By Kenny Lopez | WGNO | January 21, 2021
Metropolitan Crime Commission discusses new 5-year trend crime report for New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS– The Metropolitan Crime Commission released a 5-year trend crime report which takes a look at all the crime in the various districts in New Orleans.
Rafael Goyeneche, the President of the Metropolitan Crime Commission said their new report breaks it down district by district.
According to the report, the 8th District which is the French Quarter is the safest and Goyeneche said that is because of the amount of police on-duty in the French Quarter in addition to the Louisiana State Police Troopers assigned to the French Quarter.
“Increased police generally brings down crime,” he said.
The report also showed that the 5th District which is the 9th Ward, Bywater, and Marigny neighborhoods along with the 7th District in New Orleans East are the districts that amount for half of all the major violent crimes in our city. Goyeneche says crime has gone down since 2016, except for in 2020.
“One of the things we concluded is all this is part of the reason violent felony crimes exploded in 2020. There were fewer officers available to respond to violent crime,” he said.
Goyeneche believes that the city furloughs and the NOPD’s budget being cut by over 20 percent in 2020 helped play a role in the uptick of crime.
“I understand the difficulty the city is in financially, but the primary responsibility of government is to protect life and property,” he said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she knows that they’ve got work to do to combat crime.
“It is something we are focused on collectively as a system. Of course nothing stops a bullet like a job and it is tied to economic well-being of our community,” she said.
“The city needs to find the resources to prioritize what’s most important to the public,” Goyeneche said.