The New Murder Capital of America

New Orleans is far ahead in a race no one wants to win. ‘This is a crisis’: New Orleans murder rate per capita pacing highest in U.S.

It’s no secret that New Orleans struggles with violent crime, but new statistics paint a grim picture of the Crescent City being on pace to be the murder capital of the United States if trends don’t change in 2022.

According to data from AH Datalytics, compiled using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, New Orleans has a per capita year-to-date homicide rate of 72 per 100,000 residents. The next three U.S. cities behind New Orleans are Birmingham with a per capita homicide rate of 59 per 100,000 residents and Baltimore and St. Louis, each with a per capita homicide rate of 58 per 100,000 residents.

Murders in NOLA were at a 50 year low in 2019. Gee, I wonder what changed?

Mayor LaToya Cantrell refuses to use the word crisis. But then politicians lie. Or are clueless. Or both.

“We see that the mayor and other city leaders don’t really understand the magnitude of the problem,” [Robert Collins, a political analyst with Dillard University,] said. “The elected leaders in the city don’t seem to have the same opinion that the majority of the citizens have in the city, as far as the city is in crisis mode right now and that they should be taking the appropriate emergency actions.”

The mayor keeps talking about "holistic approaches" to crime. It is the same nonsense I've been hearing about since the 1980s, when crime was also out of control.

Is anyone shocked to learn that New Orleans PD is suffering from a shortage of officers?

“You’ve got two components of the criminal justice system: dwindling numbers of officers, that means they can’t get to crime scenes and when they do get to crime scenes, they are overwhelmed with violent crime,” [Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission,] said. “If they’re fortunate enough to make an arrest, we have the District Attorney’s office that, at least in 2021, the first year of Jason Williams, was more inclined to refuse and dismiss those cases.”

And so I include my obligatory reference to Hobbes' State of War, which exists after the breakdown of law and order. That time were you cannot count on society to enforce order. "The time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them." Society is built on a foundation of law and order. The Blue Cities are dismantling that as fast as they can. And many, like Mayor Cantrell, refuse to even admit the scope of the problem.

And while I am certain that someone will reference a city with a Republican mayor that is struggling with an increase in crime, the last time a Republican was mayor of New Orleans was November 29, 1872.