How important is our public safety? Think about this way. If every street is floodproofed and paved, but you still get carjacked — that’s a problem.
The fundamental question for our safety and the NOPD is this: How does a force of about 850 police officers police every day in a city of 380,000 people, along with tourists and visitors?
Even if the force adds 100 police officers per year, it will take at least four years to reach 1,300 officers — a right-sized police department for a city of our size.
What do you do in the meantime?
The New Orleans Coalition conducted a survey that found that 52% of the people in New Orleans feel safe, while 48% do not feel safe. In other words, only half the city feels safe.
Whoever is elected mayor is responsible for the safety of the entire city.
Our crime statistics are the lowest in years, but there’s a funny thing about statistics, they go down and they go up.
Low crime statistics are no comfort for the 14 people killed and many injured on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Eve, or for growing number of families that include people injured or killed by gun violence.
Over the past nine days, we have lost 11 people. The father, a local chef, picking up his child at daycare on Canal Street, the woman from Chicago caught in the crossfire between two feuding people on Bourbon Street, the 42-year-old man at the Mother-in-Law Lounge who was killed in what I call “argument by gun.”
We had a lull in gun violence, but now it appears that it’s accelerated again.
In recent months, public officials rushed to the microphone to take credit when the crime rate dropped. Will they now rush back to the microphone and take blame when the crime rate rises?
I made my share of arrests as a New Orleans police officer from drug violations, domestic violence to armed robbery and attempted murder.
As a judge, I sentenced more than 23 people to life sentences for murder, which meant 23 innocent people lost their lives to senseless violence.
Whatever we want to achieve in our city can be undermined by the lack or absence of public safety.
The next mayor has to answer that fundamental question about our safety and the NOPD.
The next mayor has to ensure the entire city feels safe.
Arthur L. Hunter, Jr. is an occasional contributor to The Lens who is stepping up his nonpartisan commentaries for us during election season. Hunter is a former New Orleans Police Department officer, retired Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judge, and – most recently – a candidate for mayor.
