By: Thanh Truong | fox8live.com | December 19, 2024
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – In a press briefing Wednesday and multiple releases Wednesday and Thursday, the New Orleans Police Department shared major updates on several violent crime investigations.
Police announced the arrests of two suspects in the mass shooting near the Nine Times Second Line parade that left 10 people injured on Nov. 19.
Surveillance video was released showing a suspect turning a corner and opening fire in the Dec. 15 quadruple shooting on Franklin Avenue, which left two people dead and two others injured.
Suspect photos were released in connection with the Nov. 30 shooting on Bourbon Street that injured a 15-year-old boy during Bayou Classic weekend.
Police arrested 30-year-old Chandler Davenport in connection with a quadruple shooting on Canal Street during Bayou Classic weekend.
On Thursday morning, Jalil Williams, the man accused of fatally shooting a Cox Communications worker, was taken into custody, the day after his photo was released and circulated.
Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, says these updates are critically important in solving crime and need to happen in a timely manner.
“When a crime has been committed it’s critically important for the police department to identify who the perpetrators are and make an arrest,” Goyeneche said.
He says he can remember when the NOPD would struggle to identify suspects and make arrests, leading to cold cases.
Goyeneche credits the NOPD’s success to its adoption of cutting-edge technology and a shift toward proactive policing.
“In the latter part of 2022, the department pivoted,” Goyeneche said. “They began to engage in more proactive policing and utilizing technology to a greater extent, and that use of technology is only accelerating now.”
The use of crime cameras, DNA and touch DNA testing, ballistics analysis, and aerial surveillance tools like drones and helicopters has been critical in identifying suspects and advancing investigations.
“It’s a really heavy lean into and utilizing technology as a force multiplier,” Goyeneche said. “Every one of these cases has some aspect of tech involved in solving them.”
Despite a shrinking force, the NOPD has increased traffic stops and drug investigations, with Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick noting that “traffic enforcement leads to gun arrests, leads to drug arrests.”
As technology continues to play a pivotal role, Goyeneche predicts the NOPD will rely even more on advanced tools to combat crime and close cases.
“This department is becoming much more sophisticated, much more akin to what you see on television now in identifying and solving crime,” he said.