LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
Let's turn now to an American city that's been struggling with a wave of violence. There have been nearly 100 homicides in New Orleans so far this year. The city has long had the country's highest per capita murder rate. The city's mayor says he has a plan; it relies on cooperation between police and those they serve. But that relationship is complicated in a city where some citizens have lost faith in the criminal justice system.
NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: James Robinson is out for his usual morning stroll in Central City, but notices the corner benches where he takes a rest are missing.
JAMES ROBINSON: They tore the benches down, huh?
ELLIOTT: Neighbor Theresa Elloie tells him it's a blessing that police cleared out the benches because they'd become a hotbed for drug deals.
THERESA ELLOIE: That's what it is, and until we take our neighborhood back from the drug dealers...
ROBINSON: That'll never happen. That's all over the world, they done took over.
ELLOIE: You don't think we can stop them?
ROBINSON: No.
ELLOIE: Yeah.
ELLIOTT: Central city is just a few blocks north of the stately mansions that line St. Charles Avenue, yet it's one of New Orleans' poorest and most violent neighborhoods. Robinson, who's 73, says it's worse than he can remember.
ROBINSON: And there wasn't no killings up this way too much, not around here. But it's happening here now. Sit on the porch, you getting shot.
ELLIOTT: He's referring to a recent shooting when gunmen opened fire on a 10-year-old's birthday party, killing a five-year old girl and a young mother who was driving though the neighborhood.
Robinson has lost hope that the bloodletting will end. But Theresa Elloie is fighting to keep the corner bar her father opened in the 1960s. The neighborhood is so dangerous, she takes her seven-year-old grandson to City Park to ride his bike. And she keeps a close watch on the bar.
As we stand out front on a recent Thursday morning, the corner business picks up.
ELLOIE: See, that guy right here, looking for drugs. As we speak, he's looking for drugs. See, he's asking where so and so at. You hear? Mm-hmm.
ELLIOTT: There have been two recent murders outside her bar, so she's trying to get corporate support to install surveillance cameras along the street. She says the neighbors are afraid to report crimes, but video evidence can help catch criminals.
Inside the air-conditioned bar, she says the killings are becoming more predictable.
ELLOIE: It's like you shoot my friend today, I'm going to shoot your friend tomorrow. You shoot my brother, I'm gone shoot your mama. It's a cycle that just is not stopping.
(SOUNDBITE OF THUD)
ELLIOTT: New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu plops a five-inch thick three-ring binder on his desk.
MAYOR MITCH LANDRIEU: This is a book that has in it every one of the individuals from last year that was killed.
ELLIOTT: That was 199 people.
LANDRIEU: This is a deeply-seated cultural problem. And I call it changing the culture of violence. Because I think we have learned, or some people have learned, how to settle their differences that otherwise used to be settled though nasty words, you know, or a fistfight, by the use of a gun that results in an immediate death.
ELLIOTT: Landrieu has launched a new initiative called NOLA for Life. It combines stepped up law enforcement with intervention programs that have been used in other cities. For instance, the Cease Fire model that attempts to cool retaliation killings. He's also turning to the Justice Department for help, using task forces of federal agents to target high crime areas like Central City.
LANDRIEU: The first thing is stop the shooting. The second thing is make sure you spend a lot of money on prevention.
ELLIOTT: He's not the first mayor of New Orleans to tout a new approach to quell the violence here. And that has some residents weary.
TAMARA JACKSON: Every time it's a real violent situation here, another plan comes out.
ELLIOTT: Victims' advocate Tamara Jackson.
JACKSON: We've been getting a number of plans forever and a day and it's just not working.
ELLIOTT: Jackson's father was murdered in 2000. Now she's the Director of Silence is Violence, a group that helps crime victims navigate the criminal justice system, a system she says is so broken that victims are hesitant to cooperate with authorities.
JACKSON: Many of our political figures and police officers are in the news themselves. That stigmatizes a community. We hear that all the time. Like, are you serious? The police are always in trouble. And we try to encourage folks, okay, well, we still have to do what's right, in spite of living in a corrupt city.
ELLIOTT: The U.S. Justice Department has found a long-standing pattern of corruption and unconstitutional behavior by the New Orleans Police Department. Jackson says the result of that culture is a vigilante justice system on the streets.
JACKSON: Folks feel like it's easier - it's easier for me and my family to look for the perpetrator, to figure out what has happened, and get our own justice, and we'll be at peace, but that's not the answer either.
COMMANDER JOHN THOMAS NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Miro, y'all did this block?
ELLIOTT: To help repair the broken trust, New Orleans police are spending more time walking their beats, not to hunt for criminals, but to connect with the neighbors.
DEPARTMENT: How y'all doing?
ELLIOTT: Third District Commander John Thomas is out on a recent Friday evening in the Gentilly area. He introduces himself to two ladies on the front porch of a duplex, and encourages them to call the anonymous Crimestoppers line if they see any trouble.
DEPARTMENT: Because the truth of the matter is we can't do it by ourselves as law enforcement.
MS. EARLINE: No, you can't.
DEPARTMENT: We need y'all but we don't want to put y'all in harm's way either.
EARLINE: Right. Right.
ELLIOTT: Ms. Earline, who prefers not to give her last name, tells the commander she's tried to get police to respond.
EARLINE: Thomas, I'm gonna tell you something.
DEPARTMENT: Yes, ma'am.
EARLINE: I've reported it to the city. From this corner to next corner.
DEPARTMENT: Mm-hmm.
EARLINE: About 8:00 or 9:00 at night?
DEPARTMENT: Mm-hmm.
EARLINE: It's a drug headquarters.
DEPARTMENT: Okay.
EARLINE: Okay? And I've reported it.
DEPARTMENT: Okay. Well, we - I know it now.
ELLIOTT: Along with the added police patrols, the city is putting more resources in youth recreation programs.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAYGROUND)
JEROME TEMPLE: Shot my eyes(ph) out already...
ELLIOTT: Jerome Temple is the supervisor at the city's playground and pool in Central City. He's better known as DJ Jubilee - a popular bounce artist in New Orleans who dedicates his days to coaching vulnerable 13 and 14-year-olds.
(SOUNDBITE OF BALL BOUNCING)
ELLIOTT: He agrees the system has failed, but thinks the only way to stop the violence is to hold kids accountable.
TEMPLE: I'm tired of them putting the blame on everybody except the people who are doing the crime. It's the parents, single parent home, we know that. They know that too. But you out there making that decision. How many kids don't know a gun is wrong? How many kids don't know selling drugs is wrong? We all know that.
ELLIOTT: Temple, now 46, grew up in a violent housing project, but he says the climate is even harsher for kids coming up today.
TEMPLE: Everybody gets a gun, everybody wants to shoot.
ELLIOTT: He traces it to the late '80s, when crack hit the scene, and loosely structured gangs started forming to protect their turf. If one group gets busted, he says, another, usually younger, group is waiting in the wings. Temple says it's a rite of passage of sorts.
TEMPLE: I have seen kids who I've spoken to, and seen them gradually waiting on their turn to make that billboard, gradually waiting their turn to be on the most wanted list.
ELLIOTT: The challenge for New Orleans is how to break the deadly cycle. Debbie Elliott, NPR News.
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