Monday, December 31, 2007

NOMB Year in Review

Old-Time Project Overview:

When we started, we didn't know why we were compelled to continue. It sure didn't improve our spelling or help us sleep at night. It didn't make us feel better about anything at all really. More than anything, we decided, NOMB wanted to contextualize murders in the city. To watch them pile up in one place. You wouldn't have to scour the back pages of the metro, sort out who died where. Maybe we really did it to give our editors, and their wit, a cathartic outlet. To comment on current attitudes towards death in the country’s murder capital.

For whatever reason we did it, we did all that to our satisfaction mostly. Except when the killings came too fast for us to record. Or when our lives kept us too busy to follow the bodies. Or when it was just too much for us to bear.

Fruition:
The real result of the project was, thankfully, much more enlightening than anything we could have hoped for. What we learned from NOMB we learned from our vigilant monitoring of site statistics. NOMB has, from its incept, watched where our visitors came from and how they found our site through web searches.

In the beginning, all our visitors were from out of town. Seattle, New York, Texas all checked in. Upon further inspection though, most of these visitors found our site by searching proper names of streets and victims. It became apparent that these people were friends, residents, and family members spread out across the country, desperate for information about their loved ones.

Slowly, the locals discovered the project. Visitors from inside the city came to learn more about the murky murder culture that existed minutes from their quiet Marigny homes. Their nice Carrolton blocks. We started getting emails asking us to confirm reports of shots fired. Questions about investigations. Our URL appeared on legitimate site, touted as a alternative source on crime in the city. Now, we get an even split of visitors to the site, foreign hits as well as ones from home.

The Truth:
NOMB knew nothing beyond what we heard and read, had gleamed with our eyes, or imagined as we sat in our camelback and conspired to flee with fear from this wild west remake.

And NOLA didn’t let us down.

As the year ends, men with guns chase men in sneakers down Banks St. Prostitutes appear dead under docks and the East Bank violence continues to seep into West Bank burbs. The sheriff dies and the outlaws seize the moment of confusion to let their guns blaze. We had a woman chopped up and cooked (was that this year? No one remembers it seems). We had five kids gunned down in Central City in one moment and a boy paraded as the devil responsible across the papers. News Casters in white beards murdered their ungrateful ex-wives (again, was that this year?). FEMA trailer arson and good old street vengeance.

So turn on Brother Jess on Sunday Morning and listen to Sam Cooke sing gospel, New Orleans. Let the organs bleed through the floor boards into the mud beneath the house and get ready for whatever comes next.

Last One

So forgo the commentary:


About 6:30 p.m., police received a call of a man shot in the 2600 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Sixth District officers found a 15-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to his leg, police said. Paramedics took the boy to a local hospital.


About 7:45 p.m., 7th District officers responded to another call of a man shot, this time in eastern New Orleans.
Officers found a man, whose age was not available, in the 6800 block of Parc Brittany Boulevard with a gunshot wound to his upper torso, police said. He was being treated on the scene.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Getting It In Under The Gun

So ends year one of NOMB. The official number hovers somewhere around 210-216 depending on the source, and if you add in the 44 murders in JP, you see a pretty big number. But who really cares? The fact is, each one of these people died alone and scared, just like everyone of us will some day, whether we are shot, stabbed, have a heart attack, are bludgeoned to death, or slip on the stairs. And, no matter how dirty, cracked out, crooked, or immoral the deceased was in life, there is still someone out there waiting for them to come home.
NOMB began as a one yeat project, but the editors have decided to continue the project for 2008, although it may experience some mutations. Also, NOMB year wrap up coming tomorrow.

But enough of that. Lets get down to business.

French Quarter Murder Update:
By now, ya'll must have heard. The dead woman beneath the pier turned out to be a prostitute, or at least is being billed as such in the papers. That murmur you hear coming from the river is not the barge, but the collective sigh of relief from the French Quarters hospitality industry.

A New Orleans man was fatally shot in Marrero on Friday evening, said Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
Just before 5:30, deputies responded to a call of gun fire near the corner of Ames Boulevard and Charleston Drive, Fortunato said.
Deputies found the body of a man, appearing to be about 21 years old, from New Orleans dead with a gunshot wound. The shooting was the 44th murder in Jefferson Parish this year


Nothing like men running down the street shooting:

A man was shot outside a Mid-City restaurant Friday night after a brief foot chase, eyewitnesses said.
Two men were seen chasing two others at about 8:15 p.m. in the 3900 block of Banks Street. The men in pursuit fired at those running away, hitting one outside Mona's restaurant.


Saturday's Special:
Shortly after 4 p.m., 4th District officers responded to a report of a man shot in the 3100 block of Mansfield Avenue. The officers found a man with a gunshot wound to his chest.
The victim, Clayton Johnson Jr., 22, died on the way to University Hospital.


In the other incident, a Tallulah man was shot outside a Gretna nightclub in the early morning. At about 3:30 a.m., Gretna police received a report of shots at Ceasar's Nightclub, 209 Monroe St. Christiana said officers learned that a yellow Ford Mustang was involved. They spotted it a short distance away, speeding south on Franklin Avenue near Porter Street.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Breaking News

The radio is reporting that police have discovered a body on the corner of St. Louis and Decatur, right in the heart of the French Quarter. All they'll say is that it's a woman and it's murder.
Last night on the news, local stations ran a fluff piece to contradict the negative press NOLA is getting in the island state. Hawai'i publications are issuing warnings to travelers on their way here for the Sugar Bowl.
The only thing NOMB can hope for from this latest murder, smack dab in tourist central,is that the body was dumped. Or maybe, it was personal. The murder of a tourist in the Quarters is, well, we all know what that is. Especially with the BSC Bowl Championship, the NBA Allstar game, and Mardi Gras all lined up in the coming months.

Also, in regular news...

Shortly after 7:30 p.m., New Orleans police officers responded to a call of a man shot in the 2400 block of South Robertson Street. Sixth District officers found the man with a gunshot wound to his leg.

In Jefferson Parish, a man was shot in the 1000 block of Whitney Avenue in an unincorporated area near Gretna just before 9 p.m.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

It Won't Ever Make Front Page, But

We still put it first over here at NOMB.

A 19-year-old man was shot twice in the head Wednesday morning in the 8800 block of Olive Street in Hollygrove, a New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman said.

The man was "still talking and still living" at a New Orleans hospital, officer Sabrina Richardson said Wednesday afternoon.


"Still Talking and Still Living."

This is our new mantra over here at the offices of NOMB. The editors huddle up each morning and repeat it fifteen times before we break for the door.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Relief

Yesterday, NOMB worked in the rain, dealt with the TV cameras, fought off that nasty stomach stuff that everyone below Canal St. is dealing with, and managed to make it up to Touro to see a brand new baby boy born at 10:15.

So when we saw this story, it made us feel a little better. It let us know we weren't the only ones working on Christmas:

Two people were killed and four others were wounded in a brazen Christmas night shooting in Central City that left dozens of bullets from an assault rifle scattered across the 2400 block of Josephine Street shortly before 6:30 p.m., police said.
Dozens of neighborhood residents flocked to what they described as a notoriously violent street. They stared aghast at scene. They yelled for divine intervention, and for the police officers to let them see the wounded.
A pair of young men tried to rush the crime scene by running through the police tape. They were turned back by officers.
Those who survived the attack faired as followed:
An 22-year-old man was taken to the hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the neck and leg, said Jeb Tate, spokesman for New Orleans Emergency Medical Services.
An 18-year-old man was shot in the leg. A woman, 19, was shot in the knee. And a man, 17, was shot in the arm, Tate said.


Oh well.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

While Ya'll Slept...

NOMB is out in the rain, making sure people got a place to go for all their crime needs. Like this gem:

The fact that a young father was holding his 2-year-old son in his arms didn't deter a robber from carrying out her crime Saturday night in Central City.
The robber used the situation to her advantage: She put a gun to the child's head, probably to make sure her demand for money was met by his father.


Some kids get bikes, some get video games, this two-year-old got indoctrinated into the oldest club in NOLA, and we don't mean the NOAC.

And we thought we had it bad having to work the holidays with a stomach virus in the cold...

Two men were shot Monday afternoon in the West Carrollton neighborhood, New Orleans police said.
Shortly after 3 p.m., 2nd District officers responding to a call of a male down found the men in the 8400 block of Hickory Street, near the corner of Joliet Street.New Orleans EMS paramedics took one victim to a hospital with gunshot wounds to his upper torso, police said. The second victim, who was shot in the leg, drove himself to another hospital.


Our only question is, when did the environmental branding of Pigeon Town into "West Carrolton" take place. Maybe we're reading our map wrong.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Stories and Missed Connections

In a house on the corner of N. Dorgenois and Ozanga, NOMB has the following conversation with a homeowner...
"Your volunteers put these holes right here," says the woman, pointing at three spots in the drywall, all of them clustered
together about 24 inches off the floor. She moves to the next wall and
points to three similar clustered holes on the opposite wall.
"And these ones right here too," she says. "You gonna fix them up?"
NOMB gets down on our haunches and inspect the problem areas.
"Ma'am," we say, checking the trajectory across the room. "Our volunteers didn't shoot at your house."

Saturday:

Shortly
after 9 p.m., police received a report of shots fired and found the
21-year-old woman on the sidewalk near the corner of NorthDorgenois and Onzaga streets suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to the back.


Friday:

Jesse Jones, 58, of New Orleans, died Friday at 7:29 p.m. during
emergency surgery at University Hospital's trauma center, said chief
coroner's investigator JohnGagliano, who released Jones' identity Saturday.
Unlike most victims of shooting deaths, who die from handgun wounds, Jones suffered shotgun wounds, Gagliano said. At least four shotgun shells were found at the scene.
Jones died about 45 minutes after New Orleans police received a call of a man down near the corner of Fourth and Danneel streets
.


Just for the record, if there were gonna be two murders this weekend it should have been Devry Henderson and Billy Miller. What the hell guys? Catch the ball!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Par for the Corse

Light 'em up NOLA

1)New Orleans police are investigating a fatal shooting between Napoleon and Jefferson avenues Tuesday night.
The victim's name, age and hometown were not immediately released.
The slaying occurred about 8:30 p.m. at South Liberty and Valence streets, midway between St. Charles Avenue and South Claiborne Avenue


2)Earlier Tuesday, a man was shot in the Lower Garden District, police said.
That shooting occurred about 4:50 p.m. at Race and Chippewa streets. The man was taken to a hospital, but his condition was not immediately known.


His condition, actually folks, was, "shot"

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Close To Home


While NOMB was trying to rally the troops (20 Georgia Tech students)to work on a house in the 900 block of N. Prieur yesterday morning, this was going on.

An NOPD officer was shot in the hand Monday morning while investigating a burglary at a Treme resource center.

Since this whole action was less than two blocks away, you can imagine the visitors curiosity at the 20 tactical cop cars swarming our street.
"just don't leave the property," we tell them.
All in all, the nonsense delayed work for almost 2 hours. The man driving the truck that deposited our construction dumpster said," Don't worry, when I saw the address on my worksheet, I brought my pistol."

Monday, December 17, 2007

You Know

Proximity Rating: 4 (luckily we broke up wih the girl who lived near here. Now we hardly travel this far Uptown)
A man was found dead, presumably shot, after 3 a.m. today in the 1700 block of Seventh Street in New Orleans. Police said they were called by someone reporting gunshots and discovered the body in the street less than two blocks off St. Charles Avenue. The man was pronounced dead at the scene
Presumably shot...

Proximity Rating: 2
A 54-year-old Harvey man was in stable condition at University Hospital on Saturday afternoon after he was shot in the arm in New Orleans' St. Claude neighborhood, authorities said.
New Orleans police responded around 1:30 p.m., to a report of shots fired in the 1200block of Poland Avenue


He enters the numbers.
A man who was shot during a robbery in eastern New Orleans last month has died, the Orleans Parish coroner's office said Saturday.
Sheldon Dean, 28, was robbed as he was getting out of his vehicle at his apartment complex in the 10700 block of Roger Drive on Nov. 25 about 4 a.m., New Orleans police said. Two strangers with guns took Dean's jewelry and money, then shot him, police said.
Dean died Friday at 8 p.m. in University Hospital of a gunshot wound to the face

Friday, December 14, 2007

Thursday: A Day of Randomness

Criminality takes a Hollywood cue. While this kind of nonsense plays out great in the ppicture shows, NOMB can't understand why a security guard would waste rounds and endanger us by protecting so bullshit armored car. And then, not even stop them.

Three men in ski masks with assault rifles at their sides pulled off a highly choreographed armored-truck heist late Thursday morning and exchanged gunfire with a security guard outside a bank in the bustling Riverbend neighborhood.

The holdup was strictly a professional affair, authorities said. The robbery crew, dressed in dark clothing, carried guns fit for warfare.


Front Page Stuff: Baton Rouge gets a taste
LSU Police on Friday were investigating the murders of two students on the college campus.The victims, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, international Ph.D. students at LSU, were found inside an apartment at the Edward Gay complex. The apartments are next to the LSU Band practice field.

Just like yesterday's bodies on the northshore, NOMB has this tingle in our bones.
And PS..
We're posting this paragraph, not cuz its news to us, but becasue come on, this is one of the worst paragraphs the TP has cranked out in a good while.

It is uncertain whether two Georgia men knew it was their last supper, but they both ate within an hour of being shot to death "execution style" and eventually dumped alongside Interstate 12 in western St. Tammany Parish, authorities said Thursday.


Seriously Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, what the hell kind of copy is this. You aint in a James Elroy novel.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Speculation

Now, it's not like NOMB to make guesses, but something about this execution-style scenario sounds like its got some NOLA routes, even though the bodies are on the North Shore. We mean, come on, the last time we were up there everyone was so friendly and obliging you'd have thought it was the mid-west.

Amid typical roadside debris such as fast-food containers and cigarette butts, the bullet-punctured bodies of two men were discovered Wednesday morning a few miles apart alongside Interstate 12 in western St. Tammany Parish.
Both victims had been shot and dumped out of a car


To all ya'll working in the field today, don't forget, when you got no tread, you slip:

A 44-year-old Slidell man working inside a house in the 3700 block of Rosetta Drive was robbed at gunpoint about 1:30 p.m. by two men who entered through a side door, sheriff's deputies said.

About 10 minutes later, a man painting inside his house in the 2100 block of East Beauregard Street reported that he was robbed at gunpoint by two men who demanded his wallet, Sanders said
.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Sending Help for the Help

NOMB send out best wishes to the three men who mugged, shot at, caught, and finally pistol whipped two Americorp down here in NOLA to work in the Recovery School District. What great people we have here sometimes. The only surprise in this little Wednesday tragedy is that is happened over on Clio, and not in the halls of one of those detention centers we're trying to pass off as houses of education.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Worker's Rights

While the Hispanic Forum over on the second floor of the Howard Avenue Catholic Charities building fumbles around with its "Immigrant Bill of Rights", the ones on the streets, working jobs with no licenses and taking the pistol whippings over on N Prieur, continue to be top target for stuff like this...

1) Proximity Rating: 3 (We may not work in the East, but we're on the job with cash, and that's close enough)
Alejandro Pecina Ruiz, 42, a Mexican citizen, and his nephew, were working in a first-floor apartment in a vacant apartment building under renovation at 8017 Trapier Ave. About 2:15 p.m., a gunman walked in and demanded money. Ruiz and his nephew, 22, complied, but the man shot them and escaped.
Ruiz died in the apartment, and his nephew collapsed just outside the gate to the complex. He was taken to a hospital. An autopsy showed Ruiz suffered a gunshot wound to the neck.


The worst thing is that all this stuff is backpage business for the Times-Picayune
2) Let it stand, for the record, that NOMB thinks this number is at least 6 off, if not more,
A teenager was shot dead Saturday afternoon in Algiers, bringing New Orleans' murder total for the year to about 200. Aaron Williams, 17, of New Orleans, died Saturday at about 4:45 p.m. after a shooting, in the 5900 block of Tullis Drive in Algiers, that also left a woman wounded.

3)Proximity Rating: 10
In the Gert Town case, the coroner's office identified the victim as George Hankton III, 40, of New Orleans. Hankton and two other men were shot Friday about 5:45 p.m. in the 7800 block of Oleander Street, near Earhart Boulevard. Hankton died on the sidewalk next to a carwash between Burdette and Fern streets. The other victims were taken to hospitals.

4) Seriously folks, read this one and think about it. First they shot them, then they set their trailer on fire.
Proximity Rating: Who knows anymore
A double shooting in eastern New Orleans occurred about 3:45 a.m. Police identified Jermaine Hunt, 19, as a suspect, and an arrest warrant was issued on two counts of attempted murder, robbery and arson, Flot said.
Responding to an initial report of a fire, Flot said, 7th District police found two men in the street in the 5100 block of Lakeview Court, a cul-de-sac lined with double townhouses and tucked into the bend of Interstate 10 at Dwyer Road


All the while, two folks get shot in Colorado and its front page news. The alternative newspapers tout a man says he's got the real numbers. Convoluted as it sounds, NOMB doesn't care about numbers. It's the endless stream of lists, the day in and day out, that we get our juice from.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Thursday

NOMB wonders if the first days of Hannukah have any bearing on the current state of affairs in the city. Can't anyone just take a day of and light a candle.
NOMB lights a candle for all ya'll out there shooting each other up. Maybe you'll see our light, huh brah? Maybe?

A 25-year-old New Orleans man was fatally shot in an eastern New Orleans trailer park late Wednesday afternoon, police said. The shooting occurred shortly around 4:30 p.m. Police found a man lying in a roadway inside a trailer park in the 7700 block of Chef Menteur Highway. The man had multiple gunshot wounds, police spokeswoman Officer Jonette Williams said. He died at University Hospital at 5:28 p.m.
Detectives had no motive

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The same, only different

Ever since NOMB started digging, we keep coming up with more of the same. Let's keep the monotony rolling.

1) Proximity Rating: 2 (This little piece of work is exactly at exactly the half way point between two volunteer construction jobs the our Editors are running this week)
A 19-year-old man walking down the street in the Treme neighborhood was shot late Tuesday morning.
The local teen was walking near St. Philip and North Robertson streets about 11:30 a.m. when gunshots rang out, said Officer Garry Flot.
The victim suffered a graze wound to the stomach

2) Proximity Rating: 4 (we had breakfast with a nice young lady over there on Sunday)
Around 1:30 p.m., a gunman approached two young men in the Irish Channel, according to police reports. The gunman attempted to rob a 23-year-old man in the 700 block of Pleasant Street. The two started scuffling.
A second man, 29, tried to assist the victim. The gunman shot the 29-year-old in the left leg

3) Proximity Rating: ? (It's probably better for everyone if we don't know where this went down. We mean, no need to worry needlessly)
Two people were shot around 10:20 p.m. in the Uptown area, which encompasses the 2nd District
The address was not listed on preliminary police logs.
The victims -- a 20-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman -- were approached by a man in a dark vehicle who started shooting.
The man was shot in the shoulder, the woman in the left hand.


NOMB where violence is front page.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Weekend Wrap Up

Lets do this.

1)Surprise Surprise : Proximity Rating: 10
An unidentified man was found dead in a Gretna ditch Thursday night and police have no motive or suspects.
The man was found in the 300 block of Ocean Avenue about 8 p.m

2)Proximity Rating: 5 (we were right over there trying to make some side cash by unsweating a cast iron hub)
A man was shot several times on the sidewalk in front of a gas station Friday night on South Carrollton Avenue
3)A man was shot in the neck and back in the courtyard of an Algiers apartment complex.
4)Meanwhile, New Orleans police are continuing an investigation into the fatal shooting of a man by a would-be robber Wednesday in Central City.
5) Brandon Brown, 28, of New Orleans was the victim in Saturday's killing.
Brown died at 5:36 a.m. at a hospital of a gunshot wound to the head, Gagliano said. He also was shot in the hand.
Shortly after 3 a.m., New Orleans police found Brown and another man with several gunshot wounds near Gen. de Gaulle and Shirley drives


If you are confused by any of this, then you are right on the money. How many vicitms are the same? Is Brown the same man that was reported shot on Saturday? What the hell is going on?

Hell of a lot of cap peeling. That's what the fuck is going on.