By Shay O’Connor | WDSU | March 29, 2022
In New Orleans, the Metropolitan Crime Commission reports homicides are up by 49% from this time last year.
The month of March is seeing an unusual spike with 24 homicides as of March 28.
It’s the second-highest total in a month since MCC began collecting crime data on a monthly basis in 2019.
The city has not seen homicides that high in one month since 2020 when the month of July closed with 25 murders.
This month last year there were 43 homicides versus 64 so far this year.
Monday, Victory Church met with community members for a Cry Out Against Crime in response to all of the latest crimes happening in New Orleans- including last Monday when 73-year-old Linda Frickey was dragged to death during a carjacking just a block away from where that meeting was held.
WDSU exclusively interviewed organizers that put together the prayer service.
“That carjacking for me at least. That was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was so gruesome and horrific. It really painted a picture of how bad this problem is,” said Terrance Jones with Victory Church.
Many youths joined in the prayer. The event was held outside of Dynamic Performance Training. The center works specifically with teens, training for sports. Like Malachi Preciado. Preciado is a senior at Warren Easton. After training, he attended the prayer meeting.
“Just seeing stuff like this going on. A group of people coming together to talk about God. Being that so much is happening in the city- is amazing,” Preciado said.
Robby Green, the owner of Dynamic Performance Training in Mid-City said, “We do not need this violence in our city. Especially from our youth. The grown-ups in our community need to take over that ownership, responsibility and care to stand up to share their words and wisdom to guide the youth.”
Rafael Goyeneche, the president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission said the lack of NOPD manpower has continued to pose a huge problem when it comes to crime in the city.
The president said we have more than 250 fewer officers on the streets than we had back in 2019.
“As the number of police goes down we are seeing crime go up. It is not just something that started in 2022. This has been going on since 2020,” Goyeneche said.
The president of MCC believes that new initiatives like the Proactive Policing Unit will help to bring crime down.