The outcry from citizens for justice in the killing of Linda Frickey has been overwhelming. All four teens connected to the have been arrested. Now, the pressure is on District Attorney Jason Williams to charge them appropriately and make sure justice is served. There needs to be a strong response in Frickey’s case and every case going forward to let criminals know their stupid behavior will not be tolerated. I spoke to former New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas on some necessary steps to combat crime in the city after this recent tragedy.
What’s it going to take to combat this surge in violent crime in the city? Can the city council do something?
The time has come to recognize the significant increase in murders, shootings, and carjackings of the last four years. The city council should exercise their public policy authority, their budget authority, and instruct the city and the police department to remove a significant percentage of the calls for service that have no police component. That would provide an infusion of officers to immediately focus on proactive policing to fight violent crimes.
I think we need to revisit opening up juvenile records, because the public needs to know what's actually going on there. The mentality of the policymakers in the juvenile arena is not well suited for what we're dealing with today. There’s a lot of things happening over there that I don’t think the public would embrace.
The criminal justice system was built to protect the rights of defendants… due process for the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments. There's no victims right there. Juvenile judges are elected, but nobody knows what they do because the records are sealed. Maybe it is time to make those records public. Also, how would someone run against a juvenile court judge? You don’t know what they’re doing because all their records are sealed. Maybe it’s not about the juveniles' record, maybe it's about the performance of the judge.
I worked closely with former mayors Marc Morial and Mitch Landrieu. Do you think this would still be going on if they were in office?
I know with Morial the answer would be a resounding no. I’m not as much of a believer in Mitch, since he put a freeze on hiring police for three years. That’s a disagreement me and Mitch had, but his effort to do something about crime was more than just police staffing. Landrieu spoke to it as a mayor and told the city we have to do something about the crime. Right now, I don't hear anybody talking about it at all in the city.
