The NOPD has already begun implementing strategies recommended by consultants hired to help the department fight crime amid dwindling numbers of officers. Nearly two months in, the city's criminal justice stakeholders say those plans seem to be working.
"The homicides have slowed down," Metropolitan Crime Commission head Rafael Goyeneche told WWL's Tommy Tucker.
Goyeneche says the plan created by the NOPD's consultants gives him hope that the NOPD will get a grip on the city's crime problem.
"One of the things that our reports show is that about 50 percent of the violent crime is concentrated in two police districts," Goyeneche said. "Part of the new deployment plan is identifying those hotspots and deploying officers in those hotspots."
Still, Goyeneche says it's far too early to declare victory in the war on crime.
"It's too early to predict a trend right now," Goyeneche said. "The fact that we're slowing down some with respect to homicide is a positive sign, but I'm not going to declare victory. Let's give it a chance. We're just a couple of weeks into something that was several years in the making."
However, Goyeneche maintains a positive outlook on what the redeployment plan will do.
"There is hope," he said.
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