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National Guard to re-occupy New Orleans?
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mayor Ray Nagin asked the governor Monday to send National Guard troops and state police to patrol his city after a violent weekend in which five teenagers were shot to death. | Lottsa luck, Ray. She'll have to set up a commission to study the problem |
City leaders convened a special meeting to voice outrage after the killings Saturday in an area near the central business district. ``If we don't have wind knocking us down, we have shooters knocking us down, and that's unacceptable,'' said City Council President Oliver Thomas.
| Why? Didn't seem to bother you guys much before Katrina. |
Saturday's shootings - plus the fatal stabbing Sunday night in an argument over beer - brought this year's murder toll to 53, raising fears that violence was back on the rise in a city that was plagued by violent crime before Hurricane Katrina drove residents away last year. | The crooks must be returning home |
Crime has been creeping in the city: 17 killings in the first three months of 2006, and 36 since the start of April. The shootings Saturday of five teenagers who had been in an SUV together created one of the bloodiest attacks in this city's turbulent history; the last killing with that many victims was in 1995.
Nagin asked the governor to send up to 300 National Guard troops and 60 state police officers to patrol the city. The City Council said it also would consider increasing overtime for police to put more officers on the street and it called for a "crime summit" within two weeks. "We have to deal with it now," Councilman Arnold Fielkow said. "If we don't make people feel safe in their homes, nothing will happen. Let's make this priority Number One."
| A 'crime summit' will make the bigs feel like they're doing something important without actually doing anything. How about hiring a hardnosed police chief and giving him power to clean house? |
Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents predominantly black eastern New Orleans, said a big part of the solution will be getting young people off the streets and into caring environments such as schools. | More midnight basketball, yeah that's the ticket! |
She suggested opening schools after hours but didn't say how that could have prevented Saturday's 4 a.m. shooting, which police have said apparently was either prompted by drugs or revenge.
"We're looking forward to the day when ... this city returns to being one of the safest cities in America," Nagin said.
Posted by: Steve 2006-06-19 |
