To battle violent crime, New Orleans needs more cops: Opinion - NOLA.com

Mayor Mitch Landrieu is no doubt right that there are deeply entrenched reasons for the kind of violence that erupted in New Orleans over the weekend. The long-term answers most certainly include changes in culture, educational and job opportunities, and a reduction in poverty.

But while we are waiting for that to happen the immediate answer to making the city safer is the same it has been for several years: The New Orleans Police Department needs more officers on the street to prevent crime not just react to it.

The Metropolitan Crime Commission clearly identified the problem in a report issued last month.

"The NOPD's acute manpower shortage has necessitated that police minimize proactive policing strategies to allow them to respond to calls for service in a more timely manner," the report says. "The critical shortage of NOPD officers has not improved over the past four years. NOPD manpower fell 4% from 1,215 officers in May of 2013 to 1,165 officers at the end of 2016. Although the NOPD effectively applies its limited resources, the department lacks the manpower to timely respond to calls for service and adequately address the high rate of crime."

This problem traces to a hiring freeze implemented by Landrieu in his first term and the city's increasingly difficult efforts to catch up through recruiting new officers while hanging on to veterans. Still about 500 officers short of the 1,600 desired, the net gain last year was just five.

The mayor and NOPD Chief Michael Harrison held a press conference Sunday (June 4) in an attempt to reassure residents after a bloody Saturday of shootings left three people dead and 10 people wounded, the highest number of people shot in a single day in New Orleans so far this year. But it's just part of a trend that has seen more than 300 people killed or wounded by gunfire through the first 155 days of 2017.

"We're going to have to change who we are, how we are and how we act," Landrieu said, noting the "the root cause" of the violence is access to drugs and alcohol.

"It occurs to me all time when we have difficult circumstances, when people get afraid, get uneasy with each other, we tend to point fingers," Landrieu said. "But blame is a pathway to nowhere. Responsibility is always a pathway to a solution."

Landrieu and Harrison said more officers will be deployed to the part of Mid-City where Saturday's shootings occurred, without acknowledging that stepped-up enforcement in one part of the city will almost certainly stretch resources in some other area. That is the chronic problem the NOPD faces until its resources are restored.

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Former Civil District Judge Michael Bagneris, who challenged Landrieu in the 2014 election and is one of four announced candidates to succeed him in 2018, didn't pull any punches in responding to the Landrieu-Harrison press conference.

"Like other sensible New Orleanians, I am appalled at the city administration's excuse on tonight's news that again dismisses the fact that the gutted police force -- from 1,600 to 1,100 officers -- is the reason for our city's public safety problems," Bagneris said in a written statement. "The Mayor arrogantly refuses to accept responsibility and instead blames our people and our community's culture."

At the rate we are moving toward changing the culture and adding police officers, it could be a long summer.

Tim Morris is an opinions columnist at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at tmorris@nola.com. Follow him on Twitter @tmorris504.

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