ONE YEAR ON

The anti-crime march on City Hall was one year ago and very little has changed: the murder rate is essentially the same. The Mayor was briefly chastened but is once again talking about exploding economic pies and claiming that the city is ready to "rock and roll" the recovery. The next time he says that somebody should slap him upside his shiny head.

Warren Riley is still police chief and they're still studying ways to reduce crime instead of simply using former Chief Richard Pennington's approach. An approach that dramatically reduced overall crime as well as homicide. But that would be too easy.

The one positive development is the resignation of Slow Eddie Jordan as District Attorney. His replacement, Keva Landrum Johnson, doesn't have her head up her ass but the same institutional, staffing and funding problems continue to hamper the office.

What's frustrating about the way things have gone one year on is that these problems are NOT unsolvable if the powers that be had more energy and imagination. But those qualities are in short supply among our leaders. The citizenry has both BUT all we can is to agitate and call for change from our tone deaf Mayor and Police Chief.

For more on the one year anniversary, check out: Ashley, Liprap and Oyster.  

UPDATE: Maitri has chimed in as well. 

tags: nola  crime  politics  

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