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I do not wish to appear flippant about the size of the problem currently facing New Orleans but I do find it hard to believe that the National Guard can be deployed faster in the wake of 5 deaths and a general trend towards criminal activity than it was in the wake of the huge environmental catastrophe that it faced in September of last year (full story HERE). Actually, on second thoughts, given the nature of the government and the steps they are taking towards turning the US into a police state, it is obvious that calling in the National Guard to militarise the police effort and effectively place New Orleans under martial law will happen more quickly than to perform a relief effort in a bid to save thousands of lives. In fact, by the time the National Guard did arrive back in September it was basically used to force people to leave their homes at gunpoint. So I guess that nothing has changed at all really, has it? Add to all of this the fact that thousands of people have lost their jobs including 3,000 at the local city council (full story HERE) because the government were so overstretched with what with killing thousands of innocent civilians in a couple of pointless wars over oil and drugs that they didn't have the money to spend securing those jobs for the people of their own nation. A city racked with unemployment and general despair will always be a city with a crime problem. It doesn't take a genius does it? |
Tuesday 20th June 2006 | Reuters
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Monday said she would send National Guard troops and state police to New Orleans to fight rising violence after five teenagers were shot and killed.
The brutal pre-dawn shooting on Saturday was one of the most deadly attacks in the history of New Orleans and raised fear among residents that crime is returning before the city can completely recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
"The situation is urgent and we will accelerate our plans to deploy law enforcement to the city tomorrow," Blanco said in a statement after Mayor Ray Nagin and the city council called for reinforcements for city police.
"We will respond with personnel from the State Police and National Guard," she said, adding that 300 National Guard troops and 60 state police would start arriving on Tuesday.
The mayor and city council members held a special meeting on Monday morning in the wake of the shooting in the city which used to have one of the highest murder rates in the United States.
"We are not going ... to let hurricane crime replace Hurricane Katrina," City Council President Oliver Thomas said in televised remarks as mothers of victims of the Saturday shooting stood nearby. Nagin also said he would set a curfew for young people in the city.
The mayor and governor both said that before the shooting they had been working on a plan to reinforce the city.
New Orleans is still reeling from Katrina, which hit last August 29, and only about 220,000 people, or half the pre-storm population, have come back, leaving many neighbourhoods dark and many returning citizens isolated.
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"I'm really frightened to come back here," said Iris Beck, cleaning out her house in the Sugar Hill section of town, which had flooded with a few feet of water after the storm. Most homes on the block still stand empty, spray-painted red crosses with the numbers 9 15 showing rescuers searched the neighbourhood mid-September, or about two weeks after Katrina struck.
Beck called the National Guard proposal an "excellent idea" to respond to crime with discipline. "I'm going back to old school tactics, the way we were raised," she said, remembering stern elders who whipped children for disciplinary infractions but also gave them firm direction in life.
One or more assailants with semi-automatic handguns sprayed a sports utility vehicle shortly before dawn on Saturday, killing a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old and three 19-year-olds, said police, who found the vehicle slammed into a utility pole, surrounded by shell casings.
Four were dead on the spot and the fifth died shortly thereafter, raising the number of killings to 52 this year.
That is less than half the number a year ago, but the city's population is similarly low and killings have accelerated in the last two months, according to police statistics. Residents and local media frequently voice a fear that crime is accelerating.
New Orleans was once one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, but the level of violence dropped sharply in the wake of Katrina, which killed more than 1,500 and drove nearly the entire population from their homes.