Murder City: New Orleans, no longer the Mardi Gras?

Once upon a time the southern US city of New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi river, was a place famed for its jazz and bohemian culture. The world famous Bourbon Street and French Quarter were home to musical greats such as Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima and Professor Longhair. Mardi Gras, the yearly carnival celebrated everything historical and unique about the Big Easy. But no longer is the city famed for its gumbo and Cajun and Creole mix.

Most people remember the devastation in 2005 caused by Hurricane Katrina. A storm so powerful that it breached the city’s ageing levees and flooded 80 per cent of the municipal. In some places, the water reached above 15 feet, destroying all houses and businesses. It is estimated that around 1,464 people lost their lives as a result of Katrina.

French Quarter (travelgrove.com)

Restoring the old city has been no easy feat. Not only have engineers had to fix the levees and demolish storm-affected buildings. Politicians have had to deal with the difficulties of a disparate population (evacuated to different states during Katrina), a housing shortage and most notoriously the rise in civil disobedience. New Orleans is now bearer of the unfortunate title ‘Murder City’.

The USA still has one of the highest homicide rates in the developed world at 4.8 per 100,000 people. In New Orleans, the homicide rate is ten times higher than the national rate. Last year 199 people were murdered, meaning that for every 1,700 citizens, one of them became a victim. The problem appears to be getting worse. Hitherto, there have been 45 more victims than this time last year. A recent poll among New Orleans residents reflects these numbers. Crime is now deemed to be the biggest problem according to 62 per cent of the poll, ahead of issues like education and housing.

The HBO drama ‘Treme’ set after Katrina tries to reflect this. Ordinary citizens try to resume their lives, but are hampered by maladministration and the ever increasing, fear of crime. The Mayor of New Orleans recently stated on the record that it had become “the single most important issue facing our city”.

Homicide in America is in decline, particularly since the peaks of the 1980s. In fact, 2011 was the first year since 1965 that homicide did not make the country’s top 15 list of ways to die according to the National Centre for Health Statistics. Cities notorious with crime, the likes of Baltimore, Washington D.C and Detroit have made steady improvements, whereas New Orleans has bucked the trend.

Similar to the streets of south Chicago, the patterns of violence are not necessarily gang or drug related. Residents have voiced the ‘ordinariness’ nature of the killings. The New Orleans Police Superintendent called it “uncommon endings to very common fights”. Guns are being used to resolve traffic disputes. At the end of 2011, stray bullets ended the lives of two toddlers.

Crime scene (nola.com)

The statistics do not lie. In New Orleans murder is the number one cause of death among black males age 16-24. A Federal survey showed that almost 87 per cent of victims were male and 91.5 per cent were black. Ninety per cent were killed with firearms. Forty per cent were in their 20s, 13.5 per cent their teens.

For a city that has dealt with so much in the past ten years, it makes the violence seem unimaginable. In the years after Katrina, the murder rate actually came down. Why then the sudden spike in deaths? Local organisations put it down to the lack of education and employment opportunities. It can often be put down to sheer boredom. Living in tough neighbourhoods, where prospects are low and crime is high; the cycle of violence is sustained and pervasive. Carrying a gun is necessary for protection and commands respect. One community activist claimed that youngsters only respected and listened to him because he had a murder to his name. It is unsurprising to learn that trust in the police is non-existent and inevitably witnesses rarely see anything or come forward.

All around neighbourhoods in New Orleans lasting tributes are being made to the spiralling number of deaths. One company sells customised clothing that prints pictures of the dead for friends and family. Perhaps more vividly, one website tags the ever increasing locations of the murders. One church has a created a memorial that lists the names of the fallen, akin to any war monument.

Seven years after Katrina, the rebuilding of New Orleans will have to continue.

Family Annihilation

Listening to the news this afternoon, I was confronted by a word that I have never heard before and provokes an eerie sense of curiosity: ‘Family Annihilation’. There is no dichotomy from case to case, but the vast majority seem to be split down the middle. Let me provide you with the first kind, there are occasions when angry or jealous husbands feel that the best way to punish a cheating or estranged wife/partner is to murder the children. As I quote a psychologist:

“No thought for the children as humans is given whatsoever — they are mere instrumentalities in a bigger scheme to extract revenge.”

These horrendous actions, with many examples, appear to have the marks of a psychopath. The husband’s hate and victimhood causes him to go beyond what any loving father would think of doing and murder his own, all to punish their partner. A horrendous tragedy to any community.

The other side is perhaps more complex. The scenario when a husband kills his whole family to protect themselves. There are several stories in recent years to highlight such cases. Firstly, Chris Foster, a wealthy self-made millionaire who shot his wife and daughter, before killing himself and setting fire to his house. Also today, a coroner published the results for the death of 48 year-old Hugh Mc Fall, who killed his wife and daughter before taking his own life. Both these high-profile cases involved men, who were in financial trouble yet loving husbands and fathers. Their crimes were not through anger or revenge; but to prevent their families from being stigmatised by their shame, to protect them from their own suffering. Something they weren’t willing to accept.

These deaths aren’t romantic and ultimately there are many innocent victims. We just have to think, particularly in the second cases, can we call these men mad or evil? If they had robbed banks instead would we have accepted it? Or was their crime that they loved too much? Trauma and desperation are things right-thinking people cannot fathom, we can only conclude that desperate men can do desperate things.