New Orleans – The New Orleans police chief, reeling from the deaths of six people over the holiday weekend, said Monday that he would ask the governor to keep National Guard troops in the city past the end of the year, when their mission to help patrol hurricane-damaged neighborhoods is supposed to end.
Warren Riley plans to ask that the Guard stay through June.
“But we’d be satisfied with whatever they could do, to supplement our ranks, to let our ranks do the policing work and the National Guard can take patrol,” said Sgt. Jeffrey Johnson, a police spokesman.
Soldiers began patrolling New Orleans neighborhoods in June after five teenagers were killed in a shooting. The Guard focused on areas most devastated by Hurricane Katrina so police could focus on higher-crime areas.
“We really believed we’d turned a corner. We felt good we were doing what it takes,” Riley said. Then, the violence “flared up again” over the Thanksgiving weekend, claiming six lives and raising the city’s homicides for the year to 147.
An apparent stabbing death early Sunday on or near Bourbon Street was under investigation. Three fatal shootings happened in other areas of the city Saturday, and a double homicide occurred Thursday night.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said the governor would reassess the need to extend the Guard’s presence at the end of the year.
Since June, 300 National Guard troops have patrolled New Orleans and assisted in about 1,400 arrests, Lt. Col. Pete Schneider said. Soldiers cannot make arrests, but they can detain people until a police officer arrives, he said.
While city police work to curb violent crime, the Guard has dealt mostly with the looting of vacant homes and burglaries, Schneider said.
Also Monday, the Police Department began its first officer training class since Katrina, taking on 41 recruits. But rebuilding the department will take time, Johnson said.
The police force numbers 1,425 officers, down from about 1,670 before Katrina, according Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s office. The mayor has called for increasing the police budget to expand the force to 1,600.
