Yes this is more then 6 months after the Hurricane that re-arranged New Orleans… and four months since the last of the National Guard troops left there. Unable to copy with gang bangers and their philosophy of killing the competition (and other random crime). The Mayor and City Council officially requeste and are receiving a couple hundred for standing duties in the city. After the 1906 Earthquake the local federal troops helped out and soon backed off assured that the fact that crime pays would nip things in the butt (They used to shoot looters and such… the citizens that is).
Troops headed to 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 weekend in which six people were killed.
“The situation is urgent,” Blanco said. “Things like this should never happen, and I am going to do all I can to stop it.”
One hundred National Guard members with law enforcement experience and 60 state police officers were to be sent to the city today. Up to 200 more troops would be deployed after that, said Denise Bottcher, the governor’s spokeswoman.
It was the first time the National Guard has been used for law enforcement in the United States since the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Ray Nagin sought the troops after five teenagers in an SUV were shot and killed in the city’s deadliest attack in at least 11 years. Also, a man was stabbed to death Sunday night.
“Today is a day when New Orleanians are stepping up. We’ve had enough,” Nagin said.
Nagin said he would not allow criminals to take over when the city is still trying to recover from the hurricane, which hit Aug. 29.
The mayor said troops should be posted in neighborhoods that were heavily flooded to free police to concentrate on hot spots.
Local leaders have raised fears that the violence could discourage people from moving back to New Orleans.
The National Guard had as many as 15,000 soldiers in the city in the weeks after Katrina hit. As many as 2,000 stayed until February, said Louisiana National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Pete Schneider.
Blanco said plans were being crafted last week to step up anticrime efforts, but the weekend slayings forced authorities to move faster. She said she was talking with New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley about his exact needs.
Riley assured residents that the Guard was “not coming in and taking over the city.”
Blanco urged the mayor to put a youth curfew in place. Riley said the city’s curfew isn’t being enforced because there’s no place to put young offenders.
Nagin’s request for troops had been backed by the City Council.
“If we don’t have wind knocking us down, we have shooters knocking us down, and that’s unacceptable,” City Council President Oliver Thomas said.
Reaction was mixed.
“It’s long overdue,” said LaToya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association. “Neighborhoods should not have been left alone to begin with.”
But Sherman Copelin, president of the New Orleans East Business Association, said officials shouldn’t “let someone come in and be a housekeeper.”
The killings over the weekend brought this year’s homicide toll to 53.
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