NOPD chief Ronal Serpas promises city will make a dent in sky-high ...

Though New Orleans' infamous murder rate is the highest in the country, the way murders are committed here and the reasons they happen are not unique, Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas told a crowd at Loyola University's violent crime symposium on Friday. That is why Serpas believes New Orleans will succeed in its effort to adopt a variety of strategies that have reduced rates of murder and violence in other American cities.

"A new day has come," Serpas said. "A new strategy is in place. It's worked. I think it will work here. And we'll watch it over time."

As an example of the new tactics, Serpas offered his observations about a closed-door meeting he, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and Leon Cannizzaro had with about 40 probationers and other convicts had in an Orleans Parish courtroom on Thursday. The officials vowed, in part, to bring the full weight of state and federal law enforcement on their gangs or associates at the next instance of gunfire that could be linked to the people in the room.

Because an inordinate share of urban crime can be traced to a relatively few street associations, such a tactic has worked in other cities, authorities and academics say. Serpas on Friday expressed his confidence that the talk started having an effect right away.

"The men didn't see the talk as a threat," he said. Instead, they were engaged and maintained eye contact, and a number of them even had tears in their eyes as they listened to the story of a young murder victim's mother.

"It's an important point," Serpas remarked. "Something is registering."

That said, Serpas did not try to minimize the enormous challenge posed by an effort to reduce the murder rate in New Orleans poses. Around 1999, there were 39 to 40 murders per 100,000 people in New Orleans, which was low by the city's standards and was treated as cause for celebration, Serpas said. However, elsewhere in the United States, cities were seeing seven to eight murders per 100,000 people.

Last year, with a population of about 360,000, according to the Census Bureau, New Orleans had a total of 199 murders, a rate of about 55 murders per 100,000 people. This year, homicides are on pace to stay roughly the same.

Serpas touched on points he often makes in public speeches: Most murderers have previous arrests or convictions for weapons violations. Most murder victims in New Orleans are killed by intimates, associates, relatives or acquaintances, which makes policing that particular violence difficult.

However, there are ways to combat that, Serpas said. He said NOPD is trying to spend time in crime-ridden neighborhoods, following through on promises to bring offenders to justice in exchange for information that can help solve crimes. Officers are trying to understand the groups of people responsible for much of the street violence.

The community has shown it is willing to help detectives solve killings, Serpas said. He alluded to the deaths of Jeremy Galmon and Keira Holmes Gordon, toddlers who were slain by stray bullets in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Outraged citizens helped police quickly identify and catch suspects in both cases.

But the city does not react that way to every homicide, and that helps keep the murder rate stubbornly high, Serpas said.

"People have to be willing to testify, they have to be willing to talk," Serpas added. "And we're going to find ways to make that happen."

Serpas acknowledged the internal issues NOPD has to deal with at the same time. A Department of Justice report in 2011 found that NOPD was perhaps "the worst police department in the history of the world," Serpas said.

That sentiment surfaced during the early part of the talk on Friday when a pair of hecklers called NOPD "an armed gang" and hurled profanities at Serpas before storming out of the auditorium.

Nonetheless, Serpas promised that, once it is signed, the NOPD federal consent decree proposed this summer will engender lasting reform in the force that will survive periodic changes of regime in the city's government.

"This will all be open," Serpas said of the consent decree and the effect the city hopes it has on the NOPD. "This will all be better."

In a subsequent presentation, New Orleans Health Commissioner Karen DeSalvo said federal officials could further aid in reducing the city's murder rate by making mental health services a mandatory service for Medicaid program participants.

Mental illness has been to blame for several especially horrifying killings in New Orleans and the surrounding area in recent years, as services have been cut and resources have declined. Just last week, Chelsea Thornton, a woman with a history of mental illness, allegedly shot her 3-year-old son in the head and drowned her 4-year-old daughter, police said.

DeSalvo said mental well-being is as important as physical health, and a federal policy ensuring mental care for those in need would benefit "every man, woman or child."

Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/10/nopd_chief_ronal_serpas_promis.html

bret michaels pekingese tcu football westminster bonnaroo 2012 lineup twisted metal sea lion