Police load the body of a homicide victim into the coroner’s van after a fatal shooting at the corner of LaSalle and Amelia street in the Milan neighborhood on January 22, 2017. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
Owen Courrèges
Is there somebody you’re furious with? An embezzling partner, perhaps? An unfaithful lover? A guy who drove too slow in the fast lane?
Well, allow me to present a now-viable option to the quandary of dealing with these miscreants. Murder! Murder will eliminate the problem immediately. Statistics show that over 99% of murdered persons are rendered perfectly innocuous.
Now I know what you’re thinking – yet another snake oil salesman with a silvery tongue. There’s got to be a catch, right? You’ve probably heard that, according to those G-men down at the FBI, the national homicide clearance rate is about 62 percent. That’s roughly two-thirds. You wouldn’t want to play those odds, would you? No gambling man would!
Thankfully for you would-be murderers, the clearance rate in New Orleans as of 2016 stood at a scant 26.3 percent. That means there’s only about a one-in-four chance of getting caught. And those cleared cases are probably the low hanging fruit; with a modicum of intelligence, preparation, and adept execution, your chances of getting away with murder are virtually assured!
Now, it wasn’t always this way, mind you. In 2010, the year Mayor Landrieu entered office, the city’s murder clearance rate stood at 54.1 percent. That figure was slightly lower than the national clearance rate, but still formidable. Your average murderer would still be caught. I wouldn’t play those odds.
But now, all potential murderers are on notice. It’s open season. If you’re going to act on any of your grudges, dear readers, now is definitely the time.
The reason for this change is ought to be apparent. The city has just decided that catching murderers isn’t much of a priority. In April, a Times-Picayune investigation revealed that the NOPD’s homicide division “had 29 active detectives in May 2014, but has atrophied to only three cold-case investigators and 16 detectives in the rotation still catching new cases.”
That’s right; in three years, the homicide division’s staffing is down by more than a third in one of the nation’s most notorious murder capitals. We’re only three resignations away from having a pitiful baker’s dozen for a homicide department. Meanwhile, working conditions have become absolutely atrocious.
“Everybody up there wants out,” an anonymous homicide detective told the Times-Picayune. “Homicide used to be the elite. But we are completely broken.”
Now, one would think that with reduced staffing and deteriorating work conditions, additional efforts would be made to retain existing homicide detectives and compensate them for an increased work load. Nope. Pay hikes have been rejected and homicide detectives are not receiving additional overtime. The mayor has responded to a murder crisis by doing absolutely nothing.
At the same time, crime is getting worse. This past Saturday had the distinction of being the most bloody day in 2017, with 13 people shot in five separate shootings.
The unusually awful weekend left public officials scrambling to assuage public fears at a hastily scheduled press conference held at NOPD headquarters on Sunday. Their words brought new meaning to the word “unhelpful.”
“We will catch you, and you will pay for the horrible crimes you’ve committed,” Chief Michael Harrison impotently admonished criminals, as though he actually had the resources to investigate shootings and thereby enforce the laws against gunning down our fellow human beings.
Mayor Landrieu, also on hand, proposed that people simply stop murdering each other. “We’re going to have to change who we are, how we are and how we act,” Landrieu mused in a Pollyannaish flourish, as though spreading the blame to everyone was somehow helpful (or honest).
The policies of this administration are plainly responsible for the problem. Landrieu enacted a hiring freeze while simultaneously denying raises and overtime to homicide detectives. At the same time, the population of New Orleans continued to increase (albeit incrementally) and the murder rate stayed stubbornly high (in fact, it increased by 7% last year).
The result – sharply fewer homicide detectives, a drastically reduced clearance rate, and significantly more murders – was practically preordained.
We can speculate as to Landrieu’s motives for de-prioritizing crime. He appears to have dedicated a huge amount of his attention to improving the city’s fiscal situation to the exclusion of other concerns. He doesn’t seem to realize that obtaining a decent bond rating at the expense of public safety is cold comfort in the midst of a murder wave.
Of course, for those of you already scheming to murder that neighbor who keeps dumping his leaves over the fence, all of this is welcome news. The city is comically ill-equipped to deal with homicides. Meanwhile, despite a critical situation demanding substantive reform, and the mayor and the chief of police are spouting platitudes. They might as well be whispering words of encouragement to anybody with a gun and an axe to grind.
Landrieu recently said that “’smart people can do more than one thing at a time.” Clearly, Landrieu isn’t the type who can simultaneously walk and chew gum. Would it be so hard to hire a dozen veteran homicide detectives and actually begin to really tackle this problem? Or are Landrieu’s personal obsessions so paramount that nothing can be done?
Reform is definitely not the horizon, so there’s no need to shelve any murder schemes yet. The free-for-all will linger. Right now, it’s just a question of how atrocious it will be.
Owen Courrèges, a New Orleans attorney and resident of the Garden District, offers his opinions for UptownMessenger.com on Mondays. He has previously written for the Reason Public Policy Foundation.
Change “who we are “? Didn’t the mayor justify the destruction of monuments built by New Orleanians last century because they are not who we are? Now he says who we are is not so hot.
His fascination with the verb “to be” is reminiscent of Clinton’s struggle to define “is.” Perhaps we’ll get lucky, and the mayor will read Hamlet.
Deux,
Good catch. I think you win best comment.
Apparently you never had the opportunity to study the history of these monuments. (none of us did as the facts were not in our history books). They were erected in the post reconstruction era, concurrent to the reemergence of white supremacy as the dominant political narrative and power structure in the old Confederate states, a time when laws were passed denying voting rights to former slaves, establishing “separate but equal” as legal doctrine, and putting into place laws that discriminated against former slaves in every aspect of commerce and employment. The statues were erected as a symbol of the reemergence of white power and intended to convey symbolically this fact. One solution is to establish a Garden of Reconciliation where the statues can be placed as part of an educational effort to educate and inform citizens and visitors as to the true nature of why these statues were erected. Then perhaps we can finally move past this shameful period of our history. One note, Robert E. Lee was quite explicit that no statues or memorials were to be erected to memorialize the Confederacy.
Phil,
We’ve been through this. Just because we don’t concur with with your heavily-jaundiced, revisionist reading of the history of the monuments doesn’t mean that we didn’t study their history.
To recap briefly — no, the monuments weren’t erected as symbols of white power. The monuments to Lee and Beauregard definitely would not have been generally viewed that way. Beauregard was known to have advocated for civil rights, and was also the First VP of the Lee Monumental Association. A large GAR contingent attended the dedication of the Lee Monument. Each monument began to be planned immediately following the death of the individual being commemorated, and their design limited them to that. Claiming additional symbolism is a stretch.
OH Gee Owen, all NOLA needs is a One Love NOLA Concert. Landrieu lives in a parallel universe. Chicago 2.736MM Pop. and 261 murders YTD, NOLA 391,495 Pop. and 83 murders YTD. On a per capita basis, you are twice as likely to be murdered in NOLA than Chicago. WOW, who would have ever thought.
more guns more violence
Really, you have no idea what you are talking about. But you are probably a Progressive Liberal who has made up his mind so it is meaningless to try and convince you with the facts.
If you don’t like the odds for murder, you can always try your hand at rape, where your chances of being an instant winner rise from 74% to 84%, although you must commit your sinister deed inside Orleans Parish to qualify for these tremendous opportunities, as this No Man’s Land is the only territory outside the reach of the long arm of the law. I wouldn’t be surprised if women started wearing chastity belts here.
There is a danger in proclaiming the sky is falling and things have never been this bad regardless of historical perspective. Certainly we have less crime than in 1994, but while corrupt and inefficient, the police force was functional. The problem now is that the police are Landrieu’s Democratic Party militia focused on communist objectives like destruction of history rather than on being an actual law enforcement body which prevents crime and locks up the bad guys. Things have gotten so bad in this regard, even law enforcement skeptic Owen Courreges is calling for more police to be hired. Yet even if this happened (which it may under the next mayor), it would not alter the layers of homegrown inefficiency, red tape, affirmative action, and consent decree mandates, all of which prevent a legitimate and fully-staffed police force from functioning.
Turlet,
As you alluded, I’ve been highly skeptical of the NOPD’s stated need for 1,600 officers. That’s more officers than it should take in a city our size, and the evidence is clear that improper utilization of manpower has been a greater cause of problems than poor overall staffing.
That said, I have always believed that we should have an adequate number of homicide detectives. It’s a tiny portion of the department, and should not be that expensive to staff. The same goes for other major crimes. There is absolutely no excuse for having a mere 16 detectives investigating 150-200 murders per year. That’s lunacy.
You are also correct that internal dysfunction within the department still needs to be remedied, and without that, we’ll still have the same problems. However, simply hiring another dozen or so homicide detectives and increasing compensation to retain them are reforms that would likely have a significant effect on the murder rate. If the NOPD can clear twice as many murder cases (like they were able to do when Landrieu entered office), they’ll be getting more murderers off the streets and deterring other would-be murderers. This should be a no-brainer.
I would tie the number of officers needed to the number of criminals (and the rate of new criminals entering puberty, if this can be calculated) rather than the total population. You are right that we would seemingly get the most bang for the buck by hiring homicide detectives and releasing them into the streets. This also seems more realistic than addressing any of the systemic issues which neuter the police force. The 16 homicide detectives sounds like the $3,800,000 spent on street repairs each year. Both of these numbers need extra zeros added.
Turlet,
New Orleans’ overall crime rate and violent crime rate are not dramatically higher than other southern cities. In some cases, they’re actually lower. I’ve never seen a compelling argument for why we need to increase the department by hundreds of officers. We do need to do a bit more hiring and better retain existing officers, but we don’t need to drastically increase the department’s size.
However, as you note, adding more homicide detectives is not expensive and should be common sense.
This is like telling your mother that your report card isn’t so bad because your friends also had straight D’s and F’s, and the teacher actually hand wrote a minus sign on one kid’s F. We must compare ourselves to cities in Maine and Idaho, rather than other Southern cities with high crime rates. Demographic differences are the reason but not an acceptable excuse.
There is no evidence that the NOPD can or will become more productive or efficient, despite the best efforts of Ed Quatrevaux, the feds, etc. If a farmer cannot increase his yield per acre, he has to cultivate more land and plant more crops. Therefore, hiring more officers is the only realistic solution to crime here, starting with officer retention and the homicide division as you suggested. If it costed the city $100,000 per officer, they could hire 500 officers for $50 million dollars and substantially decrease the crime rate. The city budget is $614 million dollars. Of course, this would require diverting money away from the goals of the communist revolution.
Perhaps it would help if the New Orleans populace and local media were as anxious to turn in and expose real criminals as they did with the principal who was a so called “nazi, racist, white supremacist” monument supporter.
The idea of nobody knowing who is doing most of this crime is ludicrous. The rewards being offered don’t seem to attract amny people, or maybe they want a wealth of money so they can move to a mansion. My guess most of the people that know who is guilty are guilty of some thing themselves. When you have fifteen year olds carjacking people day and night, you have to ask yourself where the parents are. Why aren’t they in bed at 2AM instead of pulling door handles or watching for somebody to come home from a night out so they can jump on them in their driveway and rob them. I can only tell their parents that if it happens to me don’t be shocked when the police show up to tell you your little thug was killed while trying to rob somebody.
Legally, they have parents, but not in reality. These teenagers become criminals when stepping foot outside the house, as there is a summertime curfew in effect, which of course isn’t enforced since these teenagers aren’t made of bronze and stone.
Owen, I’m so glad to be home in NOLA. I missed your biting satire…
Even though Owen reaches new heights of sophmoric humor on a daily basis?
Did you advocate for passage of a millage increase in April 2016 that would have increased police pay. Nah. Didn’t think so. But it’s other people’s fault that detectives haven’t gotten a pay raise?
Milo,
No, I did not. The NOPD’s budget is more than adequate. There is plenty of money to pay for 30-or-so homicide detectives with sufficient compensation plus necessary overtime. It isn’t as though the mayor or the council have been reducing the department’s budget as homicide detectives have quit or retired. The money has always been there. That’s the sad part.
What I find interesting is that nowhere do you comment on the fact that any yahoo can now go buy guns these days.
Phil Frady,
As I’m sure you’re aware, I consider gun control to be ineffective. In any event, that’s a separate issue from whether the homicide division should have been gutted.
Yes it is a separate but related issue. Have you discussed this issue with Mitch? I tend to base my opinions on facts, and the facts indicate that the states with the most lax gun laws have the highest rates of gun violence. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
Phil Frady,
Sure, I’ll just call up Mitch right now. I have him on speed-dial.
“Mitch? It’s Owen! Thanks for taking my call. I’ve got a question about the homicide division…”
Wait, that didn’t happen, because I don’t get to talk directly to the mayor whenever I want. The media has published articles about this issue already; Landrieu has had ample opportunity to make a public comment.
And I don’t regard the issues as related. The homicide clearance rate has nothing to do with gun control, and everything to do with the NOPD’s ability to clear homicides. They can’t do that with 16 homicide detectives.
Besides, David Hemenway is well-known as an anti-gun hack funded by the Joyce Foundation. There’s research that says exactly the opposite from researchers like John Lott.
So you never made and attempt to talk to Mitch? Here is a tip son, I have run into Mitch regularly at Mojo’s on Freret in the morning. You need to get off of social media and actually do your job.
Phil Frady,
Now you’re being ridiculous. No, I am not going to start stalking the mayor by laying in wait to pepper him with questions while he gets his morning coffee. Not even paid reporters are doing that.
If Landrieu were going to comment on this, he would have already done so. This column wasn’t exactly breaking new ground — it was a commentary on existing news.
If it’s important, you’ve got to use the Mitchphone. The receiver is shaped like a sledgehammer, and when you hang it up it smashes the Statue of Liberty in the face.
Definition of sophomoric
1
: conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature a sophomoric argument
2
: lacking in maturity, taste, or judgment sophomoric humor
Phil,
I do find your suggestion that I should have interviewed Landrieu about this to be rather sophomoric.
Man you fellas sit on social media and whine, be part of the solution instead.
Do you have a mirror?
Sobering statistics presented yesterday at the Moms Against Gun Violence gathering: The mother who presented the US statistics lost her husband to suicide seven years ago. The statistics for children are just heartbreaking.
Every day, 93 people die from gun violence:
32 are murdered
58 kill themselves
1 is killed unintentionally
1 is killed by police intervention
1 intent unknown.
Every day, 216 people are shot and survive:
159 shot in an assault
11 survive a suicide attempt
43 are shot unintentionally
3 are shot in a police intervention
In One Year:
17,012 American children and teens are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, or by police intervention. 2,647 kids die from gun violence:
1,565 children and teens are murdered
907 children and teens kill themselves
116 children and teens killed unintentionally
27 are killed by police intervention
32 die but the intent was unknown
14,365 kids survive gun injuries:
11,321 are injured in an attack
231 survive a suicide attempt
2,747 are shot unintentionally
65 are shot in a police intervention
Philip Frady
The Frady Group https://www.linkedin.com/profile/preview?locale=en_US&trk=prof-0-sb-preview-primary-button philfrady7@gmail.com
504 666 6025
Are you implying that there was some idealistic past when yahoos could not buy guns, and do you honestly think New Orleans criminals are buying their guns at Gretna Gun Works, Jefferson Gun Outlet, or the Great Southern Gun & Knife Show?
I’m simply following th facts on the correlation of gun violence and lax gun laws.
Phil,
There’s no clear correlation because there are too many counter-examples. Vermont, for example, has some of the nation’s most lax gun laws and ranks among the lowest in the nation in terms of violent crime.
Actually there is a correlation. The Harvard studies control for the variables you are apparently referencing.
Phil,
There’s certainly an argument for the opposite; John Lott’s research shows that more guns correlate with less crime. None of that is the point here, though.
I’m going by the data on the correlation between lax gun laws and gun violence rates.
Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel.https://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/8
J. P. Morrell pushed a bill through to extend Mitch’s and the present City Council term until June 2018. We will elect a new Mayor AND City Council in October and they should take office in the second week of January, but now we are stuck with Mitch so that can reign over his planned party the Tri Centennial. Can we survive 6 more months of his extended term? Here is a petition to put the issue on the ballot for a vote. http://savenolaheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Proposed-Amendment-to-Instal-Mayor-Elect-January-2018-1.pdf
The well known fact is that Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office always gives Homicide Detectives unlimited overtime to solve murders. They flood the force with unlimited man hours…. And it works. JPSO solves most murders in short order. Kind of a no-brainer really.
Tim9lives,
Exactly. Providing overtime is not a major financial burden and ensures that homicide detectives are incentivized to solve murders ASAP when time matters. The city’s refusal to give overtime is frankly inexplicable.
Owen, you seem to never publicize the good things in New Orleans! http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/24/trump-to-stop-sharing-gulf-of-mexico-crude-oil-royalties-with-states.html