BATON ROUGE (AP) – Mayor Ray Nagin said Monday that New Orleans will need crime-fighting help from state police and the Louisiana National Guard through this summer, though he will need a fresh commitment from Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Nagin wants Blanco to keep the 60 state troopers and 300 National Guardsmen in the city longer than she has agreed, to help the depleted police department patrol the streets of New Orleans, which has become the nation’s murder capital. Blanco agreed to keep the troopers and soldiers in the city until June 30, at a cost to the state of about $30 million.
“If we get through this summer, and we get through it in pretty good shape, I think we can start to wean off of the National Guard and particularly the state troopers.
I think they would probably be the first we can wean off of, and then the National Guard can come after that,” Nagin told reporters after a speech to the Press Club of Baton Rouge.
A Blanco spokeswoman said the governor has not determined whether to extend the June 30 deadline.
“Closer to that time, the governor will re-evaluate the situation with Mayor Nagin…to discuss what the needs are at that time,” spokeswoman Marie Centanni said.
Three people were shot to death in the city over the weekend in unrelated cases, the first murders in about two weeks, city police spokeswoman Bambi Hall said. The city has had 40 murders so far this year, she said, and 162 in 2006. New Orleans has 96 slayings per 100,000, the highest homicide rate in the nation, according to a Tulane University study.
Nagin said the city’s violence occurs in sudden “spikes” like the one over the weekend. He said he hoped several factors would prevent them in the future: ongoing investigative help from the U.S. Justice Department, new “crime cameras” posted around the city, increased pay for city police officers and an initiative to encourage officers to remain on the force.
“We have to deal with the spikes now,” Nagin said. “We seem to be, you know, getting the bad guys off center for a minute and then they come back with a vengeance in a very short period of time.
“If we deal with the spikes, I think we’re going to get this under control.
