Don't Get Distracted. Murder Is The Real Issue

I knew when the New Orleans Police Department started releasing the arrest records of murder victims it was a bad idea. The potential distraction was too great. It would be a different situation if every single murder was due to illegal activity like mafia hits but that’s not the case. Releasing the arrest records of the victims is an insult to their families. Unfortunately we now have a situation where a man was killed and he just so happened to have an arrest record. Now people are distracted talking about that instead of the real issue. Mike Ainsworth’s record has nothing to do with his death. He didn’t get killed in a drug deal gone bad. He was killed trying to stop his neighbor from being car jacked. We should be more concerned with the identity of his killer and the people who are hiding him.

Some people in the community are also questioning why the FBI offered help in this case and not with all the other murders. I can see how that would appear to be questionable. I look at the situation and realize that the attempted carjacking and murder was a random thing and there’s no connection to the victims and their assailant. There’s no one for the police to talk to on the block about beef that’s been going on or anything. It may actually take resources that the NOPD currently doesn’t have to find this person. You can’t look at every situation the same.

I notice that the NOPD has been identifying suspects for shootings faster than they use to. Kim and Alcee Perry were murdered at their home in October of last year by their next door neighbor who became upset when he Ms. Perry asked him to stop driving so fast because the kids were outside playing. You didn’t need an investigative team to find that fool. He was right next door. When one year old Kiera Holmes was murdered in December it didn’t take long to identify who did it because the shooters and the suspected target had already been feuding. If someone would have kidnapped that baby or shot her attempting to steal her mother’s car the FBI probably would have gotten involved. You don’t need the FBI to help with foolishness and ignorance that spills into the streets. The NOPD already knows who those guys are. They just can’t do anything to stop them before they kill someone.

Let’s not get distracted by spending too much time on issues that won’t solve anything. I don’t think the police should put the arrest records on victims out there the way they do. I think if the FBI was going to help out in the case of Mr. Ainsworth they should have just done it quietly so no one would feel like their family member who was killed was important enough to get that kind of help. I think it looks bad when after all the negative things that have happened within the police department and all the other crimes it took a man being killed in Algiers Point to get commanders reassigned and changes made.

The truth is that if the NOPD never released any information on the victims, the FBI had an entire team dedicated to nothing but solving every murder in New Orleans, and we had new leadership in the police department the people who were murdered in our city would still be dead. We have to figure out how to change the mind state of the killers. The man who killed the Perry’s is arrested. The men who shot Kiera Holmes have been arrested or murdered themselves. Hopefully soon law enforcement will catch the man who shot Mike Ainsworth and he’ll be brought to justice too. At the end of the day the one thing they’ll have in common is that they are not here anymore enjoying their lives just like the rest of the victims. We need to be united in trying to stop this from happening because if the police have to decide whether to issue arrest records or not and the FBI is involved we have already failed. I don’t want to have the conversation about releasing the arrest records because I don’t want anyone killed in the first place to even make the topic valid.