New Orleans’ violent crime continues to surge 9 weeks into new year, MCC shows

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Despite a brief respite during the final days of Carnival season, violent crime in New Orleans continues to surge in 2022, the Metropolitan Crime Commission reported Monday (March 7).

The independent watchdog agency’s latest weekly report on city crime trends shows that after the first nine weeks of 2022, the pace of homicides and carjackings remain the highest in the past four years. And the numbers of shootings and armed robberies through March 6 are easily outpacing last year’s totals.

This week’s report covers the first 65 days of the new year. New Orleans already has seen 41 homicides, 80 carjackings, 93 shootings and 106 armed robberies in that span.

Compared to 2021, that means homicides are up 37 percent, carjackings are up 60 percent, shootings are up 18 percent and armed robberies are up 32 percent year-to-date in New Orleans.

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But it is when the crime numbers of 2022 are compared to those of 2019 that the rise in violent crime is most starkly apparent.

Comparing crime totals through March 6 three years ago to this year, New Orleans’ homicides are up 71 percent, carjackings are up 471 percent, shootings are up 232 percent and armed robberies are up 68 percent.

The MCC’s weekly crime trends report can be found on the organization’s website here.

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