Why New Orleans Has the Highest Murder Rate in America

The city’s homicide rate is up 141% this year from the same period in 2019 By Cameron McWhirter | Photographs by Emily Kask for The Wall Street Journal Oct. 14, 2022 Tap story

Violent crime in New Orleans has grown to the point that Ibrahim Rabee no longer feels safe at his auto shop. At least seven people have been killed within blocks of his store since the beginning of the year, according to police records.

“I’m thinking I’m not going to work another year here,” said Mr. Rabee, who came to the U.S. from the Palestinian territories and is considering moving near his brother in upstate New York.

New Orleans had the highest homicide rate of any major city for the first half of this year. There have been about 41 homicides per 100,000 residents, according to a WSJ analysis of data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a professional organization of police executives. The homicide rate was 11.5 in Chicago, 4.8 in Los Angeles and 2.4 per 100,000 in New York City for the same period.

100% The percentage increase in shootings in New Orleans so far this year compared with the same period in 2019, according to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a nonprofit that works to reduce crime in the city. Chris Granger/The New Orleans Advocate/AP

Criminologists and law-enforcement officers have cited several potential factors in the rise in violent crime across the U.S., including stress from the pandemic, police pullbacks after racial-justice protests and a proliferation of guns. A New Orleans pharmacy owner holds an AR-9 that he has for protection.

In New Orleans, city officials and residents point to an overwhelmed police department as a major factor. The city has about 50% to 60% of the officers it needs to offer adequate protection for residents, estimates Ronal Serpas, who was the city’s police superintendent from 2010 to 2014.

The police department is stretched so thin that the average 911 response time is 2½ hours , according to a recent report by an analytics firm presented to City Council. The department says the time is much shorter for very serious emergency calls. Surveillance cameras inside a New Orleans pharmacy.

Nhu Vu, 40, a cashier at the Viet My Supermarket in the residential neighborhood of New Orleans East, said she recently called police after an angry homeless man threw a beer can at her. An officer showed up the next day , she said.

“The only way you can really get police to come is if you say you are shot and bleeding.” —Nhu Vu, cashier

Michael Casey, owner of eatery Liberty Cheesesteaks, was on a date in a wealthy area of the city when he witnessed an older man being beaten during a carjacking. The police arrived relatively quickly, he said, but when Mr. Casey pointed out the attacker, they wouldn’t go after him . An officer advised the victim to buy a gun, Mr. Casey said.

Afterward, Mr. Casey decided to close his shop in New Orleans, leaving him with one location in the suburbs. “I can’t put a 16-year-old kid at the register, and he’s going to get two in the head,” Mr. Casey said.

A chief complaint among New Orleans police officers has been a 2012 agreement that gives a federal judge authority to oversee police reforms to correct issues of corruption, inequity, abuse of power and other problems that had plagued the department for years . The agreement has hampered the retention and recruitment of officers , who dislike being written up for infractions such as dress code violations that can take months to investigate.

Scott Fanning, 23, made local headlines when he quit the city’s police department a few hours into his shift in July out of frustration with the staffing shortage. “I just had to get out of that before something happened.”

Some in the city have faulted Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who was re-elected last year, for not responding to crime quickly enough and for not doing enough to support police. “A pivot is near and here,” Mayor Cantrell said in an interview. More on New Orleans

Produced by Brian Patrick Byrne Cover image: Max Becherer/The New Orleans Advocate/AP More on New Orleans