Houston Community News >> Houston-New Orleans Criminals

9/6/2006 NEW ORLEANS — One crime expert says our recent rise in crime in New Orleans is partly due to criminals living in another state, Texas.

93 murders since the beginning of the year. When the National Guard and state police were called in people let out a sigh of relief. But even with the extra manpower on New Orleans streets it appears our criminals have become more brazen.

When the 300 National Guardsman and 60 state troopers were called in back in June, it made national headlines. Despite these efforts crime has not decreased.

11 New Orleans shootings over the Labor day holiday. "My fundamental question is is the risk behind us or ahead of us. My belief is it's ahead of us," said Dr. Peter Scharf, a UNO Criminologist.

That is, he says, if more evacuees come back from Houston. Last week in a west Houston church, residents there cried out, "we want New Orleans residents to go home!" Dr Scharf says Houstonians may not like our evacuees. He says we shouldn't like what their criminals have done to ours.

Scharf says they've made our bad guys worse, "the murders are not tied to neighborhoods, they're tied to targets." That means criminals no longer wait for their enemies. According to Scharf they hunt them down and kill them, "you have the daquiris shooting, the one by Emeril's, that's not good."

In addition to this mentality, Scharf says drug dealing has become a competitive market, "people coming in from Minneapolis, New York, wherever. Enter the drug market as competition. They come back and look for their park bench where they used to deal dope, someone's already sitting there dealing dope. That's an ugly situation."

So, Scharf says, with the new ways of criminals law enforcement has to police a new way. With various task forces organizing Scharf says that's a sign of moving in the right direction.

Back in June a new strike force consisting of various southeast Louisiana agencies busted an Orleans criminal sheriff's deputy and his buddies. In addition to the crooked cop they scored a gun and drugs, "the good news is people are planning and taking it seriously the bad news is these problems are so intractable, so difficult, so complex. How quickly, if at all, will we see turnaround."
Since troops moved in, they have made 200 arrests. After the bloody start to September, the Governor says the extra troops can stay past the original mid-September deadline. She won't say for how long.

(Contributed by WGNO)