The July 3 shooting death of an NOPD officer’s daughter, two weeks days after the murder of NOPD Officer Daryle Holloway, underscores the city’s ongoing struggles to get a handle on rising violent crime and to boost the police department’s ranks. FOX 8 News reported July 5 that the July 3 shooting is also contributing to what one criminologist describes as a 35 percent increase in the number of murders so far this year, compared to 2014.
“It’s a disaster, and there’s no way that it’s a statistical anomaly,” LSU School of Public Health criminologist Dr. Peter Scharf told FOX 8.
“In 2014 we had 72, this year we have 96 so it’s an increase of about 35 percent,” added Scharf, who tracks every murder in the Crescent City.
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