NEW ORLEANS — Determined to temper fears that New Orleans is not safe following six deadly shootings over the weekend, tourism industry representatives, city officials and police personnel are pushing a defensive message: The city's crime problem is not spiraling out of control, and the violence in recent weeks is contained to certain neighborhoods, and certain types of people.
"This is going on among the criminal element," said Bambi Hall, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Police Department. "They're having these street wars among themselves and they're spilling over into other areas, because they've also spilt over into other areas since Katrina."
The hurricane displaced more than half of New Orleans' population of 450,000 when it battered the city last August. Around half that number have trickled home in recent months, and many, including criminals, have been forced to relocate to neighborhoods that escaped flooding.
Police are still investigating the motives behind the slayings that occurred within 24 hours over the weekend, but Hall said many of the recent violent crimes were typically about drugs.
In one weekend incident several blocks from the French Quarter, three of the four victims were brothers.
Hall underscored that the violence was generally contained to a certain "criminal element" -- thugs who are "leading a lifestyle that lends itself to violence and their ultimate demise."
The killings represented the latest multiple-victim deaths since June, when five teenagers were gunned down while sitting in a sport utility vehicle in a neighborhood known for rampant drug activity.
That incident led Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to dispatch 300 National Guard troops and 60 state police to New Orleans to help patrol sparsely populated areas, allowing the Police Department to reassign officers to the city's crime hotspots.
Blanco said over the weekend that the Guard and state police would remain in New Orleans past their announced September withdrawal deadline.
City officials said earlier this month that the number of murders had dropped by at least half since the National Guard was deployed, and there had been a significant rise in arrests. There have been 78 homicides in the city so far this year; although this is less than the 134 murders during the same period last year, civic activists point to the fact that the city has far fewer residents.
