Crime Mapping Update - 27 April

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks since I last updated the crime map. It's going to get awfully bad once the summer rolls in, so if someone wants to give me a hand, let me know. All I need someone else to do is troll a couple of sources and email me digested crime reports.

Example:

Police: Couple's argument leads to shooting

01:41 PM CDT on Thursday, April 26, 2007

WWLTV.com

New Orleans Police said Thursday that an argument over drugs led to a shooting.

WWLTV.com

According to investigators, the incident happened at about 6:30 a.m. in the 4400 block of South Liberty Street.

Authorities said a man there pulled out a gun and shot a woman three times after the two got into a fight.

None of her injuries were to be life threatening.

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl042607khcoupleshoot.ed82e93.html

Turn that into:

1400 South Liberty
Shooting - 26 April 2007

(TEXT)
(LINK)

Download KMZ file on Rapidshare of the latest crime map

Feds get Thugs off the street

1 still sought

Here's a look at what I've mapped out on that corner:

1900 Second Street

UPDATE- Since I Eddie Jordan has a nickname (Special Ed), I think we need to come up with a nickname for Jim Letten.

My suggestion: Jim "No Letup!" Letten

Crime Mappin Update - 22 April 2007

Latest KMZ file hosted on Google Earth.

Times-Pic: Block is Crime Magnet Here's all the incidents near that block that I've mapped out over the past few months:

2100 Josephine

Lots of murders and shootings.

So, I'm almost finished reading Tipping point. There's a lot of discussion of Broken Window Theory. I'll bet that if you look at my crime mapping, and recent city attempts to map blight, there will be a strong correlation.

Instead of signs saying "ENOUGH," and "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," maybe we should be protesting against blight? Maybe a "Blight Kills" would be more appropriate? I'm not naive enough to think that will solve the problem (there's WAY too much screwed up for anything to fix anything), but it could be a place to start.

Here are 3 suggestions on where to focus blight-fighting:

1800 Bayou Road


Area around Monroe and Hickory (Hollygrove)


2300 Tureaud, near the Duck Off

Murder update

71 MURDERS TO DATE

Seventy one murders to date! And that doesn't include 3 (assumed) justifiable homicides.

I checked it twice to make sure I got it right.

Collection of crime mapping files. All of my mapping efforts to date in KMZ and KML format, plus just the 2007 file alone.

A couple of things to point out:
> Since I first started the mapping, the murder hotspots have shifted away from Central City to Treme/Mid City.
> Recently, the shooters in Treme have been extremely accurate (or there are even more shootings in that area that even I believe).
> I've also noticed that as of the past 2 weeks or so, an impressive number of murderers have been arrested as a result of witnesses coming forward. Very encouraging. We'll see what happens when "Special Ed" gets a hold of them...

More Murders

I update my mapping and then there's a huge wave of violence. I think I double counted one or two murders, but a quick (or at least as quickly as can be done, given the HUGE number of murders) gives me the following totals:
* 8 on the West Bank
* 1 in the Lower 9th (+ 1 Justifiable Homicide)
* 7 in N.O. East (+ 1 Justifiable Homicide)
* 4 in Hollygrove/Black Pearl
* 2 in Irish Channel/LGD (+ 1 Justifiable Homicide)
* 8 in Central City
* 29 in Treme/7th Ward/(everything between Canal and the Industrial Canal).

I'd be nice if someone double checked my efforts, but that gives me a total of:

59 Murders*

* +3 Justifiable Homicides

Crime WILL go up as the weather gets warmer. Bet on it. Things will get far worse before they get better.

UPDATE- And another murderer goes free...

If someone could go in and double check the neighborhood by neighborhood tally, that would be extremely helpful. I might have double counted the markers in Treme. Don't forget there are a few double homicides in there.

Google Earth Reverses Course

Google Earth has their post-flood satellite photos back up. Noticed it this morning.

Crime Mapping - 1 April

Updated 2007 Crime Map
Unfortunately, this is no April Fool's Joke

I did crime mapping with religious fervor from August 2006 to February of this year, and then it's sort of tailed off. It got sort of depressing and I got busy at work, so I just let it slide.

Well, I went to the Geek Dinner last night, met a bunch of people who were pretty impressed by it, so I decided to update it.

Today, I woke up, made a huge pot of coffee, put in a Bush CD and just started rolling. I went on a caffeine and angry-music fueled crime mapping rampage.

Download Google Earth file.

UPDATE- Damn, only a fraction of the updates are showing up. Here's another post of the KML file. Open it in Google Earth to get the good stuff.

UPDATE 2:
After doing this latest crime map, I believe Riley, et. al. have lost whatever thread of control on the situation they may have had. We need to shove it in their face. I would like to start putting together animated You Tube videos using narrations of crime reports. If you've got a good narrator's voice, please shoot me an email. I'll send you a script, you read it, send me back the audio file and then I'll whip up a video.

America's Most Fortified City

So, I decided to put together a map based off a book: New Orleans: America's Most Fortified City. It details the extraordinary lengths various countries have gone to to protect New Orleans from its enemies. New Orleans is a strategically VITAL location. If you were to go up to some of the people who toiled and gave their blood, sweat, and tears to defending the city and told them, "Guess what, some people in America want to abandon New Orleans," well, let's just say he wouldn't take it too kindly.

More on the Forts of Louisiana.

The Google Earth Post and the Google Earth Map (API).

Zoomed out:

A closer look:

The other thing I learned doing this is all the coastal erosion that's happened over the past 300 years or so. There are some areas that don't exist anymore.

Look at Tower Dupre (which was originally built on dry land):

Small image I used to mark forts. You might have to download it and load it into Google Earth.

I'd love to get together a tour of these locations to see how some of them survived Katrina.

Mardi Gras Crime Wave

Here's a map of the "Mardi Gras Crime Wave of 2007." This is only a partial list. There are 2 shootings Ash Wednesday that aren't included. Also, there was a shooting outside Ampersand Monday that isn't in there because I couldn't find a news article. Ampersand is a sort of yuppie bar near One Shell Square in the CBD. Despite the beliefs of some, crime doesn't go down during Mardi Gras. If anything, it goes up. The REPORTING of crime goes WAY down. 'Dear God, we can't let these tourists see how bad the problem is, otherwise they'd never return.' Shoot the messenger. That's the traditional Louisiana solution to any problem.

Pass near the area under I-10 on Claiborne near Canal after dark and tell me you aren't scared for your life. It's Woodstock for thugs and rival gangs. There were shooting victims in the double digits in that area.

Here's the KMZ file that goes along with just the Mardi Gras Crime Wave. Note- The yellow pins are shootings. The red pins are murders. The numbers are the number of victims.

Crime Mapping Update

I've been pretty busy. I had to get a lot of work done before the holiday rolled around. By the way, does anyone find it extraordinarily easy to get outside help (like vendors) in town around Mardi Gras?

Anyway, I've added a few more placemarks.

Here is a list of links that are helpful to crime mapping:

Map based off Mike Glaser's postings on the PANO forum

Beta site for New Orleans citizen mapping

NOPD's rarely updated (and not user friendly) crime maps

Docket Master Tracking software on all dockets in criminal court. Excellent resource. You can also search for people who piss you off. Can lead to HOURS of entertainment. Also, you can look up the million-time losers like Lostin Lee, Ivory Harris, and Eugene Treg

Chicago Crime What the New Orleans map should look at for inspiration

Greater N.O. Community Data Center

Most of these I've already posted, I just wanted to consolidate them into one place.

Latest KMZ file

More Crime Mapping

There's going to be a meeting at the Sound Cafe (2700 Charters) this Monday concerning crime mapping.

This is the prototype of the website they want to set up.

The meeting is at 7 PM

Google Earth Question

I've looked all over the internet and have tried to figure out how to embed a Google Earth map from a .kmz file into a webpage and haven't quite been able to do it.

I've tried and tried and can't quite figure it out.

In the meantime, here's the city's murders to date.

UPDATE- Fixed the link.

Other Crime Mapping Efforts

New Orleans Crime Map on Geocities. Made from PANO's forum (one of my sources).

Another local crime map.

Chicago Crime. Mapping system that uses Google Earth. They have it set up right. First off, the incidents never "expire." Most major cities that have crime maps purge them after so often. The other thing that makes this effort special is they got direct access to Chicago's police database. They wrote a script that automatically took every police report filed by the city and made it into a sortable map.

I'd love to set up something like Chicago Crime in New Orleans. I'm not going to hold my breath on Riley to cough up the reports, though. It'll be a chilly day in hell before we get that kind of cooperation from NOPD's brass.

I've been meaning to check these crime reports against my mapping, but have been really busy as of late. If someone could turn it into a .kmz file for me to cross check later, I'd appreciate it.

Latest Crime Map on Rapidshare.

Same file hosted by Scott Harney. Thanks.

If you download the .kmz files, remember to click on the icons for detailed descriptions.

Oh yeah: Total murders to date (Orleans and Jefferson Parish): 22. That does not include the body dump in the lower 9th ward that was tacked on to last year's total or the fetuses found on the West Bank.

Nola Crime 2007

Finally figured out how to post the Crime Maps so that someone without Google Earth can view them. Check it out!

Most of the placemarks didn't upload, so here is just the murders

Changes in Crime Patterns, Post-K

I took the map on this page and turned it into an overlay for Google Earth.

I compared the dots on the overlay with the crime mapping I've done to date and here are my conclusions:

The Following areas are more crime ridden over the past few months than in 2003:
* The French Quarter
* Central City (and it wasn't a exactly safe then!!!)

Decrease in Crime:
* Lower 9th Ward
* St. Bernard Housing Project Area
* Lafitte Housing Project area

Everywhere else had about the same crime.


I know there are some major flaws in this analysis (like charting only 2003 murders vs. all violent crimes in 2006/7), but I think it has some validity.

Crime Mapping Update

A few more days, a few more murders. There's been a HUGE slowdown, though. I'd say the march put some pressure on Riley, but most of the downturn, I credit to weather. It's been bitterly cold (at least by New Orleans standards) and that keeps people indoors.

.kmz file hosted on Rapidshare.com


Central City


Downtown

Sorry Captain Anderson, but you're wrong. It's more than perception when it comes to crime in the Quarter.

Nola Crime Mapping - Preparing for tomorrow's march

Well, it's been a busy year in Noladishu. Murders, shootings, and stabbings galore! The red crosses are murders, the yellow exclamation points are shootings or stabbings, the police shields are major crimes, and the houses are break ins. I'm trying something new, too. I'm trying to put descriptions of suspects in neighborhoods with crime trends.


Downtown has been especially dangerous; several shootings on Bourbon and in Treme. One small problem, though. Some of my sources of information are getting tight. I leaned on cops posting on Nola.com's Crime and Safety forum and PANO's message board. I think the NOPD brass is trying to clamp down on disgruntled cops slipping messages out into the community. SHOOT THE MESSENGER! That's their philosophy, especially when the heat is on.

Go to tomorrow's rally and let the politicians know how you feel.

.KMZ File hosted on Rapidshare

BTW- Does anyone know a better way to post files for download than Rapidshare? Please let me know.

2007 Total Crime

I'm going to make my 2007 Crime Map as detailed as possible with data from as many sources as possible. I'm also breaking down crimes into categories.


.KMZ File Hosted on Rapidshare

2007 Murder Totals (-8PM Jan 8th):
Orleans: 10 Murders
Jefferson: 2 Murders

Here's what the City's Public Crime Map looks like. Notice the last time it was updated.

And here's Houston's.

2006 Crime Map

This is about all I can do. I've gone through the archives of a bunch of sources, but there's too many crimes for me to get them all. I've got a nice sample, though.

I'm now concentrating all my efforts on 2007. I'm pumping as many sources as possible and hope to have the best possible crime mapping for 2007.

.KMZ File Hosted on Rapidshare

2007 Murders Map 2

Well, I didn't think I'd be updating this one so soon, but I guess I have to. There are now 8 murders in Orleans Parish on the year, plus one in Jefferson Parish.

Now, the question is what are we going to do about it? This Sunday, there will be a meeting of the Marigny Community Group at 2700 Charters Street starting at 1 PM. Even if you don't live in the Marigny, PLEASE show your support and show up.

Next up will be a march on City Hall next Thursday. Now, I've heard some people already dissing the idea and calling it a waste, but I strongly disagree and here's why:

In the mid-90's, New Orleans was experiencing a crime wave as bad as this city has ever seen. The coup de grace was a horrific murder at the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen. It was the last straw for the citizens of New Orleans. Citizens, both black and white, marched on City Hall. Morial, under severe pressure, gave Pennington Carte Blanche to clean up the NOPD. Officers were given substantial raises. He also instituted CompStat (which I'm trying to replicate in my own improvisational way). Morale amongst the street cops rose. Crime plummeted. Other factors were involved, but the results are undeniable. In 1999, there were only 158 murders. That's fewer than last year with more than double the population.

That's why it's wrong to say it isn't fixable. IT'S BEEN DONE ONCE BEFORE. WE CAN DO IT AGAIN. APATHY TOWARDS CRIME WILL KILL THIS CITY AS SURELY AS THE THUGS RUNNING AROUND WITH AK'S.