NEW ORLEANS — While New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announces that crime tracking data shows a downward trend in the first few weeks of 2023, The New Orleans Police Department is still dealing with violent crime in the streets on a nearly daily basis.
Overnight, two people became the latest victims of gun violence in the city.
An initial police report shows at about 9:18 p.m. Wednesday night a man was injured when a bullet grazed her back in the 3700 block of North Villere.
According to an initial police report, the man was sitting inside a vehicle when he saw another vehicle pass and then heard shots. The victim was grazed by the bullet.
He arrived by private vehicle at the hospital for treatment. The NOPD released few details about the shooting as the investigation is ongoing.
Then, early Thursday morning, at about 2:13 a.m. NOPD was notified that a man with a gunshot wound arrived at the hospital. Police say it happened in the 4900 block of Rhodes Drive. His condition is unknown, and investigators are working to determine how it happened and who may be responsible.
These latest shootings come as officials say crime data shows encouraging signs of a downward trend.
“The fourth week of January just continues to demonstrate real progress, just encouraging trends in reducing the uptick in violent crime particularly as we saw even at the start of 2023,” Mayor Cantrell said in her weekly press briefing on February 1.
“Year-to-date stats comparing the first three weeks of 2023, even as we look at 2022, just show that the total number of crimes against persons are down in our community, in our city by 28 percent.”
Cantrell says that crime data shows armed robberies are down 36%, and carjackings down by 63% and she says comparing this week to the previous week, the data showed fewer homicides and auto thefts across the city.
Crime tracking data from the watchdog group, Metropolitan Crime Commission, also shows a dip in certain crimes while other crimes remain trending upward.
“While we are seeing some reductions in carjackings and robbery and nonfatal shooting incidents compared with January of 2022, we have surpassed last year’s homicide total for January,” the watchdog group declared on their website presenting the crime data results.
In the first month of 2023, MCC crime data shows homicides are up with 25 total homicides so far, which is higher than the 22 homicides in January 2022.
According to MCC crime data, shootings have dropped 19% with 39 so far, down from 48 in Jan. 2022. Carjackings also trending downward by 60% with 20 carjackings compared to 50 for Jan. 2022, and armed robbery is down 21% with 45 so far in 2023 compared to 57 year-to-date for 2022.