Priest keeps 'murder board' to honor New Orleans victims
CNN reported Tuesday on a Catholic priest who is maintaining a memorial board with the names of New Orleans murder victims and has added more than 120 names since the start of 2007.
"Numbers are very easy to deal with emotionally," Father Bill Terry told CNN. "I want people to squirm." Every Monday, Terry has one rose for each life lost that week delivered to both Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Warren J. Riley.
"I would like to think that the mayor has made it a priority," Terry stated. "I would like to think that the mayor is a compassionate man that cannot see the slaughter of his citizens continue. How effectively he's addressing that issue is a different question."
The mayor refused to talk to CNN about the murders, while Police Chief Riley insisted, "I'm more aware of our crime problem than anyone in the city."
An Associated Press article published two years ago, just a few days before Hurricane Katrina, reported that homicide rates were on the rise in New Orleans, even as they were falling in most other US cities, and blamed the problem on budget shortfalls, police corruption, and the reluctance of witnesses to testify for fear of retaliation.
In March 2006, Time Magazine noted that crime rates had gone up again as residents returned home but that Superintendent Riley had been working hard to fire corrupt police officers and arrest gang members and repeat offenders. However, homicides began soaring in the second quarter of 2006 and are expected to be the highest in the nation this year for the second year in a row.
The following video is from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, broadcast on August 28.
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