Citizen Crime Watch Blog

What Is Digital Democracy?

The term “digital democracy” has been used in recent years to describe the need to provide internet access to a broad population. I’m going to use the word in another sense — to describe the need for public agencies to provide access to digital information.

The ability of citizens to read and write in order to make informed decisions is a bedrock foundation of our democracy, but literacy of the written word to support a healthy democracy can’t be developed without books. In the same way, digital literacy to support a healthy democracy can’t be developed without meaningful digital content from our democratic institutions. The ability of citizens to understand and analyze digital information requires access to that information.

Where the 20th Century provided laws to grant public access to printed government documents, in the 21st Century, we need our government institutions to provide public access to digital government information. This is the kind of digital democracy I’m advocating — providing citizens with meaningful digital content in order to make informed decisions, and to unleash the creative problem-solving power of exposing that digital information to an open society.

Breaking the Miasma of 19th-Century Thinking

To public officials and medical professionals in mid-19th Century London, the cholera outbreak was caused by “miasma” — or, putrid air. Dr. John Snow broke with that conventional wisdom. He used government data on the locations of cholera incidents to show a common link to the contaminated water at the Soho Broad Street pump. City officials and medical professionals were convinced, the pump was shut down, and the epidemic was eradicated.

Dr. Snow knew what to do with the data once it was made available, but he had to get the data first. Who made that data available? It was a public statistician, William Farr. Despite his own belief in the “miasma” theory, Farr was nevertheless visionary enough to put his data about cholera incident locations into the public domain. Dr. Snow was then able to use Farr’s data to synergistically combine his knowledge of medical science and geography to solve a complicated problem. The rest, as they say, is history – except that it’s now 150 years later, and we’re still fighting for the right to public records.

The Dr. Snows of today’s world would probably ask for those records in the form of raw digital data. In his praise of the live data feeds of city services on the Washington, D.C. Web site, technology writer Jon Udell proclaimed, “Government is us, and its data is our data. Reflect it back to us, and good things will happen.” Transparency in the supply of data creates a more informed citizenry, and unleashes the creative potential of today’s Dr. Snows.

We’re going to need something like Dr. Snow’s breakthrough to help solve the crime problem in New Orleans. To be sure, crime mapping and reporting is just one part of the process of creating an informed citizenry capable of responding to the problem. We need the strength of a diversity of approaches and disciplines to get to the root of the problem. But none of it is possible without taking the first step of making criminal justice records as readily accessible as possible.

Digital Democracy as a Tool for Disaster Recovery

The various crises on a variety of fronts in post-Katrina New Orleans demand a broad government agenda of digital democracy. Ask yourself how the recovery might be improved if public agencies operated in a completely transparent environment — an environment in which you could see all of the raw operational data that they use to form their decisions and evaluate their own departments.

Wondering where your Road Home grant is stuck so you can decide how much longer you can hang on financially? Just look it up on a Web site to see who’s supposed to be handling it and when — or even the complete schedule of activities and appointments.

Wondering how a zoning variance or a building permit for a new development project might affect the quality of your neighborhood? Go online to see the plans for proposed developments.

Wondering how your insurance premiums compare to other people in your neighborhood? It would certainly put competitive pressure on insurance companies if they were required by law to publish this information online.

Wondering how many complaints have been made on a bar or corner store? Log on to a Web site to see the complaints.

Wondering how well the District Attorney’s office is performing? Find everything you need to know on a Web site that tracks acceptance rates, charges, court sections, and prosecutions.

I hope this is the kind of future which Mayor Ray Nagin was envisioning when he announced during his first inaugural address, “This future city government must be open and accessible to everyone. Its operations must be transparent and accountable. It communicates with the people in a clear and timely manner.” The hurricane may have set back those goals to some degree, but at least one recent event might signal that the mayor is getting back on track. How he responds moving forward will be the real test.

Time to Celebrate the Revolution

It was perhaps the last email I sent out in which I summoned that quote by Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The laughing is over, but with a victory on the horizon, the fight continues.

I think we’re now in the last phase of this struggle for better crime reporting from the NOPD. The goal of Citizen Crime Watch has been to secure from the NOPD more forthcoming and timely information about crime so that we as citizens can be made aware of emerging safety threats. The fundamental principle upon which this battle was being fought was open access to calls for service data, in order to facilitate dynamic collaborations between citizen crime mapping and reporting endeavors, academic researchers, and social service agencies.

Citizen Crime Watch persisted in its assessments of NOPD reporting methods. In response, some brass admitted their contempt for citizens by saying that the NOPD couldn’t just do “pie-in-the-sky, give the citizens more information.” But open access to raw crime data has been a mantra of Citizen Crime Watch.

It’s time to pause for a moment’s celebration. Finally, just last week, the NOPD announced new changes to its crime mapping Web site, including the ability to download raw data in an Excel spreadsheet format. I remain unimpressed with the functionality of the Web site (which is unavailable much of the time), but the data download is a very significant achievement, and a noteworthy development of which citizens should take note.

If it isn’t already apparent, a small revolution just occurred in the corridors of the NOPD and City Hall. They just entered the 21st Century. New Orleanians now have one of the most progressive and transparent crime reporting systems in the country. Whether they did it because they were compelled to, or did it because they finally came to understand the wisdom of doing it, that act alone was something for which Mayor Nagin and Superintendent Riley should be lauded.

The provision of raw data is an acknowledgement by the NOPD and City Hall that what private citizens can do on their own with information is potentially far more powerful than what the government alone can do. It’s also, by the way, perhaps an acknowledgement that citizens have a right to access the data.

Now, celebration over. There’s still work to do.

Moving Forward

The data provided in that Excel spreadsheet is less than perfect. This is the list of changes I’m going to be submitting to Chief Riley and Mayor Nagin:

1) The Data Is Too Old to Be of Practical Use

The Excel data is still too old to be of any practical use to citizens who want to be notified of crimes as soon as possible, not two weeks after a criminal has decided to operate in a different area. As I’ve repeated many times, the NOPD’s premise that approved police reports provide the most reliably accurate, rock-solid, FBI-reportable, official record of crime has some merit, but it certainly isn’t the most timely source of data. Calls for service data is currently the best way to get crime information to citizens within 24 hours of an incident. There is a tiny fraction of error in calls for service records, but it’s time the NOPD respected the fact that we’re all adults, and that we’re willing to understand and appreciate that small inaccuracy in exchange for the precious public safety value of timely information. Even when electronic police reports become available, there will be an unacceptable delay of days, or still weeks, before reports are approved so that the public can be informed of crime activity. We should encourage the NOPD to move swiftly to implement an electronic police report, but we should continue to request that Mayor Nagin and Superintendent Riley make available the highly useful calls for service data.

2) The Data Isn’t Functional

The Excel data contains two types of addresses. Intersections are fine – they can be mapped. The block number addresses, on the other hand, provide nothing but the street. Without the block number, there’s no way to know, for example, if a crime happened on Claiborne Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward, or Claiborne Avenue Uptown. A minor correction to include the block number in the Excel spreadsheets would fix this problem. The data fields provided are minimal — item number, date, crime type, partial address. There are probably other highly useful bits of information that should be furnished, as well, like suspect descriptions, time of incident, and — as Citizen Crime Watch has started to show — suspect arrests and docket information.

3) Is the Data Complete?

The NOPD still contends that unnamed “victim advocates” don’t want rapes reported in any manner whatsoever. Let me make the argument by presenting the yearly statistics for rape over the last few years: 2003 (213); 2004 (189); 2005 (44); 2006 (23); 1st quarter 2007 (14). According the The Times-Picayune, however – presumably the best informed recipient of crime information – there have only been 3 rapes so far in 2007. Anyone find a little skew in the reported numbers versus the historic trend? If they want to make the argument that victim advocates don’t want sexual assaults reported, I can find victim advocates who say that they should be reported — to make sure more people don’t become victims! The goal should be to respect the privacy of victims who don’t wish their identities to be revealed. That goal can be achieved by generalizing the location of an incident, or by reporting it at a higher level of aggregation than address — such as neighborhood area or police district — to conceal the identity of victims. These incidents need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Not reporting is simply not an option. So now the question arises, if the NOPD thinks it can arbitrarily pick and choose what it wants to report, is it hiding something else?

4) Why Not An RSS Feed?

This point will step into the realm of tech-geek territory, but while an Excel spreadsheet download is a good first step, it isn’t the best raw format. An industry standard has emerged in the last ten years called XML, and in the last few years, XML has been deployed as a live feed called RSS (Real Simple Syndication). RSS is a way of publishing raw data on the internet in a standard XML format. RSS to a programmer is like a fire hydrant to a fireman. You simply hook up your data hose to the data hydrant and out streams the live data you need for your maps, charts, graphs, or whatever other analysis you want to perform. It’s live, unfiltered data, available 24 hours a day. By contrast, an Excel spreadsheet is like filling buckets of water to put out a fire. In short, RSS is a more efficient means of moving data to the source where it’s needed, whether it’s a report, chart, or map. The city should explore the possibility of publishing crime data as an RSS feed.

We’re Only Limited by Our Own Imaginations

In what new ways can data be combined and analyzed to answer questions? Consider, for example, the fact that Citizen Crime Watch is now tracking crime incidents through arrest and court judgment. It has now emerged a mapping system which tracks the effectiveness of the criminal justice system from end-to-end.

We can now follow the prosecution of Audy Matterre for the June 9th murder of Albert Philips on the corner of Marais and Spain streets. Find the location of the incident, and jump right to the Orleans Parish Docket Master record which shows that Materre had outstanding warrants for attempted murder and armed robbery. Here’s a guy we definitely want to keep off the streets. Citizen Crime Watch will visually indicate on the map how Materre’s murder prosecution concludes.

This is using mapping and reporting not just as a tool to alert citizens of crime hot spots, but also to perform analysis, and monitor the effectiveness of the entire justice system — end-to-end criminal justice monitoring. And that’s just a start. There’s more to come.

One of the great advantages of showing that prosecutions can be tracked is demonstrating the need for data systems to be integrated into a whole — the NOPD records, with D.A.’s reocords, with court records, etc. The data systems of the entire criminal justice system need to be integrated. Significant resources have been allocated to the Orleans Parish Information Sharing and Integrated Systems project (OPISIS) to accomplish this task, but we should like to hear more from the NOPD about whether or not they’ll be able to modernize quickly enough to take advantage of those funding opportunities.

Using maps to report crime prosecutions appeared on a major stage at a Senate Jucidiciary Committee hearing in June, Senator Mary Landrieu presented a map displaying a single green dot representing the sole murder prosecution in 2006 among a sea of bloody red murder icons. Can there be any stronger symbol about how broken the system is? Sure, progress is being made, but public institutions need to be more forthcoming with the data we need to make informed decisions for ourselves about how effective those institutions are — that’s digital democracy.

Photo: Susan Walsh/AP Photo

Anyone who’s unfortunately had to deal with the system to track a defendant’s case through the court system knows it to be a complicated, tedious, frustrating endeavor. What we’re all working toward is making it easier for the average citizen to understand at a glance how well — or how poorly — the system is functioning. But we also want to make it easy to drill down into the minutiae of any particular case for more details. Citizen Crime Watch will continue to make strides in the future in the effort to provide meaningful tools in the struggle to make New Orleans a safer city.

Thankfully, one resource makes the process of tracking criminal cases through the court system much easier. The Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff’s Office Docket Master Web site is an innovative tool which demonstrates how data systems can be created to better serve the public. The sheriff’s department has made the right decisions over the years to remove records from behind information barriers. Private citizens can, in turn, take that data and render it in mapping or reporting systems to provide a unique or added dimension of understanding. Placing data in the public domain exposes it to users who can leverage their talents to increase the value of the data.

Using data as a tool for justice was the goal of the “million-dollar blocks” concept, spearheaded by Dr. Laura Kurgen, the Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University. With the encouragement of Nadiene Van Dyke, an outgoing aide to Councilman Carter, Dr. Kurgen was invited to present her findings of a months-long crime analysis investigation to the last Criminal Justice Committee meeting. Incorporating a broad array of data, including crime incidents, flood maps, and utilities data, Dr. Kurgen identified the shifting pattern of re-population and crime hot spots since Hurricane Katrina.

More importantly, Dr. Kurgen presented persuasive evidence of the intersection of poverty and race in concentrated geographic areas which produce prison populations. She identified the B.W. Cooper/Hoffman Triangle area of Central City as a “million-dollar block” neighborhood. If the more than one million dollars spent incarcerating people from that area were alternatively spent on jobs and investment, Dr. Kurgen suggested, people might be deterred from turning to lives of crime.

The presentation delivered by Dr. Kurgen is available for viewing on the Spatial Information Design Lab Web site. Additionally, this Saturday’s episode of WTUL’s Community Gumbo will broadcast Dr. Kurgen’s presentation.

I See that Cluster in the French Quarter, but Where’s the Rest of the Crime?

Unfortunately, one of the issues which made Dr. Kurgen’s research difficult was the lack of availability of crime data. I said that she used crime data, but she reported that she wasn’t able to obtain it from the NOPD. Instead, she used what she could get from The Times-Picayune, and yet (as we all know from the scant reports printed in the paper), even The Times-Picayune appears to be experiencing difficulty getting data from the NOPD in a timely manner. My conversations with reporters suggests that the NOPD hasn’t been forthcoming with anything but reports of the most violent crimes. I hope that isn’t true, but what else are we to conclude when, heretofore, it was easier to find out about a broken window in St. John Parish than a home invasion or a violent assault in New Orleans. Thanks to the NOPD’s new data download capabilities, I hope we’re finally turning the corner on crime reporting — but I emphasize — we need not just complete reporting, but timely reporting.

To look at the Citizen Crime Watch map lately, one might be led to believe that there isn’t much crime in New Orleans outside of the French Quarter, and a whole lot of murders in particular parts of the city. Of course, that isn’t accurate.

The primary sources of crime data at present are what can be obtained from stories in the pages of The Times-Picayune, from a smattering of incident reports graciously disseminated by district commanders, and the aforementioned (only partially-useful) Excel spreadsheets. It’s time to completely break down that information barrier and work towards a more meaningful open access solution.

As I’ve argued before, the goal of open access to crime data is one which doesn’t just benefit Citizen Crime Watch. Open access, as I have defined it, means that people like Dr. Kurgen, who are performing legitimate research on crime in New Orleans, should be able to access crime data without resistance from public officials. It means that if Times-Picayune reporter Brendan McCarthy wants to continue developing his murder maps, or if local blogger Da Po’ Boy wants to expand upon his murder cluster maps, they can expect to find that data readily available.

The solution which Citizen Crime Watch was working on was a data-sharing agreement between the city and a consortium of local academic institutions. Instead, commendably, the city and NOPD took a leap into the future. City officials are now moving in the right direction with downloadable Excel spreadsheets, but there’s more to do.

If you want to know what the future of digital democracy looks like, it looks like Washington, D.C., where virtually all of that city’s day-to-day operational data is published online in RSS feeds — including crime data. The DCStat program is the prototype of the future. It was to created to promote greater transparency in government, accountability, and citizen empowerment.

There’s no stopping free flows of information in an increasingly 21st century digital society. New Orleans is finally moving out of its antiquated 1970’s data systems modality. Public officials should seize the opportunity, now, to create the most innovative solutions possible. RSS feeds like what DCStat is doing are truly the way to go. One crime mapping professional has praised DCStat as “Justice XML.” It’s an idea that should start with the provision of crime data, but the need for open access to data extends to every realm of government – as the DCStat implementation has done.

More Open Information Produces Better Answers

The issue of greater government transparency was recently addressed — in an oblique fashion — by the Metropolitan Crime Commission. The MCC recently published a detailed analysis (pdf) of the New Orleans criminal justice system in the first quarter of 2007. The report concluded that the NOPD and courts have been focusing too much on municipal and traffic arrests, recommending that they focus their depleted resources on more serious offenses. Here’s another example of an organization which has taken on the serious challenge of compiling criminal justice data to draw conclusions about how to create a safer community.

Chief Riley responded to the Metropolitan Crime Commission’s study on WWL (mp3) by arguing that many of those arrests took serious offenders off of the street. I’m inclined to think that both the MCC and Chief Riley are right. In fact, Chief Riley has in the past produced counts of the numbers of violent offenders put behind bars thanks to traffic checkpoints, so where were the statistics to prove his policy is working this time?

I support the traffic stops policy – but only if there’s data to prove it’s working better than any alternative strategy. Once again, however, it’s up to private citizens in groups like the Metropolitan Crime Commission to draw conclusions from whatever data they can get their hands on. It is absolutely the right of private citizens do perform whatever analysis they can to evaluate the effectiveness of our public institutions. Reducing the flow of information only reduces the quality of the analysis. Wouldn’t our community be better served in the effort to identify the weak and strong points in the criminal justice system through greater cooperation and data sharing?

The Wisdom of (Smart) Crowds

It’s not just numbers of people that matter in a reform movement. It’s the diversity of the people in those numbers that matter. End-to-end justice requires the ability of citizens to monitor and evaluate every component of the criminal justice system.

Building a citizen-led reform movement recognizes that when citizens claim ownership of their communities, they can create powerful ripple effects that extend deep into the recesses of ineffectual agencies. More importantly, however, when a broad group of citizens become involved in a reform movement, they are strengthened by identifying among their members individuals who possess expertise in very particular realms. It’s not just more people that makes the difference — it’s more people who, in their diverse experiences, contribute their skills to the collective. There may not be just one approach that works. In fact, holistic reform requires that those who have different approaches work together to make sure that all of the pieces of the system that are broken fit back together.

I can’t leave this update without expressing the pleasure I’ve had of meeting a group of dedicated, experienced criminal justice attorneys who have been volunteering their time to start up a court watching program. They represent the model of what I have described as the skills diversity required for a citizen movement to succeed. Court Watch NOLA is trying to broaden its already broad base of support, and is currently sending volunteers into court rooms to monitor the day-to-day details of how well the entire criminal justice system is working. But it’s a daunting task that requires much more participation. Court Watch NOLA is looking for more volunteers. Consider giving your time to help: (504) 994-2694, or sign up at CourtWatchNOLA.org.

It’s citizen participation in every realm of post-Katrina reform which is making a difference, as Dr. Michael Cowan and Greg Rusovich celebrated in a recent WWL interview. In many cases, citizen-led reform movements provide public officials with the “clearance” they were seeking to do what they already knew was the right thing to do, but felt they couldn’t do because of bureaucratic opposition, or the fear of getting ahead of public sentiment. Whatever the effect of all of this citizen participation, one thing is abundantly clear to all of us in post-Katrina New Orleans: We’re going to do things differently than they were done before!

We are all of us, in each of our endeavors, private and collective, changing the course of history – for our city, and hopefully for our nation. This is a struggle for the heart of what we are as New Orleanians, as families, as neighbors, as Americans, as individual human beings with identities and values we want to preserve. I confidently believe that we are establishing here an example for how citizens will need to interact with the government to resolve the challenges of the future. It’s a difficult struggle, and at times, many of us feel beaten, bruised, and demoralized. But commingled with the frustration and tears are episodes of joy, celebration, and yes, remarkably, sometimes, even success.

We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go to create the kind of community we all desire, where fear is vanquished, justice prevails, and peace reins in the streets of New Orleans (except for, perhaps, that small bit of revelry we like to call Carnival season, or the occasional second line).

Let’s be sure to give credit where credit is due to Mayor Nagin and Superintendent Riley. They are making progress, and we’re making progress. They have been receptive to change, so let’s ask that they continue to work with us in creating the participatory governance model of the future, supported by policies and systems in support of digital democracy.

Please be safe, and continue to look out for your neighbors.

Cordially,
Brian Denzer
Citizen Crime Watch

http://citizencrimewatch.org/blog/?p=92

Jarvis DeBerry’s column in the Sunday Times-Picayune left me with the same sickening reaction as I had to the heckling Jordan supporters at last week’s Criminal Justice Committee hearing.

Here’s my letter to the editor:

Even more disturbing than D.A. Eddie Jordan’s incompetence, and his petulance at answering basic questions asked by Council Members, are the accusations that those who criticize Jordan are racists (Jarvis DeBerry, 7/22/07).

I wish DeBerry would pay more attention to *what* Shelley Midura was saying, not *how* she said it.

The comparison to Nifong had to do with how Jordan jeopardized the administration of justice by publicly disparaging his witness as untruthful.

As for the deplorable remark about Midura’s State Department career, she was employed there for ten years. She probably has a fair libel suit against DeBerry for saying she couldn’t keep her job.

What would have been DeBerry’s reaction to Midura if, instead of expressing her outrage that five black teenagers mercilessly executed might not obtain justice, she said nothing. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Violence diminishes all of us as human beings, as does the hateful prejudice displayed by DeBerry against a white woman who, despite her race, simply cares.

When people are vilified for caring, New Orleans will return to being the city that care forgot.

(HT: Moldy City for identifying Midura’s State Department career background — it’s right on her Web site. Did DeBerry do any research at all before launching his personal attack? That’s why I say he’s opened himself up to a pretty good defamation suit.)

The NOPD is expected to announce its gussied up new crime mapping Web site over at NOPD.com.

There’s one feature in that Web site that merits considerable comment, and I will do so in time.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been collecting as much data as I can from a variety of sources, including the NOPD Web site, and the usual sources: The Times-Picayune, the French Quarter/Marigny NOcrimeline, 1st District emails, and especially helpful are the detailed 2nd District Email Blasts posted by Capt. Bouyelas.

I’ve also been adding new functionality to Citizen Crime Watch. There’s a bit more I’d like to do to style the page more, but the plan is to replace it entirely when the beta site is ready. Until then, note some of the features:

• Hot spots — a way to more clearly see where the higher densities of crime are occurring.
• The ability to search by date ranges, or preset date ranges.
• The ability to zoom to NOPD Districts or Neighborhoods.
• Icons have a white circle in them if a perpetrator has been identified, and an arrest or warrant issued.
• And now, the ability to drill down into the Orleans Parish Sheriff Docket Master Web site to read criminal histories on offenders, and to follow their court cases. As this is improved, I hope to expand the functionality to so that citizens can more readily follow crime incidents all the way through the system from arrest to final court disposition.

Just a brief post for now. I have much more expansive thoughts I’ll soon share.

I was just telling someone else about my troubled reaction to this afternoon’s Criminal Justice Committee meeting during which questions about the competence of the District Attorney’s office were raised, and I now feel compelled to share my views more broadly.

Defeated. That’s the feeling I had as soon as I stepped away from the podium.

Defeated, because nobody likes to speak in front of groups in emotionally-charged situations, but I am compelled every time in memory of the eleven-month-old baby who I watched die on a hospital bed after a bullet fired into the back of a car by a remorseless crackhead passed through his brain and lodged in his eye socket.

Defeated, because given the racially- and politically-charged environment in Council chambers, there seemed little that anyone (who’s white) could say or do that wouldn’t be met with mistrust (by blacks).

Defeated, because I feel like I, we, all of us who spoke against Mr. Jordan, are being treated like the enemy, when what we should all really want is justice for all murder victims — especially for the children who are victims of violence, like those five teenagers executed in Central City last summer — especially for those who loved and nurtured children, like Dinerral Shavers. If we can’t save our children – let alone give them better educations, and jobs, and hope — what kind of future are we creating?

Defeated, because if the African American community can’t get past the issue of race to realize that we’re fighting the same fight for justice — universal justice throughout society – then we can’t work together as we must to prove this city (and nation) has a viable and promising future.

Defeated, because despite the diligence and responsiveness of the Criminal Justice Committee and full City Council to every material or financial request made by the District Attorney, Mr. Jordan squeaked through another crisis without answering the most vital question — why he didn’t prioritize these most troubling cases, and pick up the phone to find or compel a witness to testify before dismissing charges.

Defeated, because I stick my neck out, risking my job and future in controversy because it’s what I must do, when in the end, it seems that those who are least outraged by Mr. Jordan’s failings are those who stand to gain the most, but who are too blinded by their own experiences (or indoctrination) of injustice that they can’t see that I, we who are white, are not the enemy.

Defeated, because I understand injustice — maybe not racial injustice, but its near cousin, economic injustice. I don’t come from a privileged background. I’m lucky I didn’t turn to a life of crime myself given what happened to me — but I didn’t. I didn’t use my own experience of hardship growing up as an excuse to pick up a gun and murder another human being. And there are many others among the hecklers for Jordan in Council chambers who know what I’m talking about, because they didn’t pick up guns and murder people just because they were mad at “the system.” No, the act of murder is a sociopathic act placing its practitioners into a category completely apart from the rest of civilized humanity.

Defeated, because even more than I am disappointed by Mr. Jordan’s ineffectiveness, I am discouraged by the antagonism against Mr. Jordan’s detractors which occurred in Council chambers today. We have to get past this issue of race. I’m afraid it appears there’s little we in the white community can do anymore to address the cultural divide on this issue of criminal justice if we can’t have civil dialog about the problems we must confront together.

I wish that more people of color in the audience would have spoken up to support Council Members Midura, Carter, Fielkow, and Head, and demanded of Mr. Jordan a more direct response to the questions about why his office has dismissed charges in two of the highest-profile murder cases in New Orleans’ history — both involving members of the African American community.

The more I feel defeated, the more I’m inclined to concede that you get the criminal justice system you deserve, and leave this magnificent city to its doom.

Since many have asked what I said in Council chambers today, I’m including below the notes I scribbled on a piece of paper. There were a few other spoken remarks made between the lines.

Peace,

Brian Denzer

###########################################

I want to thank the Criminal Justice Committee for calling this hearing on this very important criminal justice matter.

Mr. Jordan’s responses were carefully crafted to avoid actually answering any question about his competence. We citizens have no assurance that charges against particularly violent offenders won’t be dismissed in the future.

While it’s true, as Councilman Carter said, that Mr. Jordan didn’t create the crime problem in New Orleans, nevertheless, he is the lead prosecutor in a city fighting to survive, and under siege by violent criminals.

Because the issue of Mr. Jordan’s competence appears to be politically charged, I feel it is important to underscore the fact that there is no more egregious violation of an individual’s freedom, no more egregious violation of an individual’s civil and human rights, than to be mercilessly executed like an animal.

Mr. Jordan, I wish that those five kids gunned down in Central City last summer could be here today to offer their views about whether you have done enough to provide them with justice. I wish they could ask you why you didn’t pick up the phone to the NOPD to find a witness to their murders.

It’s left to us to make sure they receive whatever justice can be obtained.

Mr. Jordan, please stop blaming the failures of your office on Hurricane Katrina. I believe the phones are now working.

Mr. Jordan, please resign!

The Times-Picayune:

Marchers rail against violence
Crowd is thin, but passion is strong
Sunday, July 01, 2007
By Daniel Monteverde
Staff writer

About 30 community and religious leaders and citizens gathered in a circle and clasped hands Saturday morning on the steps of New Orleans City Hall to protest violence against the city’s youth.

In January, thousands of concerned citizens had gathered at the same site to demand city leaders take action to quell a rise in violent crime. This time, the much smaller group was on hand to begin a march through Central City to Taylor Playground.

The Central City Youth Against Violence march drew only a small crowd, but organizers said they are concerned about the number of lives saved on the streets.

“Jesus started with one,” City Councilman Oliver Thomas said. “It’s like we have a million spirits here acting for the protection of our youth.”

“We’ve come to let the devil know he doesn’t have a foothold,” said the Rev. Chante Sutton of God Who Cares Tabernacle.

“In saving the city, we have to save lives,” said Barbara Lacen Keller, director of constituent services for Councilwoman Stacy Head, whose office organized the 2-mile march.

Keller said the only way the city can make a positive turnaround is if everyday citizens work to build the momentum needed for change and vow no longer to remain silent about crime.

Albert Mims Jr. and his son, Cameron, 12, led the march, carrying a hand-painted canvas sign depicting three graves: two occupied, with children’s faces above them, and one empty with a question mark above it.

“No child should be next,” the sign said.

Mims, whose father was shot and killed 19 years ago, has the scars from a bullet wound on his own arm. He agreed with Keller that citizens need to overcome their fear of coming forward with information about crimes.

“Five people saw my father get shot. But no one knows anything,” he said.

Mims, a state Parole Board member and lifelong Central City resident, said he was marching for his son.

“Without him and without me, we have no future,” he said. “Today we’re marching to get your attention. This ain’t no Saints game where we’re on the sidelines.”

Mixed in with the marchers were several off-duty New Orleans police officers.

Sixth District Capt. Bob Bardy said that while it’s important for citizens to come together, it was just as important to have police at the march. He said his officers have a close relationship with those who live around the district station on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near South Rampart Street.

“You’ll never find an area more community-oriented than the 6th District station,” he said.

Bardy said his officers work to build relationships with those in the neighborhood, adding that the station often is used for community functions. “You’ve got to break that barrier” that separates police and the community, he said.

As the marchers made their way through Central City, shouts of “Hallelujah” and “Walk with me, Lord” echoed through surrounding neighborhoods.

The shouts came from 13 member of the Nehemiah Restoration Program to assist recovering drug and alcohol addicts, sponsored by the Living Witness Church of God in Christ on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.

Decked out in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a fist clenching a cross, Nehemiah member Bryan Baugh, 25, said he was proud to be a part of something positive. “It was just beautiful,” he said.

Harry Carter and his twin brother, Harrison, both 18, were among the marchers. The two Central City residents said they’ve marched before to protest violence that sometimes is mere steps from their front door, and they won’t stop until the violence does.

“There needs to be a big revival,” Harry Carter said. “We’re losing too many people.”

. . . . . . .

Daniel Monteverde can be reached at dmonteverde@timespicayune.com.

Several off-duty New Orleans police officers were part of a crowd of about 30 that gathered on the steps of City Hall and marched through Central City as a statement against violence.

The Times-Picayune:

A fund has been set up for anyone wishing to donate to the daughter of Chris Roberts, who was shot to death on Father’s Day apparently rushing out of his house to stop a thief from stealing his motorcycle, police said.

Roberts died in the doorway to his building in the 1900 block of Esplanade Avenue, police said. He leaves a baby daughter, Aoife Bennett-Roberts.

Donations can be made at any Whitney Bank branch, as well as to:

Aoife Bennett-Roberts Fund

Whitney Bank

P.O. Box 61260

New Orleans, LA 70161-1260.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111 or toll free at 1-(877) 903-7867. Callers do not have to give their names or testify and can earn as much as $2,500 for tips that lead to an indictment.