With more than three months to go in 2022, New Orleans has almost matched last year's total number of homicides -- 217 so far in 2022, according to data collected by the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission, versus 218 in all of 2021.
"It took us 12 months to accumulate 218 homicides in 2021," said New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche, who points out this didn't happen overnight: "It didn't start this week, or this year. It started in 2020."
Goyeneche says it didn't have to be this way, but he says Mayor LaToya Cantrell dropped the ball.
"She ignored the warning signs in 2020 and crime continued to go up as the number of officers declined," he said.
And Goyeneche is confused when the mayor says she doesn't "embrace" or "accept" that the city is leading the nation in homicides per person so far this year.
"The numbers don't lie, the numbers are what the numbers are," said Goyeneche. "And the numbers are this bad because of Mayor Cantrell's inaction."
Goyeneche says after public outcry crested about two months ago, the city is now paying attention to the problem, but faces a long fight to get the numbers back down.
