Violence has returned to New Orleans

Keith O'Brien:

There have been 44 homicides so far this year, including 13 in April and 10 in May. While these numbers are well down from the 109 that had occurred by this time a year ago, the city's population is down as well. An estimated 221,000 people live in New Orleans now. Using that estimate and current murder totals, the city would be on pace for 43 murders per 100,000 people in 2006. In 2004, the city had 57 murders per 100,000, making it second to Camden, N.J. (The FBI will issue numbers for 2005 next month.)

Peter Scharf , a criminologist at the University of New Orleans, said the city is indeed safer than it was before, but not by much. New Orleans today would still have one of the top 10 highest murder rates in the country. And many residents fear it will get worse as more criminals return to lay claim to old drug turf in the place they still call home.

"You have to know it's not safe right now," said Sammer Abualia , a Palestinian woman whose family owns two convenience stores in Central City. "I'm going to try to sell my business. I'm going to try to sell my other store. I'm going to sell my house, too. We want to go somewhere else."

Abualia's son, Fadi , 20, was fatally shot in the neighborhood in May 2002. Six months later, the man charged in his murder was gunned down as well. This cycle of violence made New Orleans one of the most dangerous cities in the nation.

The storm held the murder rate in check for a while. Only six murders were reported in New Orleans between Aug. 29, when Katrina hit, and the end of 2005. This year started out quiet as well. There were 17 murders in the first three months of the year. But this spring, familiar sounds returned to the streets of New Orleans.

"We hear gunshots every day, every night," said Keith Myers , a general contractor who works and lives in Central City. Gone are the days, he said, of falling asleep with the doors unlocked -- something he acknowledged he did shortly after returning to New Orleans last fall. Violence is back in the headlines.

Last week , a New Orleans police officer was shot and critically wounded during a traffic stop. The next day, there was a murder in the upper Ninth Ward, and the day after that in the Seventh Ward. The Ninth Ward victim was found on a street so desolate and ravaged by the storm that the doors of many homes there swing in the wind.

Other shootings have unfolded in populated areas, including the French Quarter and the Faubourg Marigny, an area near the Quarter that suffered no flooding. In March, in that neighborhood, a man was shot in the chest with a shotgun and killed as he handed over the contents of his wallet.

"Are we surprised that crime has returned? Not exactly," said Darlene Cusanza , the executive director of Crimestoppers, a local nonprofit that works with police to prevent and solve crimes. "Regrettably," she said, "old habits die hard."

Police attribute much of the recent gun violence to drug dealers trying to reestablish themselves in New Orleans. Officers have stepped up patrols in some neighborhoods, including Central City. There, in April, three men were killed in four days beginning on April 18 with the murder of Terron "Pee-Wee" Jackson.

Jackson was the sort of person New Orleanians hoped would not return. He was arrested nine times as a juvenile and 11 times as an adult. Convicted twice over the years -- for manslaughter and for possession of crack cocaine -- he served brief prison sentences each time. He evacuated to Texas last fall for the storm, family members said, only to return to Central City this year.

Murder tally now at 44

New Orleans' homicide rate is on the rise