From a cupola on New Orleans' Jackson Square, Sgt. Lance Lavigne piloted a Louisiana State Police drone last week across the French Quarter. Lavigne was on the hunt Wednesday for drug deals in the Vieux Carre. A few floors below him, troopers watched the drone's live feed. They homed on a man they suspected was doing a drug deal. In a few moments, troopers on the street moved in to cuff him, reports the Times-Picayune. "What you're seeing here can play out dozens of times per day," said Bryan LaGarde of the nonprofit Project NOLA, which has provided its high-tech network of private cameras for the effort. The technology that blankets the French Quarter and stretches across the city — an expanding array of powerful lenses, police drones, and a few hundred vehicle license-plate readers—has helped fuel an increase in arrests large and small. The rate of arrests for shootings and murders also has risen.
The technology has helped equip the city to extend a turnaround in violent crime after a historic 3-year surge of bloodshed. New Orleans is leading a national decline in reported violence, said data analyst Jeff Asher. FBI quarterly data shows a 10 percent decrease in violent crime reports nationwide, and a 23 percent decrease in murder. New Orleans' slide has been steeper: 39 percent for murders, and 46 percent for non-fatal shootings. It has also endured through the year. The city stood Friday at under 100 murders for the year, compared to 265 for all of 2022. The pace now is similar to 2019, when New Orleans reached a nearly 50-year low with 121 murders. Reported carjackings also are down, by nearly half. The lone upward trend in violent crime in the city is with reports of first- and second-degree rape, which have risen 23 percent. The most striking declines have come in the murders of juveniles. The number of youth slain soared last year to 27, the most in at least 15 years. Only four juveniles have been murdered this year. New Orleans Crimestoppers, the anonymous tip service, has fielded a record number of calls this year, even as crime has fallen.
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