This article is reposted from Jeff Asher’s website nolacrimenews.com
NOPD’s murder clearance rate and potential trouble within the homicide division have been in the news lately. I’ve previously posted about New Orleans’ falling murder clearance rate but I wanted to revisit the subject in light of its importance.
A triple shooting last night brought the city’s murder total to 60 through April 18th. That’s +25 relative to this point last year and a figure New Orleans didn’t reach until June 14th last year.
So murder is up.
On the flip side — clearances are way down. Some of that is to be expected as we are only 3.5 months into the year, so whereas a January 2016 murder has had 15 months to be solved, a 2017 murder may have had only a few weeks or days. That said, only 11 of this year’s 60 murders (18.3%) have been solved as of April 19th according to Advocate reporter Matt Sledge’s running tally.
Sadly but unsurprisingly the vast majority of New Orleans murder victims each year are black males. This year 45 of 60 (75%) of murder victims have been black males and last year 141 of 174 were (81%). Also sad but unsurprising is the fact that the murder of black males almost always have a lower clearance rate in New Orleans (and likely in other cities as well).
The below chart shows the murder clearance rate for a black male in New Orleans, everybody else, overall, and the national average murder clearance rate for a city of 250,000 or more people. I’ve also thrown in NOPD’s manpower to show how strongly clearance rates and manpower align (NOTE: These figures have been updated to reflect four 2016 murders solved in March 2017 that were not initially counted).
A quick aside on sources before we continue. I used NOPD homicide spreadsheets through a public records request to tally the percent of murders solved in any given year since 2008. These will differ slightly from NOPD’s official number which will, for example, count all murders solved in 2017 regardless of when they occurred. The national averages came from the FBI’s UCR program and NOPD’s manpower came from NOPD’s UCR reports for 2008 to 2014, the Civil Service Commission for 2015 and 2016 and NOPD’s MAX for 2017.
And here’s that table in graph form with just the clearance rate of a black male, non black male and overall.
Finally, one of the things that has jumped out at me is that New Orleans has had two triple murders in 2017 and neither has been solved. Because of this I decided to look at the clearance rate for murders between 2008 and 2016 based on the number of victims.
The table below shows how more heinous murders are more likely to be solved with 60 percent of murders involving 3 or more victims having been cleared since 2008. But only 1 of the 4 triple murders since 2013 have been solved and none of the 3 such incidents since October 2016 have been solved.
Failing to solve murder begets more murder. Solving whatever problems NOPD and its homicide detectives are currently having needs to be a priority for the city as step one toward reducing murder is solving the murders currently on the books.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu