NEW ORLEANS — Violent crime is up 24 percent in New Orleans, and now Mayor Mitch Landrieu is calling on Louisiana taxpayers to send in more state troopers to patrol his city, essentially diverting important resources from other areas of the state.
One might wonder why Landrieu, a Democrat, doesn’t use his own local police force instead. The adversarial relationship between the mayor and the New Orleans police union could play a large part.
Eric Hessler, an attorney for the Police Association of New Orleans, which represents 500 NOPD officers, compares it to the relationship between New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Police Department.
“For the Sugar Bowl, civilian groups had to put up signs warning tourists to walk in groups,” Hessler said. “The signs said ‘We love our NOPD, but we just don’t have enough of them.’ There are dozens of these signs in the French Quarter.”
Even though the economy is still bad and people are out of work, Hessler said only 55 people applied to fill 150 empty police positions in 2014. About 120 officers left the NOPD at the same time, he added.
Potential recruits are either migrating to other cities or taking jobs as Louisiana state troopers.
In addition to calling upon those troopers to fix things, Hessler said Landrieu has invested $2.5 million so unarmed civilians may patrol the French Quarter.
“It certainly was not a wise expenditure of money,” Hessler said. “What is an unarmed security patrol going to do to stem violent crime? Nothing.”
A spokesman for Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal said the governor hasn’t decided whether to abide by Landrieu’s request.
“We will make a determination for supplemental support based on the recommendations of the Colonel of the Louisiana State Police and if he decides it is necessary, sustainable to the department, and does not detract from the important work LSP does in other parts of the state,” said Mike Reed.
