It has been a month since the unprecedented union of the New Orleans Police Department, the National Guard and the State Police freed up entire squads of local officers to attack crime in the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Since then, arrests in some crime-plagued neighborhoods have almost doubled, and the number of murders has been sliced nearly in half. In the 30 days before the June 20 deployment of the National Guard into more desolate areas of the city to contain looting and burglaries, there were 21 murdersty. In the month after their arrival, there have been 11 killings.
Deputy Chief John Bryson called the results “remarkable.” Central City had been the scene of several violent episodes, the most heinous of which was a June 17 massacre that left five teens dead. Those murders were a prelude to the arrival of the National Guard and State Police, though New Orleans police Superintendent Warren Riley said the move had been planned for months, to suppress crime he expected to rise as schools let out and the population swelled for the summer.
Link: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/115337959195050.xml&coll=1