surgery and living on Social Security.
"I need to get my yard in shape again, and I can do very little work myself. I cannot afford the $50 an hour or more charged by some lawn-care services. I would greatly appreciate if someone would help me."
Unfortunately, the widow failed to leave her contact information. If she would call Sound Off at 896-2123, or if someone who knows her would call and let us know how to contact her, we'll be happy to put her in touch with some of these people wanting to help her.
"For the 79 year-old lady who needs someone to clean up her yard, she needs to call me. I'll see if I can't get Boy Scouts to help her," said one caller.
Another, from Ocean Springs who has been living in Louisiana since the storm, said if someone could call him, he'd go take care of her yard for free.
A couple from Wiggins is willing to drive wherever is necessary to help.
Churches have inquired and are offering help, as are volunteer groups.
And there are those who have finished up their own land and are willing to help another - " I know how hard it is to look at a trashed yard. We finally have ours in pretty good shape. I would love to be able to help the 79-year-old widow."
They're out there - mowers and trimmers ready - but none can cut the yard, edge the walk or trim the shrubs until they know where to go.
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Surge in crime feeds myths and paranoia
Fear drives locals to arm themselves
Sunday, June 25, 2006 - Times Picayune - Nola.com
By Trymaine Lee
With a 9 mm Glock strapped to his side and a tinge of something steely in his baby-blue eyes, Ralph Mason, 60, stood on the second-story balcony of his Frenchmen Street business and gazed into the brave new world below.
There's trouble down there, he said, and no one is safe from it.
Mason, who asked that his business not be named, has heard all the stories about the gang of youths terrorizing the neighborhood, beating random victims with savage intent. He claims to have seen them on several occasions. That is more than some can say. They repeat the story on hearsay alone, and like many such stories it turns out to be not quite true.
Police said the Marigny gang story morphed from three incidents reported in as many months to a roaming horde of teens pummeling innocent victims nightly.
Then there's the rumor that 27 Dillard University students were robbed at gunpoint recently near Canal Place by a man carrying an AK-47. Another such urban myth has jazz pianist Hilton Ruiz, who went into a fatal coma after taking a terrible fall on Bourbon Street last month, prominent in a saga that puts blood on the hands of either the New Orleans Police Department or local thugs, depending on which version of the story you've heard.
A list of unsubstantiated, post-storm rumors are eroding public trust of police and creating unnecessary hysteria, said Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the 8th District, which covers the French Quarter and parts of Faubourg Marigny. One rumor even suggested that a Brazilian gang was in town, roughing up local toughs and beating up people as part of a violent initiation rite.
While first-quarter statistics released by the NOPD show that the number of violent crimes -- including rape, murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault -- is down some 64 percent from the first three months of last year, given the city's reduced population, the per-capita crime rate has risen at least to pre-Katrina levels.
Now, with a quilt of real crimes and rumors blanketing much of the city, hopes of a crime-free utopia have given way to a fear that a more insidious kind of violence is taking hold at a time when city government, including the police force, is in disarray.
"There is a fear that no one will be there to protect you," Mason said. "We're all just frightened to death. And we're not going to rely on anyone but ourselves."
Mason said he isn't taking any chances. In the face of what seems to be a growing violent-crime rate in New Orleans, he and many of his neighbors are drawing fortitude from their fears and vowing vigilante-style armed resistance if necessary. Mason said that, as hard as it would be to take a life, he and many others have come to grips with the possibility that they might have to use lethal force to protect their loved ones.
Mason is well aware of vigilantism's downside. Next thing to happen is an innocent bystander will get shot, Mason said.
"You shoot a 9 mm (handgun) down Bourbon Street, you're not likely to hit the person that is trying to rob you, you're going to hit someone a half mile away," he said. "If you knew the women and some of the men I'm talking about, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, I mean, someone's going to get killed."
Mason's cache of weapons includes twin 9 mm Glocks and a .20-gauge shotgun, and he claims to know how to use them. He is in the process of applying for a concealed carry permit.
Another Katrina legacy
Shooting classes and sales at local gun shops are booming. A new crop of gun buyers are arming themselves quickly, said Chris Ziifle, owner of Gretna Gun Works.
It's the fear of facing a thug in the dark of night while walking the dog; of taking an evening stroll and being beaten by one of the "gangs" people are talking about over coffee and muffins.
"Have you read the newspaper?" Ziifle asked. "Yes? Well so have they. They're reading the paper and they're hearing the talk around town and they're hearing that there is more crime around than before the hurricane."
In fact, NOPD statistics show fewer crimes being committed in New Orleans compared with a year ago, but what those numbers don't show are violent crimes committed per capita, adjusted for the city's shift of population -- the crime rate. Experts consider it a more accurate reflection of the crime picture.
In explaining the prevalence in the public imagination of false or exaggerated rumors about the crime situation in New Orleans, criminologists said some of it is a residue of messages broadcast during Katrina: People were being randomly attacked; armed bands of looters and carjackers had taken over the city. These days, Ziifle said, people aren't taking their safety for granted.
"They're frightened," she said. "There are looters around."
Women are arming themselves more than ever, she said. And instructors at gun shops like Gretna Gun Works are teaching them how to shoot.
The weapon of choice for women: a revolver. The revolver is easy to load and is considered safer than semiautomatic handguns that pack up to 17 bullets and that often have hair-triggers and no safety latch.
Ziifle said classes held two and three times a month at her shop have grown from about 15 students to more than 25.
"Some people are still in survival mode," said Anderson, the police captain. "We still have our crime issues. But I think it just seems magnified by the lack of crime we experienced early on."
'This is scary'
Even before a violent and bloody four-day frenzy that began last weekend and claimed the lives of seven people -- six in Central City alone, including five teenagers and a convicted murderer -- fear of post-Katrina crime exploding out of control had permeated some sections of the city where crime has traditionally been low.
"This is scary," said Dee Dillman, who with her husband, John, own Kaboom Books on Barracks Street in the French Quarter. Dillman hasn't witnessed a single crime with her own eyes, but said she knows people who have. She and others in the neighborhood have talked with victims of the youth beatings and are convinced the incidents are signs of things to come.
She wonders what it will take for attention to be placed on what she sees as a trend of increasing crime in her French Quarter neighborhood, be it with broom-stick bludgeoning or bullets.
"Any murder in any section of town is unacceptable," Dillman said in a phone interview from Houston, where she's opening a new bookstore. "But what will it take for them to listen, for a tourist to get killed or a white person?"
Donald Geddes and his wife, Maryland, also have taken up arms. They had feared that if they are confronted by someone demanding their money or their lives, they would be ill-prepared.
"I don't like the idea of carrying a gun around," Geddes said. "I'd rather not. But in the face of what's going on, I made the decision to do two things: One, start doing as much work as possible to inform the police as to what I see going on. And, two, I would arm myself. And I think that is a good decision."
Maryland Geddes, an artist who admitted she's only held her brand-new .38-caliber revolver once, said the images from Katrina that showed the city descending into lawlessness struck deep fear in her.
"I think everybody saw the film footage after the hurricane and the complete lawlessness," she said. "The newspaper tells us of all the murders." Conceding that she's a bit concerned about carrying a weapon, Geddes said it's the threat of someone taking her life that has forced a shift from her more passive ideology.
"I've never really looked at guns, held guns -- and I don't believe in guns," she said. "I would hate to ever have to shoot someone. But you know what? I think I could if someone was coming after me." Geddes said she'll soon be getting more acquainted with her revolver when she and her husband start taking lessons.
Living with crime
In neighborhoods that were hubs of crime, violence and drug activity before the storm, returning residents said they weren't surprised by a resurgence of gunplay born from drug dealers dueling over Katrina-emancipated turf.
In places like Central City, Pigeon Town and Hollygrove, the bullet-riddled bodies of young men are again surfacing in the streets more frequently than at any time since the storm.
"It's worse," said Brenda Allen, 51, standing outside a deli at the notoriously violent Pigeon Town intersection of Hickory and Leonidas streets.
"If you want to put a target on your back, if you want to get shot, come out here anytime after 8 o'clock. You got to know what time it is." Allen said she is scared but takes precautions: She runs all of her errands early; she doesn't come outside after dark; and she prays several times a day.
In the belly of one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in New Orleans, Central City resident Cornell Williams said no level of fear would make him pick up a gun.
Fighting gun violence with guns "is not a good example for the young ones coming up," said Williams, 43, standing at the corner of First and Daneel streets in Central City. "We live in fear. But life is a gamble. You've got to live it how it goes."
Nightly gunfire
The hardened blocks of Central City have been the scene of 14 of the city's 55 killing so far this year, more than any other part of the city.
Though much of the neighborhood remains sparsely populated, the drugs, those addicted to them, and the people peddling them have returned.
NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley said the gun violence in particular hot spots is a result of battling factions and individuals vying for drug turf abandoned by those swept away by the storm. Some have returned to reclaim their corners, while new and old rivals engage in violent skirmishes.
The spoils of the many small wars going on in the often-forgotten streets of low-income neighborhoods is more than just fear, it's death.
Some of those slinging drugs came back within a month of the storm, Williams said. Trouble in the neighborhood came shortly after. Now there is gunfire and fighting most nights, Williams said.
Though Central City's death toll is particularly high, Williams warned that the violence is everywhere. He said the only thing the storm did was herd off the bad with the good, and open up the slowly repopulating streets to criminal bit players in what is quickly becoming a theater of gangsters.
"When they left here they were killing," Williams said. "And they're killing again."
People living in both affluent and more-afflicted areas express fear that a more violent future is on the horizon.
Criminologist Peter Scharf said people will often home in on particular crimes or extreme acts of violence, obsessively replaying such episodes in their heads.
"Paranoia is a heightened sense of reality, and the reality is that the murder rate the last couple months is really high, " Scharf said.
"To say that crime fears are all social psychological, right now, is an incredible state of denial," he said. "A lot of people are saying that the news media and Peter Scharf are hyping this whole thing. Some of the cold statistics suggest that the fears have a foundation."
Fear drives locals to arm themselves
Sunday, June 25, 2006 - Times Picayune - Nola.com
By Trymaine Lee
With a 9 mm Glock strapped to his side and a tinge of something steely in his baby-blue eyes, Ralph Mason, 60, stood on the second-story balcony of his Frenchmen Street business and gazed into the brave new world below.
There's trouble down there, he said, and no one is safe from it.
Mason, who asked that his business not be named, has heard all the stories about the gang of youths terrorizing the neighborhood, beating random victims with savage intent. He claims to have seen them on several occasions. That is more than some can say. They repeat the story on hearsay alone, and like many such stories it turns out to be not quite true.
Police said the Marigny gang story morphed from three incidents reported in as many months to a roaming horde of teens pummeling innocent victims nightly.
Then there's the rumor that 27 Dillard University students were robbed at gunpoint recently near Canal Place by a man carrying an AK-47. Another such urban myth has jazz pianist Hilton Ruiz, who went into a fatal coma after taking a terrible fall on Bourbon Street last month, prominent in a saga that puts blood on the hands of either the New Orleans Police Department or local thugs, depending on which version of the story you've heard.
A list of unsubstantiated, post-storm rumors are eroding public trust of police and creating unnecessary hysteria, said Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the 8th District, which covers the French Quarter and parts of Faubourg Marigny. One rumor even suggested that a Brazilian gang was in town, roughing up local toughs and beating up people as part of a violent initiation rite.
While first-quarter statistics released by the NOPD show that the number of violent crimes -- including rape, murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault -- is down some 64 percent from the first three months of last year, given the city's reduced population, the per-capita crime rate has risen at least to pre-Katrina levels.
Now, with a quilt of real crimes and rumors blanketing much of the city, hopes of a crime-free utopia have given way to a fear that a more insidious kind of violence is taking hold at a time when city government, including the police force, is in disarray.
"There is a fear that no one will be there to protect you," Mason said. "We're all just frightened to death. And we're not going to rely on anyone but ourselves."
Mason said he isn't taking any chances. In the face of what seems to be a growing violent-crime rate in New Orleans, he and many of his neighbors are drawing fortitude from their fears and vowing vigilante-style armed resistance if necessary. Mason said that, as hard as it would be to take a life, he and many others have come to grips with the possibility that they might have to use lethal force to protect their loved ones.
Mason is well aware of vigilantism's downside. Next thing to happen is an innocent bystander will get shot, Mason said.
"You shoot a 9 mm (handgun) down Bourbon Street, you're not likely to hit the person that is trying to rob you, you're going to hit someone a half mile away," he said. "If you knew the women and some of the men I'm talking about, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, I mean, someone's going to get killed."
Mason's cache of weapons includes twin 9 mm Glocks and a .20-gauge shotgun, and he claims to know how to use them. He is in the process of applying for a concealed carry permit.
Another Katrina legacy
Shooting classes and sales at local gun shops are booming. A new crop of gun buyers are arming themselves quickly, said Chris Ziifle, owner of Gretna Gun Works.
It's the fear of facing a thug in the dark of night while walking the dog; of taking an evening stroll and being beaten by one of the "gangs" people are talking about over coffee and muffins.
"Have you read the newspaper?" Ziifle asked. "Yes? Well so have they. They're reading the paper and they're hearing the talk around town and they're hearing that there is more crime around than before the hurricane."
In fact, NOPD statistics show fewer crimes being committed in New Orleans compared with a year ago, but what those numbers don't show are violent crimes committed per capita, adjusted for the city's shift of population -- the crime rate. Experts consider it a more accurate reflection of the crime picture.
In explaining the prevalence in the public imagination of false or exaggerated rumors about the crime situation in New Orleans, criminologists said some of it is a residue of messages broadcast during Katrina: People were being randomly attacked; armed bands of looters and carjackers had taken over the city. These days, Ziifle said, people aren't taking their safety for granted.
"They're frightened," she said. "There are looters around."
Women are arming themselves more than ever, she said. And instructors at gun shops like Gretna Gun Works are teaching them how to shoot.
The weapon of choice for women: a revolver. The revolver is easy to load and is considered safer than semiautomatic handguns that pack up to 17 bullets and that often have hair-triggers and no safety latch.
Ziifle said classes held two and three times a month at her shop have grown from about 15 students to more than 25.
"Some people are still in survival mode," said Anderson, the police captain. "We still have our crime issues. But I think it just seems magnified by the lack of crime we experienced early on."
'This is scary'
Even before a violent and bloody four-day frenzy that began last weekend and claimed the lives of seven people -- six in Central City alone, including five teenagers and a convicted murderer -- fear of post-Katrina crime exploding out of control had permeated some sections of the city where crime has traditionally been low.
"This is scary," said Dee Dillman, who with her husband, John, own Kaboom Books on Barracks Street in the French Quarter. Dillman hasn't witnessed a single crime with her own eyes, but said she knows people who have. She and others in the neighborhood have talked with victims of the youth beatings and are convinced the incidents are signs of things to come.
She wonders what it will take for attention to be placed on what she sees as a trend of increasing crime in her French Quarter neighborhood, be it with broom-stick bludgeoning or bullets.
"Any murder in any section of town is unacceptable," Dillman said in a phone interview from Houston, where she's opening a new bookstore. "But what will it take for them to listen, for a tourist to get killed or a white person?"
Donald Geddes and his wife, Maryland, also have taken up arms. They had feared that if they are confronted by someone demanding their money or their lives, they would be ill-prepared.
"I don't like the idea of carrying a gun around," Geddes said. "I'd rather not. But in the face of what's going on, I made the decision to do two things: One, start doing as much work as possible to inform the police as to what I see going on. And, two, I would arm myself. And I think that is a good decision."
Maryland Geddes, an artist who admitted she's only held her brand-new .38-caliber revolver once, said the images from Katrina that showed the city descending into lawlessness struck deep fear in her.
"I think everybody saw the film footage after the hurricane and the complete lawlessness," she said. "The newspaper tells us of all the murders." Conceding that she's a bit concerned about carrying a weapon, Geddes said it's the threat of someone taking her life that has forced a shift from her more passive ideology.
"I've never really looked at guns, held guns -- and I don't believe in guns," she said. "I would hate to ever have to shoot someone. But you know what? I think I could if someone was coming after me." Geddes said she'll soon be getting more acquainted with her revolver when she and her husband start taking lessons.
Living with crime
In neighborhoods that were hubs of crime, violence and drug activity before the storm, returning residents said they weren't surprised by a resurgence of gunplay born from drug dealers dueling over Katrina-emancipated turf.
In places like Central City, Pigeon Town and Hollygrove, the bullet-riddled bodies of young men are again surfacing in the streets more frequently than at any time since the storm.
"It's worse," said Brenda Allen, 51, standing outside a deli at the notoriously violent Pigeon Town intersection of Hickory and Leonidas streets.
"If you want to put a target on your back, if you want to get shot, come out here anytime after 8 o'clock. You got to know what time it is." Allen said she is scared but takes precautions: She runs all of her errands early; she doesn't come outside after dark; and she prays several times a day.
In the belly of one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in New Orleans, Central City resident Cornell Williams said no level of fear would make him pick up a gun.
Fighting gun violence with guns "is not a good example for the young ones coming up," said Williams, 43, standing at the corner of First and Daneel streets in Central City. "We live in fear. But life is a gamble. You've got to live it how it goes."
Nightly gunfire
The hardened blocks of Central City have been the scene of 14 of the city's 55 killing so far this year, more than any other part of the city.
Though much of the neighborhood remains sparsely populated, the drugs, those addicted to them, and the people peddling them have returned.
NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley said the gun violence in particular hot spots is a result of battling factions and individuals vying for drug turf abandoned by those swept away by the storm. Some have returned to reclaim their corners, while new and old rivals engage in violent skirmishes.
The spoils of the many small wars going on in the often-forgotten streets of low-income neighborhoods is more than just fear, it's death.
Some of those slinging drugs came back within a month of the storm, Williams said. Trouble in the neighborhood came shortly after. Now there is gunfire and fighting most nights, Williams said.
Though Central City's death toll is particularly high, Williams warned that the violence is everywhere. He said the only thing the storm did was herd off the bad with the good, and open up the slowly repopulating streets to criminal bit players in what is quickly becoming a theater of gangsters.
"When they left here they were killing," Williams said. "And they're killing again."
People living in both affluent and more-afflicted areas express fear that a more violent future is on the horizon.
Criminologist Peter Scharf said people will often home in on particular crimes or extreme acts of violence, obsessively replaying such episodes in their heads.
"Paranoia is a heightened sense of reality, and the reality is that the murder rate the last couple months is really high, " Scharf said.
"To say that crime fears are all social psychological, right now, is an incredible state of denial," he said. "A lot of people are saying that the news media and Peter Scharf are hyping this whole thing. Some of the cold statistics suggest that the fears have a foundation."
0 likes
- Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
FRONT LINES
NOPD is set to do battle with an influx of criminals to make the new New Orleans safer
Sunday, June 25, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Michael Perlstein
In the first months after Hurricane Katrina, when subsiding floodwaters gave way to an eerie calm, residents returning to New Orleans were treated to a virtually crime-free landscape, a strange but welcome change in an era of over-amped violence.
Police officers would go entire shifts without a hot call, spending most of their time filling out paperwork for looting complaints. National Guard troops grew bored manning checkpoints in empty neighborhoods. If there was a reminder of homegrown violence, it was a distant one, seen mostly in headlines from evacuee-swollen cities like Houston.
Newly elevated Police Superintendent Warren Riley, even as he was drawing up strategies for the expected return of drugs and guns and thugs, briefly allowed himself to relish the possibility that one of Katrina's legacies would be a more tranquil New Orleans.
"Mayberry is a boring city, but you don't have body bags leaving Mayberry every day," he said in November.
Today, the number of body bags and emergency room gunshot wounds is starting to make New Orleans look more like Detroit than Mayberry. And with the arrival last week of 300 National Guard troops and further assistance from State Police, Riley is no longer downplaying the return of crime, but touting new strategies for dealing with it.
Last weekend's massacre of five teenagers in Central City, on top of the steadily rising incidence of shootings and drug-trafficking, erased any lingering illusions. After a relatively peaceful winter, the murder rate in the second quarter has soared to more than double the first-quarter rate.
In fact, there were early signs that a storm-driven purge of New Orleans' long-standing crime problem was more dream than reality. In January, a shooting disrupted the city's first big post-Katrina second-line parade, wounding three people. In March, a shooting at another second-line broke out directly in front of the parade's police escort, leaving one man dead and the suspect wounded by police. Then, in May, there was a rare murder on Bourbon Street, heart of the city's busiest tourist district.
Not catastrophic yet
The onset of hot summer days and short fuses, along with this week's rollout of soldiers and State Police troopers, has ratcheted up fears in some quarters that the city is under siege.
But even by conventional statistical analysis, the reality is far more measured, even hopeful.
"It's not a catastrophic situation. It's not something we're going to solve overnight. It's really somewhere in the middle," U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said, conceding that that long-term trends are more cloudy.
Letten said some of the heightened alarm from the recent crime spike may come from heightened expectations.
"I think those early ideas that the criminal element was washed out of New Orleans for good was Pollyanna-esque," Letten said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out that an empty city is going to be peaceful. But the idea of a clean slate was false. There is no clean slate here. We're dealing with the same problems we dealt with before Katrina."
Those problems, while nerve-wracking to a community already buffeted by adversity, should not be cause for alarm, Riley said. The idea to invite the National Guard and State Police to assist local police, for example, was hatched months earlier and was not sparked by last weekend's bloodshed, he said.
"We knew FEMA vouchers were about to end and school was ending and a lot of evacuees would be returning," Riley said. "We were simply asking for assistance in damaged neighborhoods like Lakeview, Gentilly and eastern New Orleans so we could pull some of our officers into the inner city and Algiers. It was a sound policing decision."
Riley said he knew the timing was unfortunate coming on the heels of the city's worst multiple murder in a decade -- and the arrival of the first big-league convention since the hurricane -- but he still cringed when some of the national media portrayed New Orleans as descending into anarchy.
"When I saw that, it was like a spear to my heart because I knew it was not the case," he said. "That type of paranoia is unwarranted and unfair."
In fact, New Orleans' current crime rate is uncannily close to its annualized prestorm crime rate, even with the second-quarter surge.
With the city's estimated population of 221,000 slightly less than half of the pre-Katrina population, the crime rate is down by almost the same percentage. According to Police Department statistics, overall crime dropped nearly 54 percent during the first three months of the year compared with the same period of 2005.
The first quarter's violent crime picture was somewhat better -- down by nearly 64 percent over 2005 -- but a spike in bloodshed since appears to have wiped out any per-capita improvement.
Take murder, for example. New Orleans police had recorded 55 killings through June 20, giving the city a loosely estimated per-capita murder rate of 50 per 100,000 residents. The city's per-capita rate in 2004: 56 per 100,000.
While such extrapolations are difficult given the city's uncertainties, there is little solace in the fact that the estimated 2006 murder rate remains lower than the 2004 rate, in which there were 264 killings in a fully populated city. That year, the city's murder rate was second in the nation, behind only Camden, N.J., which saw 60.8 murders per 100,000 residents.
"The numbers so far (in 2006) would put us in the top five most murderous cities in the country. That's scary," said University of New Orleans criminologist Peter Scharf. "The last two months worries me even more. If you use those numbers, we're on a pace to have the worst year we've had in quite a while."
Broken windows
As the city lurches through its halting recovery, criminologists and sociologists point to several factors that paint a crime picture that could get worse before it gets better.
At the top of the list is the widely followed "broken windows" theory, which holds that small measures of disorder such as trash, graffiti or abandoned buildings invite bigger measures of disorder such as vandalism, drug-dealing and, ultimately, violent crime.
In many respects, Katrina transformed New Orleans into one big broken window, with endless debris piles, pitted streets and miles of wrecked and vacant houses.
"When you drive around the city, you don't see order," Scharf said. "That makes it very important to create a perception that things are under control and that's been a struggle so far."
Other questions that academics and law enforcement professionals are pondering:
-- Did the temporary displacement of the city's criminal element give them a dangerous new mobility, an ability to dodge the heat by relocating to a faraway city? Early on, police found a direct criminal thoroughfare between Houston and New Orleans, although that appears to be slowing as more New Orleanians return and Houston cracks down on tensions posed by evacuees.
-- Given the dispersal of city residents, what are the migration patterns of the criminally inclined? Some have speculated that since Mardi Gras, the criminal element is returning faster than the law-abiding population, who are waiting for housing and jobs, because criminals are accustomed to streetwise survival without steady employment or housing. "You have risk factors and you have stabilizing factors, things like churches, playgrounds and grandmothers," Scharf said. "Right now it looks like the risk factors are returning more quickly."
-- With residents crammed into the least damaged areas of the city, are hair-trigger hotheads from rival neighborhoods creating friction that leads to violence? As a cautionary example, police and residents alike cite the spike in violence in 2001 when the St. Thomas housing complex was demolished and its residents scattered among rival housing complexes.
While answers to these questions remain fuzzy, police, academics and residents all say that the new crime patterns are remarkably similar to the old ones. The most common denominator: drugs.
In a letter introducing a detailed FBI-coordinated "intelligence assessment" of metro area crime, local FBI chief James Bernazzani summarized the violent crime "threat landscape."
"Disenfranchised African- American youth, whose drug trade was based on neighborhood or family associations, are beginning to return to the area," he wrote. "With a large portion of the city relatively uninhabitable, they are migrating to the areas least affected by the storm. . . . We are also witnessing a spillage into Jefferson Parish."
Indeed, Jefferson Parish has seen a spike in homicides, especially in the largely unflooded West Bank. The coroner's office said it has recorded 33 homicides so far in 2006, compared with only 20 during the same period last year.
Despite a shift in criminal activity to more heavily populated Jefferson, most of the violence has broken out in the same New Orleans neighborhoods that were dicey before Katrina.
Cornell Williams, 43, lives in Central City, where 14 of this year's 55 murders have taken place. "As soon as we started seeing people come back, we started seeing the drugs come back," he said.
"It's like the storm didn't affect anything," Williams said. "People went right back to what they were doing. I wish another storm would come through here and run them off again."
Riley said a newly created intelligence unit has been tracking the city's most dangerous known criminals, and detectives have found that some pre-Katrina drug dealers have wasted little time in resuming crack and heroin sales. Not only that, an oversupply of traffickers is jockeying to fill the temporary vacuum -- and shrunken market -- left by the hurricane.
"We have a criminal element trying to establish turf," Riley said. "As they search for places to re-establish their drug business, these guys begin to run into each other, and that's what leads to trouble. Mardi Gras attracted a lot of them back to the city and, sure enough, when they came back, they began to run into each other and establish turf and settle old beefs."
Bernazzani speculated that the recent rise in violence is part of a broader pattern that he described as "a pig in a python," a noticeable bulge in an otherwise steady crime rate.
"We were bound to hit a bulge with the end of the school year," he said. "That was pretty predictable. . . . What people need to know is that authorities are on top of this. State, local, federal and military are working in concert like never before to get a handle on the crime situation. And despite the five killings over the weekend, it's working."
'We are being proactive'
Bernazzani said one of the best examples of effective post-storm cooperation among different police agencies is an intelligence-sharing group that tries to pinpoint trends before they turn into violence. The FBI-led group has been successful in suffocating two potential problems before they could take a breath, he said: the infiltration of violent Latin gangs such as MS-13 and Southwest Cholos and a nascent attempt by an out-of-state Asian drug ring to set up shop in the area.
As for dealing with the homegrown criminals, Bernazzani said federal authorities can provide information and support, but the New Orleans Police Department must take the lead.
According to Riley, the NOPD is doing just that.
Formation of the intelligence unit, concentration on crime hot spots, proactive deployment of SWAT and Special Operations officers, the use of reserve officers, communication with neighborhood groups and stronger ties with state and federal authorities are all part of the post-Katrina crime-fighting strategy, Riley said.
"We continue to focus. Continue to push. Continue to gather intelligence. . . . Our officers are determined not to let things get back to pre-Katrina levels. We are being very aggressive and very proactive," he said.
Capt. John Bryson, commander of public information, said out-of-town media have swarmed his office with questions about the city's post-Katrina crime issues and his most common refrain is: "The sky is not falling. It really isn't. Crime is not out of control."
Climate of crime
But, just like in pre-storm New Orleans, the Police Department can only do so much. Underlying some of the city's crime problems are deep-rooted social issues -- crushing poverty, weak schools, fractured families, a struggling economy -- that can't be corrected quickly. In fact, many of those problems have been exacerbated by Katrina.
Gary Bizal, a veteran defense lawyer, has represented many young men who find themselves trapped in a cycle of drugs and violence, including a large clientele in the city's hottest spot of the moment, Central City.
"The National Guard isn't going to be able to stop this. The police aren't going to be able to stop this," Bizal said. "Help should have come when these kids were 5 or 6 years old. Until the underlying problem is handled and corrected, it's going to go on forever."
But some issues that contribute to the climate of crime can be turned around, police and policy-makers said. They stress that it is critical for other elements of the criminal justice system -- prosecutors, public defenders, judges, probation officers and jail officials -- to take advantage of the post-Katrina environment and get aggressive about reform. Right now, many of those agencies are struggling to regain their post-storm footing.
"The NOPD is probably in much better shape than the other components of the criminal justice system," Scharf said. "All the components need to get together and get very serious very quickly. When a person is drowning, you can't spend a lot of time teaching the backstroke. We're in a crisis here."
A failing justice system
One glaring problem that needs immediate attention, according to many officials, is the loose bail requirements for suspects with significant criminal histories. Since Katrina, state Judge Charles Elloie has remained a lightning rod for criticism, his reputation for excessive leniency reinforced by the free recognizance bond he issued to Brian Expose. A repeat offender, police say Expose was caught in Algiers with 6 ounces of cocaine and an arsenal of seven guns that included two assault rifles.
Elloie rescinded the bond when he learned the details of the arrest and Expose's prior felony drug conviction, but by then the case had been taken over by the U.S. attorney's office. In federal court, Expose was denied bond.
Letten said his office will continue to be vigilant in adopting serious drug and narcotics cases for federal prosecution.
"Clearly, there are enormous challenges facing the DA's office and the courts. So we're trying to push as many cases through the federal system as possible. Tulane and Broad became a revolving door a long time ago," Letten said.
As a result of the Expose case, the state Legislature two weeks ago overwhelmingly adopted a bill that forbids recognizance bonds for suspects accused of a gun crime. But the limits of that new law were quickly revealed in the case of Michael Mack. Mack, 22, was convicted of murder and armed robbery as a juvenile, yet was issued bail and released after three separate drug arrests since October. He was fatally shot Tuesday in a Central City apartment.
Pretty much everyone we've arrested, even with a decent amount of drugs, is getting right out of jail," a veteran New Orleans narcotics officer said. "Roll 'em in, roll 'em out. Right now we're fighting a losing battle. Anywhere else in the world, and they'd still be locked up."
Even Riley, rarely combative in the public arena, took a swipe at the court system.
"The biggest problem in fighting crime is that our criminals don't fear the justice system," he said. "We can't just have the bad guys roll right back out of jail." Riley said the phrase "60-day murder" was being used by New Orleans suspects arrested in Houston, a reference to the time limit they came to expect back home before the cases against them collapsed and they were released.
Dee Harper, a Loyola University criminologist, said it is not too late for prosecutors and judges to adopt the same post-Katrina urgency that has motivated the Police Department.
"There certainly is a window here to get a handle on the problem," Harper said. "We can't go back to the turnstile we had before in state court. That's the thing that makes criminals believe they can get away with it and drives law-abiding citizens away. I hope they seize the moment and take advantage of this opportunity for reform."
Riley and others said the revitalization of the court system, along with smart and aggressive policing strategies, could very well hold the key to rebuilding the city.
"We all have to take our abilities to another level, and not just police," Riley said. "We talk about Category 5 levees. Well, we need a Category 5 criminal justice system."
"Failure," Letten said, "is not an option. We're talking about the survival of one of the greatest cities on Earth."
NOPD is set to do battle with an influx of criminals to make the new New Orleans safer
Sunday, June 25, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Michael Perlstein
In the first months after Hurricane Katrina, when subsiding floodwaters gave way to an eerie calm, residents returning to New Orleans were treated to a virtually crime-free landscape, a strange but welcome change in an era of over-amped violence.
Police officers would go entire shifts without a hot call, spending most of their time filling out paperwork for looting complaints. National Guard troops grew bored manning checkpoints in empty neighborhoods. If there was a reminder of homegrown violence, it was a distant one, seen mostly in headlines from evacuee-swollen cities like Houston.
Newly elevated Police Superintendent Warren Riley, even as he was drawing up strategies for the expected return of drugs and guns and thugs, briefly allowed himself to relish the possibility that one of Katrina's legacies would be a more tranquil New Orleans.
"Mayberry is a boring city, but you don't have body bags leaving Mayberry every day," he said in November.
Today, the number of body bags and emergency room gunshot wounds is starting to make New Orleans look more like Detroit than Mayberry. And with the arrival last week of 300 National Guard troops and further assistance from State Police, Riley is no longer downplaying the return of crime, but touting new strategies for dealing with it.
Last weekend's massacre of five teenagers in Central City, on top of the steadily rising incidence of shootings and drug-trafficking, erased any lingering illusions. After a relatively peaceful winter, the murder rate in the second quarter has soared to more than double the first-quarter rate.
In fact, there were early signs that a storm-driven purge of New Orleans' long-standing crime problem was more dream than reality. In January, a shooting disrupted the city's first big post-Katrina second-line parade, wounding three people. In March, a shooting at another second-line broke out directly in front of the parade's police escort, leaving one man dead and the suspect wounded by police. Then, in May, there was a rare murder on Bourbon Street, heart of the city's busiest tourist district.
Not catastrophic yet
The onset of hot summer days and short fuses, along with this week's rollout of soldiers and State Police troopers, has ratcheted up fears in some quarters that the city is under siege.
But even by conventional statistical analysis, the reality is far more measured, even hopeful.
"It's not a catastrophic situation. It's not something we're going to solve overnight. It's really somewhere in the middle," U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said, conceding that that long-term trends are more cloudy.
Letten said some of the heightened alarm from the recent crime spike may come from heightened expectations.
"I think those early ideas that the criminal element was washed out of New Orleans for good was Pollyanna-esque," Letten said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out that an empty city is going to be peaceful. But the idea of a clean slate was false. There is no clean slate here. We're dealing with the same problems we dealt with before Katrina."
Those problems, while nerve-wracking to a community already buffeted by adversity, should not be cause for alarm, Riley said. The idea to invite the National Guard and State Police to assist local police, for example, was hatched months earlier and was not sparked by last weekend's bloodshed, he said.
"We knew FEMA vouchers were about to end and school was ending and a lot of evacuees would be returning," Riley said. "We were simply asking for assistance in damaged neighborhoods like Lakeview, Gentilly and eastern New Orleans so we could pull some of our officers into the inner city and Algiers. It was a sound policing decision."
Riley said he knew the timing was unfortunate coming on the heels of the city's worst multiple murder in a decade -- and the arrival of the first big-league convention since the hurricane -- but he still cringed when some of the national media portrayed New Orleans as descending into anarchy.
"When I saw that, it was like a spear to my heart because I knew it was not the case," he said. "That type of paranoia is unwarranted and unfair."
In fact, New Orleans' current crime rate is uncannily close to its annualized prestorm crime rate, even with the second-quarter surge.
With the city's estimated population of 221,000 slightly less than half of the pre-Katrina population, the crime rate is down by almost the same percentage. According to Police Department statistics, overall crime dropped nearly 54 percent during the first three months of the year compared with the same period of 2005.
The first quarter's violent crime picture was somewhat better -- down by nearly 64 percent over 2005 -- but a spike in bloodshed since appears to have wiped out any per-capita improvement.
Take murder, for example. New Orleans police had recorded 55 killings through June 20, giving the city a loosely estimated per-capita murder rate of 50 per 100,000 residents. The city's per-capita rate in 2004: 56 per 100,000.
While such extrapolations are difficult given the city's uncertainties, there is little solace in the fact that the estimated 2006 murder rate remains lower than the 2004 rate, in which there were 264 killings in a fully populated city. That year, the city's murder rate was second in the nation, behind only Camden, N.J., which saw 60.8 murders per 100,000 residents.
"The numbers so far (in 2006) would put us in the top five most murderous cities in the country. That's scary," said University of New Orleans criminologist Peter Scharf. "The last two months worries me even more. If you use those numbers, we're on a pace to have the worst year we've had in quite a while."
Broken windows
As the city lurches through its halting recovery, criminologists and sociologists point to several factors that paint a crime picture that could get worse before it gets better.
At the top of the list is the widely followed "broken windows" theory, which holds that small measures of disorder such as trash, graffiti or abandoned buildings invite bigger measures of disorder such as vandalism, drug-dealing and, ultimately, violent crime.
In many respects, Katrina transformed New Orleans into one big broken window, with endless debris piles, pitted streets and miles of wrecked and vacant houses.
"When you drive around the city, you don't see order," Scharf said. "That makes it very important to create a perception that things are under control and that's been a struggle so far."
Other questions that academics and law enforcement professionals are pondering:
-- Did the temporary displacement of the city's criminal element give them a dangerous new mobility, an ability to dodge the heat by relocating to a faraway city? Early on, police found a direct criminal thoroughfare between Houston and New Orleans, although that appears to be slowing as more New Orleanians return and Houston cracks down on tensions posed by evacuees.
-- Given the dispersal of city residents, what are the migration patterns of the criminally inclined? Some have speculated that since Mardi Gras, the criminal element is returning faster than the law-abiding population, who are waiting for housing and jobs, because criminals are accustomed to streetwise survival without steady employment or housing. "You have risk factors and you have stabilizing factors, things like churches, playgrounds and grandmothers," Scharf said. "Right now it looks like the risk factors are returning more quickly."
-- With residents crammed into the least damaged areas of the city, are hair-trigger hotheads from rival neighborhoods creating friction that leads to violence? As a cautionary example, police and residents alike cite the spike in violence in 2001 when the St. Thomas housing complex was demolished and its residents scattered among rival housing complexes.
While answers to these questions remain fuzzy, police, academics and residents all say that the new crime patterns are remarkably similar to the old ones. The most common denominator: drugs.
In a letter introducing a detailed FBI-coordinated "intelligence assessment" of metro area crime, local FBI chief James Bernazzani summarized the violent crime "threat landscape."
"Disenfranchised African- American youth, whose drug trade was based on neighborhood or family associations, are beginning to return to the area," he wrote. "With a large portion of the city relatively uninhabitable, they are migrating to the areas least affected by the storm. . . . We are also witnessing a spillage into Jefferson Parish."
Indeed, Jefferson Parish has seen a spike in homicides, especially in the largely unflooded West Bank. The coroner's office said it has recorded 33 homicides so far in 2006, compared with only 20 during the same period last year.
Despite a shift in criminal activity to more heavily populated Jefferson, most of the violence has broken out in the same New Orleans neighborhoods that were dicey before Katrina.
Cornell Williams, 43, lives in Central City, where 14 of this year's 55 murders have taken place. "As soon as we started seeing people come back, we started seeing the drugs come back," he said.
"It's like the storm didn't affect anything," Williams said. "People went right back to what they were doing. I wish another storm would come through here and run them off again."
Riley said a newly created intelligence unit has been tracking the city's most dangerous known criminals, and detectives have found that some pre-Katrina drug dealers have wasted little time in resuming crack and heroin sales. Not only that, an oversupply of traffickers is jockeying to fill the temporary vacuum -- and shrunken market -- left by the hurricane.
"We have a criminal element trying to establish turf," Riley said. "As they search for places to re-establish their drug business, these guys begin to run into each other, and that's what leads to trouble. Mardi Gras attracted a lot of them back to the city and, sure enough, when they came back, they began to run into each other and establish turf and settle old beefs."
Bernazzani speculated that the recent rise in violence is part of a broader pattern that he described as "a pig in a python," a noticeable bulge in an otherwise steady crime rate.
"We were bound to hit a bulge with the end of the school year," he said. "That was pretty predictable. . . . What people need to know is that authorities are on top of this. State, local, federal and military are working in concert like never before to get a handle on the crime situation. And despite the five killings over the weekend, it's working."
'We are being proactive'
Bernazzani said one of the best examples of effective post-storm cooperation among different police agencies is an intelligence-sharing group that tries to pinpoint trends before they turn into violence. The FBI-led group has been successful in suffocating two potential problems before they could take a breath, he said: the infiltration of violent Latin gangs such as MS-13 and Southwest Cholos and a nascent attempt by an out-of-state Asian drug ring to set up shop in the area.
As for dealing with the homegrown criminals, Bernazzani said federal authorities can provide information and support, but the New Orleans Police Department must take the lead.
According to Riley, the NOPD is doing just that.
Formation of the intelligence unit, concentration on crime hot spots, proactive deployment of SWAT and Special Operations officers, the use of reserve officers, communication with neighborhood groups and stronger ties with state and federal authorities are all part of the post-Katrina crime-fighting strategy, Riley said.
"We continue to focus. Continue to push. Continue to gather intelligence. . . . Our officers are determined not to let things get back to pre-Katrina levels. We are being very aggressive and very proactive," he said.
Capt. John Bryson, commander of public information, said out-of-town media have swarmed his office with questions about the city's post-Katrina crime issues and his most common refrain is: "The sky is not falling. It really isn't. Crime is not out of control."
Climate of crime
But, just like in pre-storm New Orleans, the Police Department can only do so much. Underlying some of the city's crime problems are deep-rooted social issues -- crushing poverty, weak schools, fractured families, a struggling economy -- that can't be corrected quickly. In fact, many of those problems have been exacerbated by Katrina.
Gary Bizal, a veteran defense lawyer, has represented many young men who find themselves trapped in a cycle of drugs and violence, including a large clientele in the city's hottest spot of the moment, Central City.
"The National Guard isn't going to be able to stop this. The police aren't going to be able to stop this," Bizal said. "Help should have come when these kids were 5 or 6 years old. Until the underlying problem is handled and corrected, it's going to go on forever."
But some issues that contribute to the climate of crime can be turned around, police and policy-makers said. They stress that it is critical for other elements of the criminal justice system -- prosecutors, public defenders, judges, probation officers and jail officials -- to take advantage of the post-Katrina environment and get aggressive about reform. Right now, many of those agencies are struggling to regain their post-storm footing.
"The NOPD is probably in much better shape than the other components of the criminal justice system," Scharf said. "All the components need to get together and get very serious very quickly. When a person is drowning, you can't spend a lot of time teaching the backstroke. We're in a crisis here."
A failing justice system
One glaring problem that needs immediate attention, according to many officials, is the loose bail requirements for suspects with significant criminal histories. Since Katrina, state Judge Charles Elloie has remained a lightning rod for criticism, his reputation for excessive leniency reinforced by the free recognizance bond he issued to Brian Expose. A repeat offender, police say Expose was caught in Algiers with 6 ounces of cocaine and an arsenal of seven guns that included two assault rifles.
Elloie rescinded the bond when he learned the details of the arrest and Expose's prior felony drug conviction, but by then the case had been taken over by the U.S. attorney's office. In federal court, Expose was denied bond.
Letten said his office will continue to be vigilant in adopting serious drug and narcotics cases for federal prosecution.
"Clearly, there are enormous challenges facing the DA's office and the courts. So we're trying to push as many cases through the federal system as possible. Tulane and Broad became a revolving door a long time ago," Letten said.
As a result of the Expose case, the state Legislature two weeks ago overwhelmingly adopted a bill that forbids recognizance bonds for suspects accused of a gun crime. But the limits of that new law were quickly revealed in the case of Michael Mack. Mack, 22, was convicted of murder and armed robbery as a juvenile, yet was issued bail and released after three separate drug arrests since October. He was fatally shot Tuesday in a Central City apartment.
Pretty much everyone we've arrested, even with a decent amount of drugs, is getting right out of jail," a veteran New Orleans narcotics officer said. "Roll 'em in, roll 'em out. Right now we're fighting a losing battle. Anywhere else in the world, and they'd still be locked up."
Even Riley, rarely combative in the public arena, took a swipe at the court system.
"The biggest problem in fighting crime is that our criminals don't fear the justice system," he said. "We can't just have the bad guys roll right back out of jail." Riley said the phrase "60-day murder" was being used by New Orleans suspects arrested in Houston, a reference to the time limit they came to expect back home before the cases against them collapsed and they were released.
Dee Harper, a Loyola University criminologist, said it is not too late for prosecutors and judges to adopt the same post-Katrina urgency that has motivated the Police Department.
"There certainly is a window here to get a handle on the problem," Harper said. "We can't go back to the turnstile we had before in state court. That's the thing that makes criminals believe they can get away with it and drives law-abiding citizens away. I hope they seize the moment and take advantage of this opportunity for reform."
Riley and others said the revitalization of the court system, along with smart and aggressive policing strategies, could very well hold the key to rebuilding the city.
"We all have to take our abilities to another level, and not just police," Riley said. "We talk about Category 5 levees. Well, we need a Category 5 criminal justice system."
"Failure," Letten said, "is not an option. We're talking about the survival of one of the greatest cities on Earth."
0 likes
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests