NOLA Coalition praises decline in violent crime in New Orleans | Crime/Police

In the summer of 2022, when the anti-crime alliance NOLA Coalition was formed, New Orleans was on the brink, organizer Michael Hecht said Wednesday.

“We were on our way to becoming the murder capital of the country,” Hecht said at a conference marking the second anniversary of the Nola Coalition. “Car thefts terrorized every neighborhood, stunts created a general sense of lawlessness. … And it was morally unacceptable to see so many of our young people die.”

Frustrated with violent crime, members of the NOLA Coalition developed their own two-pronged program: invest in youth services and strengthen the police to increase public safety now and in the future.

Since then, the NOLA Coalition has grown from 180 to over 570 groups, making it one of the largest and most diverse civic groups in New Orleans. Together, these groups represent tens of thousands of individuals.

Elected officials and New Orleans police have largely embraced their crime-fighting plan, and it has been successful by almost all measures. So far, the NOLA Coalition has raised $8 million of its three-year goal of $15 million to support youth services, Hecht said.

Members demanded higher pay and retention bonuses for police officers – and the NOPD got them. Since then, retention rates have improved, and former interim chief Michelle Woodfork credited those $5,000 to $20,000 bonuses with curbing attrition.

When NOPD Superintendent Sean Ferguson retired in December 2022, members of the NOLA Coalition pushed for a nationwide search for his successor. That search yielded veteran police chief Anne Kirkpatrick, whose transformative leadership appears to be leading the NOPD into full compliance with a police reform agreement.

On Wednesday, she praised the coalition’s “comprehensive approach” while reviewing some impressive crime statistics and citing data from the Metropolitan Crime Commission:

• The number of homicides has decreased by 48% compared to the same time in 2022.
• The number of car thefts has fallen by 68%.
• The number of armed robberies fell by 55%.
• Overall, property crime has fallen by 25%.
• The number of murders of young people, which reached at least a 15-year high last year amid overall declining murder rates, has fallen by 71 percent.

“This is the result of this holistic approach,” Kirkpatrick said.

Speaking at the conference, Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams challenged the notion that the decline in violent crime in New Orleans is merely a reflection of a national trend, saying the decline far exceeds the national average, for example.

“Crime numbers … fell faster and fell more in New Orleans than any other city in the country,” Williams said Wednesday. “This is not just a victory for the police chief. It's a victory for the NOLA coalition, because that was the impetus for the change.”