An Orleans Parish judge has set bail at $1 million to keep David Bonds in jail awaiting trial on a count of attempted murder, two months after a jury acquitted the 19-year-old of murdering musician Dinerral Shavers.

Judge Julian Parker last week raised the magistrate court’s original $750,000 bond to $1 million — which in Orleans is an enormous sum for a defendant facing a charge not involving a homicide.

Bonds remained in jail as of Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s online inmate database. At the arraignment June 25, Bonds entered a plea of innocence to the count of attempted murder for a shooting that took place 24 days after an Orleans Parish jury freed Bonds from four indictments related to gunplay that ended Shavers’ life.

Bonds is again on his way to trial at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, accused of shooting a 25-year-old man in the 700 block of Canal Street on May 4.

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Ashley Hansen has worked in Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, her family’s sno-ball stand, for most of her 34 years. The last customer she served on Friday, however, could end up being the most memorable.

“Friday at 7 o’clock, the last customer in line ordered a sno-ball, and I made him a sno-ball,” Hansen recalled. “Then he put a (handgun) to my stomach and said, ‘Give me all your money.’ ”

A New Orleans police report confirms a robbery at the venerable Tchoupitoulas Street establishment at 7:02 p.m.

A trip to Hansen’s, an iconic sno-ball stand particularly popular with families, is a summertime tradition in New Orleans. The business has been at its current address, 4801 Tchoupitoulas St., since 1944. The business itself dates to the 1930s, when Hansen’s grandfather Ernest Hansen built his first Sno-Bliz sno-ball maker while working at a local machine shop.

“The stand has never been robbed in all the years it’s been open,” Hansen said.

She said the only other employee on duty was taking out the trash during the robbery. No one was hurt.

“After I closed the doors, people were still lingering outside and I said, ‘That guy just robbed me,’ ” Hansen recalled.

Hansen took over the sno-ball stand from her grandparents, Ernest and Mary, who were married 73 years and ran the family sno-ball stand together for more than 60. They died within months of each other following Katrina.

“This place has always been sort of sacred to me,” Hansen said. “Why would you rob a sno-ball stand? It’s like taking candy from a baby.”

If you’ve got a date to appear in Orleans Parish Traffic Court, take note: Two of the court’s four judges have resumed hearing cases at their 757 S. Broad St. headquarters, where work to fix damage caused by flooding after Hurricane Katrina is almost complete.

Traffic Court Division A Judge Dennis Dannel, who takes the bench at 8 a.m., and Division C Judge Paul Bonin, who starts hearing cases at noon, are no longer hearing cases at the Old Algiers Courthouse, where Traffic Court set up temporarily after the 2005 storm.

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Closing a case like this one would be a major win in a city where the sheer number of slayings overwhelms a thinly staffed NOPD homicide unit of just 16 detectives. Each detective in the homicide unit had already surpassed the nationally recommended annual caseload of six per detective — in less than half a year. If the killing holds steady, a near certainty, each detective will have a 2008 portfolio more than double that size.

“They are out there; they are relentless,” said Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the unit, of his group. “They beat the streets, turn every stone once, sometimes twice.”

Still, despite uncooperative witnesses and an overtaxed unit, NOPD Homicide has upped its clearance rate to its highest level in years. As of late May, the squad’s clearance rate sat at 64 percent, above the national average and significantly higher than the rates of recent years.

Detectives “clear” a case when they formally name a suspect and secure an arrest warrant. Although the statistic does not consider convictions, police officials say it provides a gauge for detectives’ performance. …

Since early last year, the homicide squad has supplemented its ranks with a rotation of five or six FBI agents, who assist local investigators in all aspects of their cases. The rare federal initiative took hold as the city’s escalating murder rate garnered national attention.

But that assistance ended days ago, leaving the office as short-staffed as ever.

Defillo, boss of the investigative bureau, said the entire police force needs more people, more money. Homicide is no different. Once more recruits are hired, the homicide unit will be expanded, he said.

One key addition, Defillo said, is a recently created two-person “homicide intelligence unit” within the division, Defillo said. It tracks murder suspects, learns about their motives and anticipates retaliatory killings.

— Cases screened faster —

For the most part, the homicide unit works alone, sequestered from the day-in and day-out traffic stops, minor arrests and other tasks of a typical patrol officer. Several NOPD divisions, such as juvenile, intelligence and district detective units, lend support, yet homicide’s closest allies may be the prosecutors in the district attorney’s office.

Homicide department heads, along with Bobby Freeman, head of the district attorney’s Violent Offender Unit, said that better communication and an expedited screening process have soothed a sometimes-testy relationship between the agencies. In addition to the increased clearance rate, the homicide unit is bringing more cases to the district attorney’s office for prosecution.

More than 57 cases were presented to the Violent Offender Unit in the first four months of 2008 — compared with 47 cases in all of 2007. Instead of waiting until late in the screening process, as the legal deadline to charge defendants looms, the prosecutors are working more with the detectives on the front end of the investigation, Freeman said. …

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New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley will hold a press conference at 11:30 a.m. today to discuss the “Cops for Kids” summer program, a character development effort serving more than 400 children.

The event will take place at the New Orleans Recreation Department’s St. Bernard Center. Now in its 12th year, the summer program offers athletics, academics and socialization training, with participation from police officers, psychologists and other mentors. The camp began earlier this month and ends July 25.

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After months of fruitless attempts to get public documents on New Orleans’ troubled crime camera program, a City Council member has discovered that the Nagin administration gave a small contract to a company — too small to need a Louisiana contractor’s license — then exponentially increased the company’s take to more than $1 million.

Councilwoman Stacy Head led the inquiry into the city’s contract with LSI Research of Huntsville, Ala. She got confirmation Wednesday from city legal and contract procurement staff that the company was hired to install just eight cameras, even though the city knew at the time it needed to install at least 200 of the devices.

The administration officials also confirmed what Head found Tuesday night while reviewing documents: LSI falsely claimed it had a Louisiana contractor’s license when it bid for the work. Head said LSI used what she called a “fraudulent” contractor’s license number in an initial bid to install and operate the cameras.

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Many officers working drug cases as part of the New Orleans Police Department’s major-case narcotics unit, as well as some working on federal task forces, this week were moved to smaller narcotics task forces operating out of six district offices around the city.

The move is part of a plan to reshape officer deployment that was developed by Deputy Chief Kirk Bouyelas, who became head of the NOPD’s operations bureau earlier this month after a year and a half as commander of the department’s Uptown-based 2nd District.

With a smaller department than before Hurricane Katrina, officers need to focus on street-level deals rather than complex and time-consuming investigations of high-volume drug dealers, Bouyelas said. Bouyelas, who in his new position directs the strategic direction of the department, said his focus will be to help district commanders and their officers reduce crime in their areas. Along with the shifting of narcotics officers, Bouyelas said he expects to roll out more initiatives in the next few months.

“I do not think these guys can work harder. But they can work more efficiently,” said Bouyelas, who joined the force in 1983 and previously served under two operations chiefs. “This is all about more boots on the streets and getting creative in ways to use officers.” …

While this kind of enforcement has been criticized in the past as targeting low-level offenders, who even if convicted in court won’t end up with substantial prison sentences, Bouyelas said that thoughtful street policing can lead to bigger busts.

The strategy succeeded in the 2nd District last year, where a team created by Bouyelas developed solid confidential informants who made “controlled buys” from dealers within drug houses, he said. Police were eventually able to come back with search warrants and arrest multiple people, helping clean up crime hot spots that developed after the storm, he said.

The major case narcotics division, aimed at tackling midlevel and “kingpin” drug dealers, will still operate, but with fewer officers. At some point, when recruitment returns the NOPD to its full strength of about 1,700 officers, the major-case narcotics team will be beefed up again, Bouyelas said.

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A New Orleans drug dealer who was released from jail by a former Criminal District Court judge — despite having a cache of weapons, drugs and $186,000 in his home when arrested — was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on Wednesday.

Brian Expose, 35, had pleaded guilty to five drug-trafficking and gun charges last fall. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier.

Following his March 2006 arrest by the New Orleans Police Department, Expose became a prime example of the questionable release practices of former state Judge Charles Elloie, who released Expose on his own recognizance within 24 hours after the raid on his Algiers house.

Elloie retired from the bench last year after he was indefinitely suspended by the Louisiana Supreme Court in fall 2006, in part because of his practices of lowering bond for suspects, including for violent criminals.

Executing child rapists is cruel and unusual punishment, a divided U.S. Supreme Court decided Wednesday in overturning a Jefferson Parish death sentence and declaring as unconstitutional Louisiana’s 1995 aggravated rape statute that allows the death penalty when victims are younger than 13.

The 5-4 decision also invalidates similar laws in five other states and prohibits the death penalty in crimes in which the victim does not die. The court left intact the death penalty for crimes against the state, such as espionage and terrorism.

The high court handed down its ruling in the case of Patrick Kennedy, 43, who was convicted and sentenced to die five years ago for raping an 8-year-old relative in his Harvey home in March 1998. Removed from death row, Kennedy now faces a mandatory life sentence in prison, another penalty for aggravated rape of a child younger than 13.

“The court has simply said crimes against individuals, where there’s no homicide or no homicide intended, the death penalty is simply inappropriate,” said New Orleans capital appeals attorney and death penalty opponent Denise LeBoeuf.

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JENNIFER ZDON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Sheriff Marlin Gusman walks around the intake and holding center for the Orleans Parish Sheriff Department Monday, June 23, 2008 with Col. Jerry Ursin. A view of the main holding and processing area.

Replacing the outmoded Central Lock-Up that first opened to Orleans Parish inmates in 1966, Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman today will unveil a $4.5 million facility to book people arrested in New Orleans. …

Hurricane Katrina ruined the Intake Processing Center on Perdido Street, which before the storm had replaced the Central Lock-Up on the ground floor of the House of Detention. When that building was demolished, Gusman was forced to move his staff back into the old facility.

Working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Gusman decided to build a new lock-up, renovating the Orleans Parish Prison’s kitchen facility across the street from the House of Detention. The building is temporary, until a permanent processing center can be built in a wing of new jail facilities planned by the Sheriff’s Office, Gusman said.

The old Central Lock-Up, which was put back in use for more than two years, was cramped and outdated — too small to handle the influx of people arrested by the New Orleans Police Department.

The new facility, which opened last week, has large holding cells for men and women arrested for serious crimes, as well as some solitary units. Low-level offenders are allowed to sit in an open-seating area in the middle of the building while they are processed into the jail’s system or wait for somebody to arrive with bail money. An automatic teller machine is available for people able to pay their own bond.

Col. Gerry Ursin, a former NOPD officer hired by Gusman to run the Intake Processing Center, said each inmate will be given a wrist band with a bar code and photograph. As the inmate moves through the facility, the wrist band will be scanned, he said.

“This helps us track everybody,” Gusman said. “We can know where everybody is at every instance.”

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