Is Violent Reputation Hurting N'Orleans?

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The small group gathers each Tuesday night on the same vacant lot. They stand silently in a circle, holding hands and pausing two seconds for each person who's died violently in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina tore the city apart.

The moment of silence is uncomfortably long. It lasts well over 11 minutes, representing more than 350 killings since the end of August 2005.

"Our hope is that even the most faithless see some unity, some presence of God as they drive by or hear about what we're doing," says Charles Anderson, a 26-year-old writer and social activist from New Jersey.

He moved to New Orleans this year after hearing about a march in which thousands of New Orleanians surrounded City Hall to demand a response to the city's crime problem. Shortly after, Anderson founded United For Peace In New Orleans, a grass-roots group of natives and newcomers to the city who organize the weekly remembrance.

The goal is to keep the continuing problem of deadly violence in the public eye.

Yet some wonder if perception truly reflects reality. They worry that an overemphasis on crime is scaring away former residents and tourists, hampering New Orleans' comeback and overshadowing what some call unprecedented efforts to address the problem.

"No matter what the reality is, people's perceptions outside the city can be really, really difficult to overcome," says Emily Chamlee-Wright, a researcher with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She's part of a team that's studying how Katrina has affected the New Orleans community.

"So the message is, 'Let's be clear about what patterns we're seeing so we can have a better understanding of what the dangers are.'"

In the last two years, New Orleanians have been killed at a rate well above pre-Katrina years when factoring in the city's huge population drop. That's giving New Orleans a reputation as a national murder capital, even though it was listed as the 65th most dangerous U.S. city in a recent report based on FBI crime statistics, which were analyzed by Washington-based CQ Press.

Last summer, Mayor Ray Nagin drew harsh criticism from activists when he said violence "helps keep the New Orleans brand out there."

"It's not good for us, but ... it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back," Nagin said.

The city's violence woes have been exacerbated by a depleted police force and crippled criminal justice system -- and by drug traffickers who are fighting over any inhabitable turf.

It's meant that crime hotspots have shifted, sometimes to neighborhoods that were once considered relatively safe.

"Everything is up for grabs," says Chamlee-Wright, who's also an economics professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin. She's spent months interviewing residents who've returned and says their thoughts on crime are mixed.

"While some people have the perception that things are worse, others are saying it's a lot quieter and better because people are more mindful of their neighbors and looking out for one another," she says.

The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau receives frequent queries about crime, and is doing its best to give an honest assessment.

"It would be irresponsible to tell people, 'Come on down, you'll be perfectly safe.' I don't think anyone can say that," says Mary Beth Romig, a bureau spokeswoman.

But they remind people that little violent crime has involved tourists. They also advise visitors to stay in areas intended for tourists, such as the French Quarter.

In truth, that was the advice in New Orleans even before the hurricane.

"All of the problems that have been exposed were in play pre-Katrina. Maybe not to the extent that they were now," says Rafael Goyeneche, a former New Orleans prosecutor who heads the watchdog group Metropolitan Crime Commission. "But I think it gives us a chance to finally fix things. You have to own up to your problems before you can fix them."

In some cases, he says, New Orleanians are addressing the issue of crime in ways they never did before Katrina.

Members of the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the New Orleans Black Chamber of Commerce are now among a coalition of community agencies working with the police department and mayor's office. They're pushing everything from rebuilding police stations to better pay for district attorneys.

They are signs of hope in a city that needs it, Goyeneche says.

But Lee Fogel, a 22-year-old recent college graduate who moved to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding, is among those who can't help but be discouraged when she travels the city.

"It's troubling going from one neighborhood to another, and they're very close to each other and the energy just changes very quickly in terms of violence and in terms of poverty and in terms of destruction of homes and lack of municipal attention," Fogel says. "But it's not like that just in New Orleans, either."

She attended a recent Tuesday night moment of silence that honored Latrome Cowart, a 25-year-old from New Orleans who was gunned down last year. Cowart's mother said his killers were looking to retaliate against a shooter from an earlier homicide but, when they couldn't find that person, shot her son instead.

"I was glad that there are people out praying for this city because there's a lot going on," mother Shawinde Cowart says. "This city needs a lot of praying."