Updated: Bailing out Mayor Nagin
Guard, state troopers to patrol New Orleans
'We're not going to take it anymore,' Nagin vows
I love the poetic justice here. 36 of New Orleans 53 murders this year have taken place in the last 12 weeks while Mayor Nagin was busy with his re-election bid. And not even five weeks into his new term he's basically throwing in the towel.
"We're not going to take it anymore" is code for...we, the leaders of New Orleans, are unable to control our city and our inflated police force.
All I can say to NO is, you re-elected him!
Here's Michelle Malkin's angle.
Blanco speeding troops, state cops to N.O.
NEW ORLEANS — Acting at the mayor's request, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday she would send National Guard troops and state police to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a bloody weekend in which six people were killed.
I thought this story was interesting in the manner in which Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin continue to show their incompetence. Here we have a situation where you have five teens killed in a gun battle over drugs this past weekend in New Orleans. Any type of killing is one too many in my opinion, but I think the Mayor and Governor are going a bit overboard. Which only highlights my opinions that much of the disaster after Katrina was a direct reflection of inept local and state leadership.
Here's my take on this:
Read this paragraph from the AP story...
New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley welcomed the support because the ranks of his department are depleted. The police force has about 1,375 officers now, compared with about 1,750 officers before Katrina. The population of 465,000 has rebounded to about half its size before the storm. "We know this is going to be a long, hot summer," Riley said.
This paragraph cites a city population of just about 232,000 people as of right now. It also cites a police force of some 1,375. This is quite a number if you start comparing to other cities of similar size. Take Oakland for example. We have a general city population of somewhere around 450,000. Of course our market is around 6 million, but let's stay with city boundaries for good measure. The Oakland police force was sitting around 220 officers at the turn of the year. At any given moment, it was reported there were only 31 officers on patrol throughout the city. Yes, you read that correctly! Only 31 officers patrolling the city of Oakland, 450,000 strong, at any given moment.
With respect to our police crisis here in Oaktown, the force has now grown to just about 800 officers with more on the way. And the downtown Police headquarters is displaying a large sign reading "Now Hiring; Officers starting at $69,000." But the point of this story is how ineffective Mayor Nagin has been in controlling crime in his city. I agree New Orleans has issues that we aren't dealing with here in Oakland. But the numbers don't lie my friends. 1,375 officers should be getting the job done.
But rather than looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of his local police force. Nagin would rather spend taxpayer dollars and bring in the Guard. I'm starting to wonder if we should ask Gov. Schwarzenegger to call out the troops to help fight crime here in the Bay Area. Then again, some of these nut jobs don't believe in even having a military. Opps!