Despite the fact that it’s now a white-chocolate city, New Orleans just called in the army…for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. Did another hurricane hit? Yes…but not the meteorological kind. Read on:
The Louisiana governor asked for the National Guard to return to New Orleans after a weekend that saw six people murdered in the city.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had earlier called for 300 soldiers and some 60 state police to be sent to the city.
Crime has risen in the city after a brief drop following Hurricane Katrina.
The six deaths over the weekend raised the number of murders in New Orleans this year to 52, police said.
That figure is less than half what it was a year ago – but the city’s population is also only roughly half of what it was before Hurricane Katrina forced thousands from their homes last August.
Police statistics show crime has risen in recent months.
[…]
New Orleans has long been regarded as a hotbed of violent crime but the crime rate there fell sharply in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
However, residents have been complaining that a lack of adequate schooling and housing as a result of the hurricane has forced the crime rate up again.
Emphasis added.
Does Bill Bennett now regret his remarks about aborting all those black babies? If not, he should. Seems that losing a lot of black people hasn’t made a dent in the per-capita murder rate of New Orleans.
But the answer to that problem is not racial; it’s all out there in plain sight. Read that last paragraph again.
Maybe we could persuade Hugo Chavez to set up a social-welfare mission in New Orleans. I would say they’re about ripe for it.
