New Orleans La

Anh "Joseph" Cao, who hopes to be the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, was helping a TV host with the pronunciation of his name. It's not "cow" but "gow," he explained recently, with a hard "g." The interviewer, Eustis Guillemet -- an African American jazz bassist who also runs a local public affairs show -- practiced the name repeatedly, as if learning a new riff. "You know, 'Cao' means 'tall,' " added the Republican candidate, who stands 5 feet 2 in his loafers.

It's easy to get celebrities to show up for a cause. Follow-through is another matter. When it happens, it makes all the difference. Take Brad Pitt's yearlong effort to assist residents of New Orleans' ravaged Lower 9th Ward return to their own homes.

Seven police officers charged in deadly shootings in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina turned themselves in at the New Orleans city jail. Each of the indicted men faces at least one charge of murder or attempted murder in the shootings on the Danziger Bridge. Two people died and four people were wounded.

Lawyers representing seven New Orleans police officers charged in a deadly shooting on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina filed motions Wednesday aimed at overturning the indictments or at least getting them out of jail. "The evidence against the defendants is paltry at best," said Franz Zibilich, a lawyer for former officer Robert Faulcon, who was indicted on first-degree murder charges and was denied bail.

New Orleans police asked citizens to help quell a rising tide of homicides by providing investigators with information about the crimes. Seven people have been killed since Monday, including six in a 24-hour stretch that began early Wednesday. But New Orleans Police Department Assistant Supt. Steven Nicholas said police were getting no help from city residents in solving the crimes. "We don't have one single witness, that I'm aware of, that's come forward," he said.

Six police officers and one former officer charged in a shooting on a city bridge after Hurricane Katrina were permitted to post bail Friday, and the six still on the force may return to limited duty. The former officer, now a truck driver in Texas, may also return to work under the ruling of New Orleans Criminal District Court Judge Raymond Bigelow. "This is exactly what we had hoped for," said Michael Glasser, president of the Police Assn. of New Orleans.

A spate of killings that has swept this city in recent days -- six of them in less than 24 hours -- has terrified even some of the most crime-hardened residents and spurred a group of citizens to launch a protest aimed at forcing city leaders to "face up to the violence that is strangling our neighborhoods." An unidentified woman found shot to death in her home Friday morning became the eighth person found dead -- seven of them shot -- since the start of the new year.

About 300 residents angered and frightened by a recent crime wave gathered at a neighborhood cafe Sunday to hash out preparations for a march on City Hall this week to protest the violence and demand that local officials take action. Scores of people crammed into the Sound Cafe in the Lower Marigny neighborhood, where they perched on stools, nestled in armchairs or stood nursing oversized cups of coffee.

Responding to residents' outrage over a sharp increase in crime that claimed nine lives in the first eight days of 2007, Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced a slate of crime-fighting initiatives Tuesday, two days before a planned residents' march on City Hall. "We are drawing a line in the sand and saying we've had it," Nagin told reporters at a briefing held at the site of the year's first slaying -- that of a man who was shot in the head on the evening of Jan. 1.

Carrying photos of murder victims and signs that called for peace, justice and the removal of certain city officials, an estimated 5,000 citizens converged Thursday on City Hall. The emotionally charged rally was called in response to nine New Orleans killings since Jan. 1. The racially mixed processions started in various neighborhoods in the city.