New Orleans is a city under siege, but Mayor LaToya Cantrell seems to spend more time talking about symbolism, bringing about peace, and recognizing our country’s past failures, as opposed to focusing on how to improve law enforcement to ensure we have a safe place to live, work, and raise a family. Now, the Mayor has traveled to Ascona, Switzerland to sign some paperwork making Ascona a “sister city”.
Why is it important for New Orleans to have another sister city in a time of crisis? Why not spend that money and time engaging credible leadership during this violent crime surge? While Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche could not speak to the Mayor’s decision-making in that regard, he told me that based on his office’s latest crime report, the need for more police has become more dire.
I call Mayor Cantrell the “Milk Carton Mayor” because she's always missing. She was in Reno for almost a week. She was in New York for almost a week. Now, she's traveling overseas.
Rome's burning and she’s whistling past the graveyard… you and I have talked about her lack of prioritization and sense of exigency. She’s doing other things that will have no impact in the short term, midterm, or long term to better the city.
The problem is that she seems to be ignoring the crime problem. Cantrell continues to operate as if it is not a problem. Yeah, crime is up in other parts of the country, but not to the extent that it is in New Orleans.We can show there's a cause and effect between the increases and surges in all the categories of violent crime and the declining numbers of police officers.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said that he hoped to have the NOPD’s lateral transfer rules take effect later this year. Why does this take so long?
Part of the delay is that for anything dealing with training of officers needs to filter through the monitors, and the Department of Justice needs to approve the curriculum and training. Lateral movement from one agency to another needs to be brought up to the level of training that is required by the NOPD. The good news is that they're trying to do this. It’s just going to require a bit more training because of the consent decree.
Cantrell spoke earlier this week about having these alternative programs to rehabilitate juvenile criminals. Do we actually have alternatives like that in place that are working?
No, we don't. And even if we did, the results from those types of programs aren't immediate.
The MCC has started putting out a breakdown of the four categories of violent crimes in all eight police districts. We did this last year and we’re going to try and publish this report every month. Our latest crime report shows the seventh district is number one in homicides, shootings and carjackings. If the seventh district is the epicenter of a lot of the violence, the police need to put their limited resources in there to maximize public safety… the people that are committing violent crimes in the seventh district are most likely venturing out into other districts and committing violent crimes.
