nolalily's comments:

We're teetering on all out anarchy. Seriously. Our murder rate has soared due to many, many thugs (teens and young adults mostly) who have returned to the city without their parents. Central City (which is the area which is, well, central in the city) has been completely empty since Katrina. Many of these thugs are squatting in abandoned houses. They are engaged in an all out drug war with rivals from New Orleans but worse, other parts of the country who were never here before. Addicts and punks are robbing people in the populated parts when they need money. This brings crime into our backyard which is a small backyard to begin with. Yesterday morning, around 5:30am, a doctor and his wife were shot in their home in the Marigny. They were a young couple with a 2-year old son. The husband had started a clinic for the poor and his wife, a Harvard graduate, was a filmmaker. Both were community activists, liberal and well-loved. He played in a band. She died. He collapsed in the doorway, after he was shot, holding his son in his arms. They were quite liberal and open. Today, many of us are attending meetings concerning the city's welfare and there is a march on city hall planned for this Thursday. I live Uptown and, also yesterday, 3 blocks from my house, a young mother (2 children) was murdered by her thug boyfriend. I am still getting the story on this but apparently she moved to New Orleans after Katrina and met this dude who should be in jail, I was told for murder, but, since we have no legal system to speak of (I was called for jury duty - that's a whole other story, but we can't seem to get enough jurors, attorneys, judges nor jails to actually hold a trial - much less put somebody someplace once they have a conviction) he was released. I kid you not. Our mayor has moved his wife and children to Dallas where he built a house and rarely can be found. The national guard is here but C Ray doesn't want them in populated areas where tourists will see them. He's afraid they'll make them feel uneasy. He is totally wrong. Sorry you asked? I hope not. But what I wrote is what is on every New Orleanian's mind this morning. My therapist says we keep being re-traumatized meaning that Katrina is no where near over.

Some of you are aware that I am a psychotherapist who has re-entered therapy myself. I have been purposely avoiding reading local news, listening to local news programs or involving myself in controversial discussion about local issues. However, the murder of Helen Hill and the wounding of Dr. Paul Galliunas has put this city over the top. Just read these comments by New Orleanians regarding this murder and the state of the city.

Here are some excerpts from the Times-Picayune article chronicling their murder:

Killings bring the city to its bloodied knees

Husband, wife just two of 6 shot in 24 hours

Friday, January 05, 2007

By Brendan McCarthy

and Laura Maggi

Staff writers

Just the headline should tell you the story. People are organizing a march on City Hall scheduled for this Thursday.

In the sixth New Orleans murder in less than 24 hours, a woman was killed and her husband shot in their home Thursday about 5:30 a.m., said police, who found the bleeding man kneeling at the door of the couple's Faubourg Marigny home, clutching their 2-year-old son.

The man is Dr. Paul Guiliunas. Friends have reported that he and his son departed New Orleans in less than 24 hours for Canada. They quote him as saying he will never return to the United States again. Note: ...never return to the United States again.

The Marigny shootings -- for which police offered no motive -- capped a wave of bloodshed severe even by New Orleans standards, and came three days after Police Superintendent Warren Riley called a year-end news conference to put a positive spin on the 2006 murder total of 161, which he called the lowest in 30 years. On a per-capita basis, however, even the most optimistic projection of the post-Katrina city's drastically shrunken population makes that figure an increase from previous years. The style of the slayings -- which in at least two cases took place with police officers stationed only blocks away -- ranged from a single shot at point-blank range to a spray of 17 bullets. Some victims "had heroin in their hand and crack in their pocket," said New Orleans Deputy Chief Steven Nicholas at a late morning news conference Thursday. The killings appeared to have no particular geographic pattern, with the exception of two people killed on separate days near the same spot on Josephine Street, as victims fell in neighborhoods citywide, from the Lower 9th Ward to Marigny to Central City to Bayou St. John to Desire

.

Nothing is more difficult than settling your nerves when nothing makes sense. Patterns don't exist. Motive is absent.

And, if you feel you don't know Dr. Gailiunas and his wife very well. Here's a little something to help you get more familiar:

By Thursday morning, news of Gailiunas' and Hill's shootings had reached the Esplanade Pharmacy, which abuts the former Little Doctors Neighborhood Clinic, the sliding-scale doctors' office that Gailiunas co-founded before the storm. Staff there talked about Gailiunas' devotion to his patients, many of whom were indigent. "He went out of his way for a lot of people, trying to make sure that they had their medicine, trying to find ways to pay for their medicine, and helping them get samples," said pharmacist-in-charge Gwendolyn Charles, who has owned the corner pharmacy with her husband for 26 years.

This man is a rarity in New Orleans these days.

'We are begging'

Reports Deputy Chief Nicholas regarding the police department's inability to get witnesses to step forward. The city lives in fear.

We are trying so hard to keep our city together. Some of us are rebuilding our homes, but many, many of us haven't received any help at all that would enable us to even get started. Our friends, neighbors and families are leaving. There are two houses to the left of us on the market and soon to be one more. Our next door neighbor to the right of us has their house on the market. The house kitty-cornered to ours is for sale. Do I live in flooded Lakeview? Gentilly? St. Bernard? or even the Lower 9th? No. I live in comfortable, affluent, non-flooded Uptown; the coveted "sliver by the river".

If New Orleans can't keep it's citizens here who didn't flood, what about the rest of our city?

And, anybody in Denver even tries to compare themselves to this; if one of yours really did write that email? You can go fuck yourselves. I didn't start the pissing match. After living through Katrina, all I can say is who, in their right minds, wants to win the award for the most traumatized anyway?

Cross posted at Blue House Diaries