Second District crime walk map
The New Orleans Police Department’s effort to reconnect with individual communities returns this week tonight with marches against crime around the city, including two in neighborhoods near the Uptown.
Officers with the Uptown-based Second District will march through Fontainebleau, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the intersection of State Street Drive and Walmsley Avenue. The march in the Sixth District (which covers the Garden District and Irish Channel) through Central City will begin at the same time at the Mahalia Jackson Early Childhood Center at 2504 Jackson Ave. and split into two groups, one looping down to LaSalle Street, the other heading up Josephine.
The Second District has sought ideas for crime-walk routes from residents, which is how the Fontainebleau route was drawn. Tim Garrett of State Street Drive said he was working with the district’s quality-of-life officer to get reduce the number of abandoned cars, and the officer suggested he draw up a route for a crime walk.
The path Garrett charted runs up and down streets that have had troubles with thefts and burglaries, as well as the site where a carjacking ended in a shootout and a murder in 2009.
“This route will follow quite a hotbed of activity,” said Garrett, who operates both StateStreetDrive.com and NOLAhoods.com and has mapped this month’s crime walks in each police district.
Sixth District crime walk map (via Nolahoods.com)
The Central City routes were chosen by Sixth District officials based on problems they’ve been having in the area, such as a series of recent shootings, Capt. Robert Bardy said at the district’s weekly meeting Friday.
“Basically we’re having a lot of problems across from Mahalia Jackson school,” Bardy said. “The community people who are calling me are telling me that there are some settled people in the neighborhood who just feel like they’re trapped.”
The crime walks’ locations move from month to month — Bardy suggested that the sixth district’s October crime walk may be held in the Irish Channel — and police ask that concerned residents from each district join in each one.
Contact Robert Morris at rmorris@NolaMessenger.com, or post your comment below.
