The crime wave following Katrina must have been one of the most easily predicted aspects of the entire mess, but it seems to have been completely ignored by the state and local authorities. Sorry Celine, I know that you want to think that they were all good folks but look at the statistics and you get a different story.

2004 Crime Stats for New Orleans, La.

Anyone who has ever been to New Orleans has probably gotten a lecture from their cab driver about where not to go (which is a large part of the city) unless you want to be mugged. Folks, this isn’t me or media bias, I’m talking about what the locals say. Ask the people at your hotel, they’ll tell you the same thing.

New Orleans is one of the most violent cities in America and the statistics back it up. What were the Louisiana state and local government thinking as they saw Katrina bearing down on them? Did they think that the city’s criminal element would honor a cease fire until the police force was back in town or no longer distracted by rescue attempts? Would it be too politically incorrect to predict that the people who committed the 4,468 violent crimes in 2004 might want to take advantage of the situation to do more? Would it have been politically incorrect to plan for it and/or taken actions against it? I guess so.

Given the political nature of the discussion, Independent Sources feels compelled to include this disclaimer anytime we write something that might appear to be “victim unfriendly”: The people in the devastated areas need our help. Please donate to any number of relief organizations. For the displaced, the horror of the devastation will not be going away anytime soon and they require all of our assistance.

technorati: katrina looting

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 10th, 2005 at 10:32 pm by Insider and is filed under Big Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.