Posted on 09/27/2005 1:57:20 PM PDT by ShadowDancer
New Orleans Gangs, Drug Dealers May Re-Emerge Elsewhere
POSTED: 2:43 pm EDT September 27, 2005
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Katrina did what authorities couldn't: put a stop to illegal drug operations in New Orleans and pushed its ruthlessly violent gangs from the streets of the city's poorest neighborhoods.
The exact landing point of gang members isn't known for sure, though federal authorities suspect popular evacuation sites like Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houston. But no matter where they land, the thugs from the Big Easy have been put at a distinct disadvantage, authorities say.
"They are crippled," said U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. "They don't have the buddies, don't have the turf they're familiar with."
Gangs were largely responsible for the city's pre-Katrina murder rate of nearly 10 times the national average. Though gang members only made up a few hundred of the city's core population of 450,000, they terrorized highly concentrated areas of poor neighborhoods, often shooting at will during drug disputes and intimidating potential witnesses into silence - or killing them.
"They prey on the paupers," Letten said. "We know who some of them are and where some of them are, but we still have to get a better grip on it."
Though there's no proof New Orleans gangs have regrouped in other cities, authorities agree the emptying of New Orleans presents a unique opportunity for law enforcement. With the city's criminal element dispersed, gang activity is easier to spot.
For example, when a Gretna, La., man was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baton Rouge, where the population since Katrina has reportedly doubled to at least 800,000, law enforcement swarmed.
"Gangs are a top priority for us because they can have a big, negative impact on a community," said Mark Chait, special agent in charge of the New Orleans office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The ATF is paying close attention in Louisiana and Texas to cities along Interstate 10 west of New Orleans, the highway long used as a major drug corridor. And police are looking for spray-painted insignia and other signs of gang activity, even checking suspects for gang-affiliated tattoos.
Unlike larger, nationally organized gangs, those from New Orleans are small, elusive and harder to track. Sometimes consisting of as few as two or three members, they're known to use children to push their drugs, Letten said.
"We've seen them shoot each other over a parking spot, a word, a hand gesture," Letten said. "They have no regard for human life."
Because of the population boom in Baton Rouge, the anti-gang task force once based in New Orleans has moved here, along with one of the ATF's Violent Crimes Impact Teams - the 21st of as many in the nation. The VCIT program was launched roughly a year ago in more than a dozen of the country's most violent cities, including New Orleans, Miami, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.
Besides Baton Rouge, the city of Lafayette, about 135 miles northwest of New Orleans, has been a concern for violent crime, said Chait, whose field division covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.
Lafayette officials say the city has had no armed robberies, car jackings, drive-by shootings or other crimes associated with gang activity since refugees began evacuating there.
"If we saw any sign, whether a tattoo, colors, we would address it," said Lt. Craig Stansbury, spokesman for the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office.
After Katrina, Lafayette kept security tight at its Cajundome, the sports arena that was serving as a shelter to hundreds of evacuees before Rita forced them to relocate.
Because Houston and San Antonio took in many New Orleanians, authorities have also been paying attention to criminal activity in those cities.
Unfortunately, wherever they go, the ACLU will coming slithering in right after the gang banger bus arrives.
Hardly...
Dallas and Houston have lots of scumbags.
EDDIE COMPASS RESIGNED!!!! Yeaaaaaaa! This is something wrong about that man! I'm soooo glad he's gone!
The authorities believe some are in Atlanta according to news reports.
and all the registered sex offenders that they lost track of.
Not trying to pick a fight, but it has been my experience in my travels that there are scumbags no matter where you go, your state is no exception to that rule.
Can we dedicate a shooting range area just for gang members? They could go there, shoot each other, and not injure innocent people in the neighborhood. As a bonus, we could give them free machine guns when each side brings more than 10 members.
Yep. There was one discovered living just a few feet from an elementary school in my county. He evacuated from LA to his Mom's place. Needless to say the neighborhood and school didn't learn of this until after he moved away from his Mom. The authorities don't know where he is now.
Probably here in Memphis now. We're N'awlins north.
If any of them wanted out, now is the opportunity.
I wish that were true but it isn't!!
A police supervisor told a motel manager that he could not evict a gang of them after they trashed the place and told the disrupters how to file a complaint because THEIR civil rights were violated. This is a TEXAS police supervisor who saw the trashing this NO LA gang did.
The thugs will find that the cops in other cities may not be as malleable as the cops in NO were. It will be the last thing some of them discover.
This sounds like one of those rumors that were floating around about the rapes and murders in the Super-dome. I didn't believe those rumors and I don't believe this one. The news media is an extremely unreliable source.
They are also likely to find that rival gangs are WAY less malleable than their homies in NO were. A NO gang general will find he has less standing in his new hood than the lowliest local soldier, even if it is a branch of the same gang in a different city. Look for turf wars in all the cities where NO gangbangers relocate until they are either assimilated or eliminated. Over all, it is a gain for the rest of us because there will be fewer gangs and fewer gang members to contend with nationwide.
As long as they take it out on each other and leave innocent people alone, I'm fine with that.
They have a civil right to prey on others ...
Well...As I tell my friends and many who do not mind to listen...New Orleans had many problems...turning into a welfare and criminal state was two of them . Hurricane Katrina just exposed the walfare and crimal state for what the state of LA had allowed New Orleans to become.
lbjgal
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