Citizen Crime Watch Blog

Honors go to 4 women for law enforcement work
Saturday, May 10, 2008
By Susan Finch
The Times-Picayune

Four New Orleans women were saluted for their leadership in law enforcement during a Friday luncheon to benefit Grace House, which offers residential substance abuse treatment for women.

The honorees at the 13th annual “Women of Substance” luncheon at the Audubon Tea Room were:

– Acting Orleans Parish District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson, who became Louisiana’s first female DA in November when she was named interim head of the office after former DA Eddie Jordan resigned.

– Longtime licensed clinical social worker Cecile Tebo, who heads a New Orleans Police Department unit, unique in the nation, that deals with mentally ill people in crisis.

– Col. Anella Wilson-Joseph, who has been employed for 33 years with the Orleans Criminal Sheriff’s Office, where she is warden of the female division and director of the prison art program.

– Jenny L. Tripkovich, who went to work for the U.S. Customs Service 28 years ago and is now assigned to immigration and customs enforcement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans. She is a member of U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s anti-terrorism advisory council.

EDITORIAL: Harder look at Pi Kappa Alpha
Saturday, May 10, 2008

Tulane University moved quickly to revoke the charter of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity after a hazing incident in April that left two pledges seriously injured and led to the arrest of 10 students this week. …

Colleges and universities cannot tolerate organizations that engage in such harmful activities. But unfortunately, Tulane didn’t respond with the same alacrity to an earlier complaint about Pike, as the fraternity is commonly called.

In 2006, Tulane’s student government group wrote a letter to the administration asking that it investigate the fraternity. The letter was prompted by complaints from several young women who said that they had been drugged and possibly raped at an annual Pike party called “Saturate.”

The fraternity did get into some trouble that year. Tulane officials said that Pike was found to be in violation of the Code of Student Conduct in 2006 and was subjected to sanctions, including temporary suspension.

But the university has acknowledged that it received the letter from the student government association after those events and did not answer it. “Apparently, there was no response from Tulane to this letter, which we regret,” the university said in a statement.

Tulane officials need to find out what went wrong in 2006 and make sure that no subsequent complaints were given similarly short shrift.

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Bernazzani retires
by Gordon Russell, The Times-Picayune
Friday May 09, 2008, 8:13 PM

Jim Bernazzani, the tough-talking face of the FBI in Louisiana, retired from the bureau Friday, two weeks after he was ordered back to the agency’s Washington headquarters for publicly flirting with a run for mayor of New Orleans.

Bernazzani’s decision to stay in New Orleans — and end a 24-year career with the FBI rather than return to Washington — does not signal a continuing interest in running for mayor, however.

“I will not run for political office,” he said Friday afternoon. “Absolutely not.”

Two weeks ago, the FBI announced it had removed Bernazzani from his post as special agent in charge of the New Orleans office and offered him a transfer to Washington. The ouster came swiftly in response to Bernazzani’s two television interviews several days earlier, in which he said he was considering a run for mayor.

The federal Hatch Act prohibits certain federal officials, including FBI agents, from campaigning for office. While it wasn’t clear that Bernazzani had violated the act, the flirtation with politics by a man who supervises investigations of corrupt public officials created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

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ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
In an annual ritual of grief and pride, the NOPD pays tribute to its officers’ acts of selfless service
Friday, May 09, 2008
By Brendan McCarthy
Staff writer

The 21-gun salute sent shudders through Lynette Dukes and brought tears to her eyes.

Upon seeing his mother’s eyes well, 7-year-old Jalil Dukes started crying, too. Both clutched tissues, thinking of their lost family member, New Orleans Police Sgt. Thelonious Dukes.

Sitting front and center, the Dukes family took part Thursday in the NOPD’s annual police memorial, a solemn event that underscores the sacrifices made daily by its officers. “On this day, we, as a family, salute their families,” Deputy Chief Anthony Canatella said in his opening remarks.

The ceremony, one of many events held nationally to commemorate officers killed in the line of duty, coincides with Police Memorial Week.

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Hurdle lifted in Danziger Bridge trial
Prosecutors rescind judge removal request
Friday, May 09, 2008
By Laura Maggi
The Times-Picayune

The long-dormant murder case against six New Orleans police officers and a former officer could progress quickly toward a trial after prosecutors this week abandoned their bid to remove the judge from the case because of alleged conflicts of interest.

The officers, accused of shooting six people on the Danziger Bridge a few days after Hurricane Katrina, have been in limbo for months because of the prosecutors’ motion to remove Judge Raymond Bigelow from the case, citing his alleged improper connections to the police and the defense team.

Assistant District Attorney Robert White, who took over the Orleans Parish district attorney’s public corruption unit in January, said he evaluated the office’s decision last summer to seek Bigelow’s removal and concluded that the argument had little legal merit. On Thursday, White said he asked the appeals division to withdraw the appeal to the 4th Circuit.

White’s decision to drop the recusal appeal thrusts the politically explosive case back into both the courtroom and the public sphere at a time when there is great uncertainty in the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office, with an election scheduled for the fall to determine future leadership.

— Turnover affects case —

Prosecutors indicted the six NOPD officers, along with one officer who resigned from the force after Katrina, during former District Attorney Eddie Jordan’s tenure. Jordan resigned in the fall of 2007, leaving a top prosecutor, Keva Landrum-Johnson, to take the helm as interim district attorney.

The next elected district attorney, taking charge of an office long hampered by rocky relations with the New Orleans Police Department, might not be eager to continue with a case that would further antagonize the NOPD.

For his part, White said he is “absolutely” committed to the prosecution. “I’m going to treat it just like every other case, analyze it and handle it the best and fairest way I can,” he said.

White delivered the news on Thursday morning to family members of Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally handicapped man who was shot seven times in the back and upper arm by a New Orleans police officer as Madison ran from a chaotic scene on the bridge over the Industrial Canal.

A 19-year-old man also was killed, and four others suffered severe gunshot wounds. The surviving victims have described the scene as an ambush by police officers who shot at unarmed people, many who were crossing the bridge to get food at a grocery store. The indicted officers have maintained that they fired only after one or more people fired at them.

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Frat’s reputation is hardly brotherly
Allegations include drugging, sex assaults
Thursday, May 08, 2008
By Brendan McCarthy
The Times-Picyaune

The Tulane University fraternity at the center of a hazing controversy has weathered several disciplinary complaints over the past several years, including allegations of sexual assaults and drugging of female students.

In March 2006, Tulane’s student government group asked university officials to investigate the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for a litany of alleged misdeeds, following complaints from several young women that they were unwittingly drugged at the fraternity’s annual bacchanal. The student group also sent a letter to the fraternity’s national organization, in which the Tulane chapter is chartered.

On Wednesday, Tulane officials issued a statement that acknowledged the 2006 complaint. The university said a judicial board found the fraternity “to be in violation of the Code of Student Conduct and sanctions were imposed.”

The sanctions included temporarily suspending the fraternity and ordering members to complete community service, said university spokesman Mike Strecker.

But the university acknowledged it subsequently received the letter from the student government group requesting an investigation. “Apparently, there was no response from Tulane to this letter, which we regret,” the university said in a statement.

The fraternity, commonly called PIKE, now faces allegations that members poured boiling water on the bodies of pledges and caked them with flour, crab boil, vinegar, cayenne peppers and wasabi sauce. The victims were treated at a local hospital with second- and third-degree burns, according to New Orleans police.

Arrest warrants were issued for 10 students on Tuesday and all had turned themselves in by Wednesday afternoon, a police spokesman confirmed. …

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Few tapes rolling on crime in N.O.
Promised cameras were not hooked up
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By Brendan McCarthy
Staff writer
The Times-Picayune

Days before thousands of citizens marched on City Hall last year in a public outcry about crime, Mayor Ray Nagin held a twilight news conference to outline crime-fighting initiatives.

One key to the plan: The mayor championed crime surveillance cameras as an unassailable witness to help take back the city’s neighborhoods.

On that January evening in 2007, Nagin announced that 50 cameras would be operable within a week, with 200 online by the end of the year. It was a modest proposal, scaled down from an earlier pledge of 1,000 cameras.

Even the more modest goal remains elusive.

Since the announcement, much of the Nagin administration’s crime camera program has been cloaked in secrecy. City Council members and citizens seeking basic information about the program, such as contracts, have been rebuffed.

As a City Council hearing about the matter began Tuesday morning, the city’s technology officer, who is in charge of camera deployment, was nowhere to be found. A note sent to the head of the Public Works committee stated that Anthony Jones — who had canceled several previously scheduled appearances — was traveling.

That left two attendees, a police officer and an associate tasked with monitoring the program, to give council members the bad news: Right now, the city has “about 85 cameras that work most of the time.”

The announcement incensed some council members.

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Five booked in hazing case
Two Tulane students treated for burns
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By Walt Philbin

Five members of a Tulane University fraternity were arrested Tuesday and five others are being sought on felony battery charges in an alleged hazing incident in which two pledges received second- and third-degree burns from boiling water and crab boil being poured on their bodies, police and other sources familiar with the investigation said.

New Orleans police said the victims were treated at a local hospital and released after the April 25-26 incident.

The victims and suspects were all students at the university, officials said.

Tulane suspended its chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and will begin its own investigation, the university said in a news release issued Tuesday. Tulane would not say whether any disciplinary action was taken against the student suspects.

“This fraternity is no longer a recognized fraternity at Tulane,” the release said, adding that the university has “zero tolerance for any type of hazing or other incident which can potentially endanger the well-being of any student.”

Five of the fraternity members turned themselves in to New Orleans and Tulane police at campus police headquarters late Tuesday afternoon, police said. They were booked with aggravated second-degree battery, a felony, police spokesman Officer Garry Flot said. …

At some point during the hazing, crab boil and other things were poured on the pledges’ bodies and boiling water poured over that, tearing their skin in places, according to the sources. …

Booked were Joseph Lorono, 20 of New York; Randall Graham, 20, of Michigan; Nicholas Maddern, 22, of Massachusetts; Kevin Dunn, 20, of New York; and Jeremy Bendat, 22, of California.

Wanted suspects were Danny Lazzeri, 20; Joseph Stevens, 23; William Dougherty, 20; Oded Nissim, 20; and Preston Gelman, 20.

Aggravated second-degree battery carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine.

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Violent crime surges in N.O.
Armed holdups rise sharply in statistics
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
By Laura Maggi
The Times-Picayune

Violent crime jumped almost 20 percent in New Orleans during the first three months of 2008 compared with the same period last year, including a substantial surge in armed robberies, according to crime statistics released Monday by the New Orleans Police Department.

Although the first quarter of 2008, which ended March 31, also showed a 10.4 percent drop in murders compared with last year’s first quarter, that improvement was erased quickly by a spike in killings in April, Superintendent Warren Riley said Monday.

As of May 4, there were 70 killings in New Orleans this year compared with 63 killings by May 4, 2007, an NOPD spokesman said.

“We are doing everything that we can. We have identified a couple (of) areas that recently popped up, and we are addressing them,” said Riley, who briefly addressed questions about the statistics during an event to teach students at McMain High School about the NOPD.

Overall, crime decreased 4 percent in New Orleans in the first quarter of 2008 versus the initial months of 2007. But that decrease can mostly be attributed to drops in property crimes, particularly burglaries and thefts. The nonviolent crimes included in the statistics release decreased by about 9 percent.

In comparison, there was a spike in crimes against people, which rose 19.5 percent compared with last year. The number of armed robberies grew 46 percent and assaults increased by 11.9 percent. The number of rapes almost doubled: 26 rapes in the first quarter of 2008 compared with 14 last year.

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Riley wants empty houses gone
He says criminals using sites as bases
Friday, May 02, 2008
By Laura Maggi
The Times-Picayune

The New Orleans Police Department has identified 60 blighted houses across the city that officers say are being used as bases for criminal activity and that should be targeted for demolition, Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday.

Speaking at the first of a planned series of monthly meetings with the City Council, Riley said his department is working with Recovery Director Ed Blakely and the New Orleans Recovery Authority to target abandoned houses that have been taken over by criminals.

“It is a list of 60 that we believe should be torn down as quickly as possible,” said Riley, adding that the properties are located in every area of the city except the NOPD’s 8th District, which covers the Central Business District and the French Quarter. A department spokesman declined to provide a list of the targeted buildings, saying those details have not been distributed to the police districts yet. …

Council President Arnie Fielkow said he has asked Riley to brief the council once a month about the department’s community policing initiatives and tactical measures. …

Riley said he wants to see a “double-digit” reduction in killings and a similar drop in other major crimes reported annually to the FBI, which includes armed robberies, assaults and burglaries. …

Riley said his staff members have implemented many of the recommendations from a report issued last year by private consultant and former Houston police chief Lee Brown. Among other things, the report urged the NOPD to revive a “community policing” philosophy that encourages a better relationship between street officers and residents. …

Fielkow asked Riley to post the Brown report’s recommendations on the NOPD’s Web site, along with an update on measures taken by the department.

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