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You can't consider the crime wave here without considering the TOTAL meltdown of criminal justice since the storm.
DA is more concerned with conviction rate than in protecting the community. NOPD crime lab flooded out and destroyed, and the city just now getting it back together. This means that evidence was sent to other parishes for processing and put at the bottom of the pile. Because evidence was lacking, arraignments weren't done and people were released after 60 days (And I'm GLAD that we aren't holding people indefinitely without charging them with a crime. There has to be a limit.) So violent criminals are released into the community. They even call it "misdemeanor murder". And the NOPD is rife with factional infighting. Deptartment politics making it hard to have an effective unified response to the madness.
Helen Hill, the film maker mentioned in the article, was a friend. Her husband Paul was Mom's doctor. We had a jazz funeral for her last weekend. It's bad to be sure, but as I said before, the problems are much more complex than just drugs on the street.
