The List: Murder Capitals of the World

Knowing that you live in a city with an ever increasing murder rate is one thing. Accepting and processing the fact that you live in the MURDER CAPITAL of America is quit another.
We are THIRD in the WORLD!
New Orleans, United States Third Place. Behind Cape Town, South Africa and Caracas, Venezuela.
"New Orleans, United States

Population: 220,614 to 312,000 (2007); estimates vary due to displacement of people after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Murder rate: Estimates range from 67 (New Orleans Police Department) to 95 (Federal Bureau of Investigation) per 100,000

What’s happening: With its grinding poverty, an inadequate school system, a prevalence of public housing, and a high incarceration rate, the Big Easy has long been plagued with a high rate of violent crime. Katrina didn’t help. Since the hurricane struck in 2005, drug dealers have been fighting over a smaller group of users, leading to many killings. On just one four-block stretch of Josephine Street, in the city center, four people were murdered in 2007 and 15 people shot, including a double homicide on Christmas day. A precise murder rate is hard to pinpoint because the population is swelling quickly, approaching its pre-Katrina numbers. Whether you use New Orleans’s own figures or the FBI’s, however, the city remains the most deadly in the United States, easily surpassing Detroit and Baltimore with 46 and 45 murders per 100,000 people, respectively."
Read Full article here


A friend of mine who used to work as an engineer on large cargo freighters once told me of how he survived in Cape Town, South Africa. He said that as long as the local pirate boys who patrolled the dock with AK-47's were provided with Heineken, they wouldn't shoot you. In New Orleans, however, bargaining tools most often do not apply. You could be shot for far less than a Heineken. You can be murdered in your house while you sleep. You can be a child who is shot in a drive-by gang shooting which is the result of teenage jealousy. At 5 months old you can end up being murdered by your baby sitter who placed you into the dryer and turned it on to shut you up. You can be shot while riding your bicycle home from work. You can end up one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of unsolved murder cases.

I can't imagine what my mother would say to me if she had read this recent study. I don't even know how to begin to justify my attachment to a city full murderers to her or to anyone else for that matter.

I hope this study will prompt an FBI training office in New Orleans or something similar. I mean, if we are number one, I would think they would want to "study" and research here.

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction. *Rita Mae Brown

The Big Easy does NOT exist!
Being the Murder Capital of the United States is NOT an honor.
It is up to us, as citizens of this great cultural mecca, to change our reality. From our roots to our elected officials, murder can no longer continue to break our souls with each victim if we are to continue to rebuild and create the greatest American city.
SilenceIsViolence! And the breeder of more crimes and break down of communities. New Orleans nursed a weak and powerless generation through neglect and a corrupt and ineffective welfare system, yes. But, the poor are not the only ones committing murder in this town.
My example I will site is personal. My friend, Jessica, was not murder by thugs looking for cash or drugs. We don't know who murdered her, but the person who committed this senseless act of violence is still roaming the streets of New Orleans, sitting next to you as you eat diner, shopping with you at the market, and otherwise living their life out while this crime goes unsolved and unpunished! The Gustav scare put the investigation back several weeks and it took us several weeks to line-up the Memorial and Anti-Crime March. Now more than ever it is time to shout out against murder in our beloved city!


Jessica Hawk was 32-years-old when she was murdered in her Bywater home early in August. She came to New Orleans in 2003 to be with her fiancee and to pursue her education and career in Botany, biology and entomology. In 2007 she and her fiancee separated, and Jessica moved into her house on Chartres St., where she was stabbed and beaten to death.
Jessica was an author and a scholar, having published botany articles in top scientific journals. A deep lover of nature, Jessica made a tremendous contribution to the city she came to love. She volunteered at the Tulane herbarium, attended the masters program in Biology at UNO, where she was awarded the first post-Katrina graduate fellowship and was a highly regarded teacher, worked as an entomologist at the Audubon Insectarium, which she helped to open, and was scheduled to begin work at the New Orleans Botanical Garden the week after her murder. She was a mainstay at Harold's Plants and beautified many yards, courtyards and balconies around town. She also loved literature, especially Virginia Woolf, and philosophy. A prized possession was a facsimile of T.S. Elliot's "Wasteland" with annotations by Ezra Pound.
Everywhere she studied, worked or lived, Jessica was a star. Born and raised poor, fiercely independent and without a snobbish bone in her body. Jessica was liked and loved by so many and had become a bright light n the Bywater, greeting happy neighbors and friends as she biked or walked through the neighborhood.
Her loss is incalculable! A murder assaults more than the victim. Pray for her devastated family and friends, all of whom are searching for strenght in the face of horror.

On Saturday October 4th, there will be a memorial parade and Anti-Crime march in Jessica's memory.
The parade, led by The Storyville Stompers, leaves Schiro's in the Marigny-corner of Royal and St. Roch- at 4p. We parade through her neighborhood up Esplanade to Ernie K-Doe's Mother-n-Law Lounge, where all who wish will speak in the garden.
Free food, cash bar, and music to follow.
Rides back to the Marigny will be available.

Th investigation is ongoing. As of yet, there are no breaks to report. ANYONE WITH INFORMATION ABOUT THIS CRIME SHOULD CALL Detective Nicholas Gernon at 658.5308

The only way New Orleans can reduce the murder rate is if we speak out and act!
I encourage all who are outraged by this statistic to make a stand by joining us in our march against violence.

Jessica Hawk Memorial // Second Line against Violence

(Jessica Hawk: R.I.P. 1976-2008)

AND ANTI-CRIME MARCH

Jessica Hawk was murdered in her Bywater home the weekend before August 11. Scientist, teacher, author, landscaper, friend, sister, daughter, aunt, lover—she was loved by and gave to so many.


WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 4th. Second Line at 4 p.m. Memorial speak out—any and all are invited to share—5:30(ish, depending on when we finish parading).


WHERE: Second Line takes off from Schiro’s, corner of Royal, in the Marigny. We parade to Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge for the memorial speak out. Free food at the Lounge, cash bar.


DONATIONS: Got to pay the band and more. Leave at or send to Harold’s Plants, 1135 Press St., 70117. Make checks out to “Harold Applewhite.” Write “Jessica” on the memo line.


HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE! THANK YOU!

BERG Calendar Release Paw-ty!

LA Artist recreating Noah's Ark in L.A.

LA Times reports an artist from LA brings his talent to New Orleans, L.A. for
Prospect.1 [P1]
prospectneworleans.org
"On November 1, 2008, Prospect.1 New Orleans [P.1], the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States, will open to the public in museums, historic buildings, and found sites throughout New Orleans. Prospect.1 New Orleans [P.1] has been conceived in the tradition of the great international biennials, and will showcase new artistic practices as well as an array of programs benefiting the local community. Over the course of its eleven-week run, Prospect.1 New Orleans [P.1] plans to draw international media attention, creative energy, and new economic activity to the city of New Orleans."

I wonder how many people knew about Pawpaw's Ark located off HWY90 in between New Orleans and Houma? It was located next to the Daquari/Tamale/Bait/Market with the Giant Blue Gorilla out front. Anyone?
It sure was a big boat Pawpaw!

I like the roll that Prospect One is breathing new life into our culturally rich community and making the rest of the world take notice for our talents and creative endeavors.

One of my favorite New Orleans characters dies...

Ruthie the Duck Girl dies of cancer at 74
by John Pope, The Times-Picayune
Friday September 12, 2008, 10:36 PM

Ruthie the Duck Girl, a French Quarter eccentric who zoomed from bar to bar on roller skates, often wearing a ratty fur coat and long skirt and trailed by a duck or two, died Sept. 6 at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. She was 74.

Ruthie, whose real name was Ruth Grace Moulon, had been suffering from cancer of the mouth and lungs when the residents of her Uptown New Orleans nursing home were evacuated to Baton Rouge as Hurricane Gustav approached, said Carol Cunningham, a close friend who watched over her for nearly 40 years.

"I've always looked at Ruthie like a little bird with a broken wing, " Cunningham said. "She was always so dear to me."

Miss Moulon, a lifelong New Orleanian, became a French Quarter fixture, achieving legendary status in a city that treasures people who live outside the mainstream. Along the way, she acquired a coterie of people like Cunningham who found places for her to live, paid her bills and made sure she got home at night.

A tiny woman with a constant grin, she frequently sported a bridal gown and veil on her forays because, people said, she considered herself engaged to Gary Moody, whom she met in New Orleans in 1963 when he was a sailor.

Moody showed up at a 2001 birthday party for Miss Moulon at Mid-City Lanes Rock 'N Bowl, but the two never got to the altar. According to a Times-Picayune interview that year, Miss Moulon had a stock reply whenever anyone asked if there might be a wedding in her future: "I got engaged; that's enough!"

In 1999, Rick Delaup made her the subject of a documentary, "Ruthie the Duck Girl."

Miss Moulon's daily routine consisted of roaming from one watering hole to another, mooching drinks and cigarettes. She could be sweet one minute and unleash a torrent of profanity the next.

Although people deemed Miss Moulon's behavior unconventional even by French Quarter standards, no one ever diagnosed her mental condition because she refused to see a doctor, David Cuthbert wrote in The Times-Picayune in 2001.

"She's not out of touch with reality; she's just not interested, " photographer David Richmond told The Times-Picayune.

Miss Moulon's mother, who put her daughter's hair in sausage curls to make her look like Shirley Temple, came up with the idea that little Ruthie should be a duck girl, Cunningham said.

"She dressed her in evening dresses and bought her skates, and she skated through the Quarter with these little ducks following, " Cunningham said.

Miss Moulon's mother, who grew up in rural Louisiana, initially let the ducks live in the house, although the two women sometimes fought over them, according to eccentricneworleans.com.

On that Web site, Myrl D'Arcy, an artist, described a visit to the house: "The duck's living in the bathtub, and the mother wanted to take a bath. Ruthie didn't want the mother to take the duck out of the bathtub because it would upset the duck."

In the documentary, artist George Dureau recalled a conversation with Miss Moulon after the death of another French Quarter character, Eloise Lopez Arollo Samakintos, who always carried a cross through the Vieux Carre.

"There ain't a whole lot of us left, George, " she said.

A Mass will be said Monday at noon at Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Home, 3827 Canal St. Visitation will start at 10 a.m.

Burial will be in Greenwood Cemetery.