A dozen people shot across NOLA in 24 hours

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - In the year’s final days, violence unfolds in almost every part of the city. In the past 24 hours, the NOPD investigated multiple shooting scenes that involved nearly a dozen victims.

Three of those victims died. One murder unfolded at Bourbon and Toulouse as crowds gathered in the French Quarter ahead of the holiday weekend. A 16-year-old was arrested as the alleged shooter. A woman was shot, along with another victim, on North Rocheblave.

There were at least two other locations where 2 victims were injured. According to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, at least 278 homicides have occurred, making it the highest homicide rate in New Orleans since 1996.

MORE: New Orleans’ homicide rate climbs to highest in 26 years

We attempted to ask Mayor Latoya Cantrell about the violence and the highest homicide rate in 26 years, but she would not answer any questions. Criminologists tell FOX 8, what happened in the past 24 hours isn’t surprising and follows a similar pattern to what’s been going on.

RELATED STORY: NOLA Coalition addresses public safety

“While the nations numbers have gone down since the pandemic, our numbers seem to go up.. we’ve seen five or six murders every week since the first part of the year so it hasn’t been anything surprising although you don’t want to see that many rapid murders in one day but it certainly fits the pattern we’ve seen in New Orleans,” says Ashraf Esmail, Ph.D.

“So that’s going back to the bad ole days and the homicide rate is not the only problem that we have. You’re talking about shootings. You’re talking about carjackings. You’re talking about armed robberies. All of those are unacceptably high. They’re much higher than what they were as recently as 2019 when we had about 1300 officers,” says Rafael Goyeneche.

The NOPD continues to investigate the most recent crimes; as usual, they need the public’s help. If you know anything, call crime stoppers.

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