Now, while I do feel sympathy for the true victims and their plight, I can't help but temper that sympathy after reading this tidbit (via Mobile Press-Register):
Houston police attribute a 15 percent increase in the homicide count to the influx of Katrina evacuees from the Gulf Coast.So, basically, NOLA emptied itself of its problems, dumping them on neighboring states. It's high time Mayor Ray "Chocoholic" Nagin got his act together, and started bringing his criminal element back, instead of forcing other cities to give them three hots and a cot.
"So we expect that to settle," Lt. Murray Smith said. "We're hoping it will go down."[...]
[...]New Orleans, with its post-Katrina exodus, is the only major U.S. city that saw a sharp decline in the number of homicides. Police spokesman Sgt. Jeffrey Johnson said there were 154 in New Orleans this year as of Monday, down from 210 in 2005. But the city was largely empty during the fall and winter of 2005-06, and even now has only about half of its pre-Katrina population of 455,000.
