Uninspiration

Why do I somehow feel less than inspired after listening to Riley and Nagin’s press conference this morning?

Could it be because there was a continuation of the “Linguistics and Logistics” rhetoric I wrote about yesterday? Where our leaders compare our crime rate to the rest of the nation even though ours is at least four times the national average?

“We’ve had up ticks in the past so this is unfortunately not that unusual for the city of New Orleans and for most urban cities around the country,” said New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin. Adding, “In any urban city they are experiencing something, some type of crime, some type of violence and it’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate that this is part of America.”

While it may be “part of America,” it’s several times worse here in New Orleans and it’s not “unfortunate,” it’s a goddamn outrage.

And why do they keep calling it an “up tick” when the murder rate for the entire year was out of control?

Police Superintendent Riley insisted the NOPD was doing all they could…

“Citizens need to have confidence and know that we are doing everything that we can,” he said.

Does it matter if you are doing all you can but you are still not getting the job done? A bucket with a hole in it is doing all it can to hold water.

But perhaps the most telling thing to emerge from today’s press conference was the openness in which both Riley and Nagin discussed the rift between the DA and the Police. Which I think is a huge part of our problem.

Said Nagin this morning…

“I think that the comments the District Attorney made were very unfortunate and did some damage to the relationship and the hard work we had done over the past couple months to mends some fences (between) the District Attorney’s Office and the Police Department. Now with that as a backdrop, I have sensed a full commitment from the District Attorney’s Office and the Chief of Police to mend those fences once again. How that has impacted the morale of the department? I’ll be honest, I think it has. I think for many of our officers who are still living in trailers, who have gone through Katrina and have pulled people out of the water to save them, this was definitely something that was a blow. It’s not the fact that most officers don’t want to see somebody to come to justice if they’ve done something wrong. But this is very unprecedented for that many officers to be charged with first degree murder and for a District Attorney to come out with such strong statements before the trial is finished.”

And the strong words the DA used?

“We cannot allow our police officers to shoot and kill our citizens without justification like rabid dogs.”

I don’t know who will win this turf war between the police and the DA but I know who will lose. Us.

Eight New Orleanians have already paid the highest price for the entire leadership’s lack of vision and basic operation.