We’re a couple of days removed from the incident in Lakeview, where a manhunt ensued after a police officer, checking out a potential vehicle burglary, ended up in grave danger and discharged his weapon. Frustrations are mounting in Lakeview, Gentilly, and other neighborhoods around the metro area. We are living with this revolving door in the juvenile justice system - so when is it that we will say that we’ve had enough, and we actually do something about these individuals? When will we do what it takes to keep them from wreaking havoc in our communities?
To take a look at how neighborhood organizations are reacting to this reality, Newell invited Freddy Yoder and Brian Anderson onto the program Thursday morning. Yoder is the President of the Lakeview Crime Prevention District, and President of the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association (LCIA). Anderson is a former President of LCIA.
“First, let me say thank you to both of you guys,” Newell began. “Neighborhood watch groups, communities that are tight-knit and stay in contact, act as the eyes and the ears of the neighborhood and work in concert with law enforcement… you guys have done a lot of the right things, and still there seem to be some issues in the periphery that affects you and your neighbors.”
“Today, we’re speaking as members of the LCIA but there are three organizations active here,” Yoder said. “We work hand in hand together. We’re having a meeting on the 21st that will include all members and Presidents of the various associations in the Lakeview area, and there will be a number of dignitaries and elected officials invited to talk about the ways we can reduce crime in New Orleans. In 1997, all my constituents were moving across the lake because they were tired of the crime, so a group of us got together and formed the Lakeview Crime Prevention District, and that’s made a significant difference in the amount of crime here… we believe that though the process of getting people involved, we can all work together and come up with ways to improve ourselves and that’s the goal for our meeting.”
“Brian, you guys have put your money where your mouth is,” Newell continued. “Y’all tax yourselves in order to get a greater police presence out there and obviously, from what Freddy has told us, that’s paid off. What’s the feeling you get from your neighbors about this situation at hand?”
“Well, it’s easy when you know what the problem is,” Anderson said. “Once you understand the problem, you can start putting together solutions, but what I’ve seen is that I don’t think everyone understands exactly what the problem is. I’ve spoken with councilmembers, state officials, local officials and everyone has their own ideas and thoughts, but I don’t think every truly believes they hvae the perfect solution. We hear over and over again that it’s low impact crimes, just cars being broken into, and that’s a funny one to me, because if a person’s car window is broken and it rains, then that person’s car is ruined and then they can’t go to work. That person is a victim.”
“That term irritates me,” Newell said. “Low impact? There is no such animal! I hear progressives talking about that, these new progessive DA’s… when you talk about how they turned around New York City using the Broken Windows theory and they went after all the crimes, took ownership of it all. All crime degrades your community.”“Right. If you commit a small crime and get away with it, that can lead to a larger crime,” Anderson agreed. “We’ve been fortunate here in Lakeview that we haven’t had a large amount of assaults or attacks of that nature, but as we learned on Monday, it only takes one person walking out at the wrong time and running into a small crime, and now it’s a large crime.”