Aggressive teamwork improves homicide prosecution rate in Jefferson Parish
Sunday, December 16th, 2007Murders down in Jefferson Parish in 2007
New investigative tactics get credit
The Times-Picayune
Saturday, December 15, 2007
By Allen Powell II
West Bank bureau
By Allen Powell II
A change in the way the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office investigates homicides and shootings has caused a significant decrease in homicides in 2007 compared with the same time period in a historically violent 2006, Sheriff’s Office officials said.
Homicides have decreased by a third in the unincorporated areas when comparing figures from Jan. 1 through Dec. 7 of this year with the same period in 2006, according to statistics from the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies have investigated 42 homicides thus far in 2007, compared with 63 at the same point in 2006. There has also been a small reduction in the number of nonfatal shootings in the parish this year, with 89 investigated in 2006 and 82 so far in 2007.
Most of the violence in the parish still takes place on the West Bank, with 85 percent of the homicides and the majority of the shootings occurring there. There was one homicide reported in Gretna and no homicides reported so far in Westwego or Jean Lafitte in 2007. In 2006, Gretna and Westwego both had one homicide and Jean Lafitte had none.
Cooperation paying off
Officials attribute the improvement in the murder numbers to increased collaboration within the Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy Chief John Thevenot, the JPSO’s commander of specialized investigations, who directs narcotics investigations, said the narcotics and homicide divisions have become much more intertwined since 2006 to handle the evolving criminal landscape in the parish since Hurricane Katrina.
“From the minute a murder takes place, it’s ‘our’ investigation. It’s the collective effort,” Thevenot said. “It’s not just one lonely guy and his investigation.”
He noted that Katrina caused mass migrations within the parish, rendering useless much of the information the Sheriff’s Office had about criminals in certain neighborhoods. That lack of information hindered homicide investigations in 2006, which was evident in the fact that the Sheriff’s Office solved only about 60 percent of its homicides by arrest in 2006, compared with about 74 percent this year.
However, through scores of investigatory traffic stops and increased use of the department’s Street Crimes Unit, a new database of criminals and their associates has been developed, Thevenot said. Whenever a homicide or shooting occurs, the victim is run through that database to determine that person’s friends and enemies within the parish. Before the storm that wasn’t necessary because most investigators knew the major players in every community and could target them.
In addition, narcotics deputies now give special attention immediately after the crime to areas where homicides have occurred in the hopes of developing information for investigators. Roundups and sweeps are conducted, and individuals detained are often questioned about the homicides. Any information gleaned is then passed along. He said this method is particularly effective because drug arrests typically serve as leverage to get individuals to cooperate with deputies.
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