With October homicides markedly lower than in previous months, WWL asked former NOPD Chief Superintendent Ronal Serpas for his thoughts on apparent dip in crime.
“Always we celebrate when there’s a reduction in murders. Eleven is still far too many for our city but being less than the traditional monthly numbers are always good news.”
Chief Serpas talked about the recent numbers and what they mean for the city:
“As it relates to redeployment and the 12 hour shifts and those things, it’s still way too early to tell. These crimes often are cyclical and we hope that they’ll continue to cycle downward. But, it’s still too early to tell whether or not those particular changes are going to make the long haul difference.”
The Chief did touch on Mayor Latoya Cantrell’s budget, which seeks to take $70-million dollars from the police budget, since the money is considered surplus with a department of just 800-900 officers instead of 1500.
“I haven’t looked at the budget, but my first question would be, if I was asking an academic question of the Mayor, ‘well then what have you been doing with this $70-million extra dollars or $60-million or $50-million extra dollars and department staffing has cratered?’”
Finally, the Chief praised the work of the pro-police NOLA Coalition: “The interesting thing about the NOLA Coalition is one: we should be grateful that upwards of 400 New Orleanians have come together to, yet again, to tell politicians to do their jobs.”
