We've only begun the sixth month of the year, but crime is down significantly. Is it down significantly enough to declare we will end 2024 with less murder or gun violence than we had in 2023?
Crime data analyst Jeff Asher says with 43 fewer homicides at this point in the year, even with seven months to go there would have to be a massive increase in violence for New Orleans to even match last year's numbers.
"If you've got the direction of a decline like we've got, that's the direction that the final year numbers are going to take," said Asher. "Murder's down 40-something percent, and there's a lot of them, so it would take a pretty big change to reach last year's 190 or so murders."
Asher said the main question now is can the city sustain the current 43 percent decrease, or the drop in murders be less than that by the time we reach 2025?
"You kind of assume that if you see kind of par-for-the-course of the last six months over the next seven months of the year, then you probably see that percentage come down relative to now, but still see a big decline year-on-year," Asher explained.
