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| 'Triangle of death' claims another life | ||||
| 2006-06-21 | ||||
Mack, 22, was found dead inside a dilapidated second-story apartment at Thalia and Saratoga streets in a shooting reported by neighbors at 7:25 a.m. The second victim, Raymond Frith, 21, was listed in critical condition at a local hospital with several bullet wounds, police said. The shooting took place half a dozen blocks from Saturday's quintuple massacre, a crime that put much of the city on razor's edge, even with Tuesday's deployment of federal and state patrols. "It's the triangle of death right now," Mack's attorney, Gary Bizal, said of the violence-saturated pocket of Central City where the shootings took place. "I told this guy a long time ago to get out of the area. I was concerned for his safety. There was too much stuff going on around him and too much going on in the neighborhood." Of this year's 54 murders, 14 have taken place in Central City, a triangle-shaped area bounded by Louisiana Avenue, Earhart Boulevard and St. Charles Avenue. The five victims gunned down Saturday were not suspects in any of those slayings, but they were implicated in earlier crimes, including a gun-related offense in Jefferson Parish in 2004. Capt. Bob Bardy, commander of the 6th District where six of the city's last seven victims were killed, said that despite the ultra-violent four-day stretch in his district, crime is not spiking. In fact, it had been relatively quiet before Saturday's bloodbath, he said. Since the killings, though, Bardy said he has tried to boost the morale of his officers, urging them to fight the good fight alongside community leaders. "I was really concerned with the emotional balance of the officers," Bardy said. "I like to see my guys do a better job than anyone else, but I understand they are going through a lot of pressure right now. I keep telling them, don't make this into what some of the media is making it out to be. It is not a spike in crime and you guys are doing a good job." As for arresting the person responsible for Mack's killing, Bardy said homicide detectives are making progress. The Crimestoppers confidential tip-line has been humming, he said, and street informants have been helpful. "I think we are well on our way with that one," Bardy said. "I know for a fact that we know who the (suspect) was today and there probably is a warrant being signed as we speak." Few people were surprised by Mack's death. Not his family. Not his attorney. Not the police. After racking up six juvenile convictions -- including one for murder at age 13 that kept him locked up until he was 21 -- Mack returned to the streets after Hurricane Katrina and was arrested three times on drug charges, court records show. In January, he was booked with cocaine and marijuana possession in a case in which New Orleans police were assisted by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. In March, he was booked with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. In April, he was booked with distribution of prescription pills. "He was a well-known Central City dope peddler," said local DEA Chief William Renton. "He had been on DEA radar since 1997." After each of Mack's recent arrests, he was released after making bail, court records show. And each time, the bail amount decreased, records show: from $35,000 in January, to $10,000 March, to $5,000 in April. The details of those bail arrangements were not available Tuesday. "The Police Department is feeding cases into the system, but the district attorney and courts aren't functioning," said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the nonprofit Metropolitan Crime Commission. "I think New Orleans is teetering right now. And the decisions that are being made about crime right now are just as important as flood protection."
Mack was a familiar -- and feared -- figure on his home turf. In 1997, he was described by prosecutors as a "one-man crime wave" after his string of preteen convictions was capped by the juvenile murder conviction. In that case, Mack was found guilty of following a couple to an apartment on Baronne Street, forcing them to their knees in a robbery, then shooting the man in the head when he didn't cough up enough money. That 1997 murder in the 1400 block of Baronne Street was a stone's throw from where Mack was killed Tuesday. And the scene of Mack's killing is about seven blocks from the corner of Danneel and Josephine streets, where the five teens were cut down Saturday about 4 a.m. Clarence Joseph, 73, a resident of the area for 50 years, tried to wrap his head around the violence Tuesday as he sat on one of the neighborhood's well-worn stoops. "I'm 73 years old and ain't never known nothing to happen like that," Joseph said, removing a straw hat he had tilted over his brow. "Never known nothing like that except for in a war. Five at one time." The victims -- brothers Arsenio and Markee Hunter, ages 16 and 19; Warren Simeon, 17; Iraum Taylor, 19; and Reggie Dantzler, 19 -- were friends who frequented their old stomping grounds in Central City, even after they began shuffling between New Orleans and Jefferson Parish in 2004. Taylor was a cousin of the Hunters. Police said the five ran tight, and careened together into trouble. Lt. Mike Alwert of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said the five dead teens were implicated in a gun-related crime in 2004, although he said he could not elaborate because of their ages.
More recently though, detectives said they linked Simeon, the Hunter brothers and two other teens to a drive-by shooting May 1 in Jefferson Parish. The shooting was off the mark and did nothing more than shatter windows. Charges of aggravated assault and gun possession were dropped when the uninjured targets refused to talk, New Orleans police said.
Whatever the case, the Rev. Toris Young, an Uptown pastor who is counseling the families of the Central City victims, said he is bracing for the cycle of violence to continue. "Now we have to watch out for another knucklehead that is going to try and catch up with the people who killed those boys," Young said. "They'll get it in their minds that 'I'm going to get them back, that I'm going to find them and spray the whole house and everyone inside.' They'll get it in their minds that they got to die." | ||||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #5 Not Baronne Street! |
| Posted by: 6 2006-06-21 17:07 |
| #4 "The guard will establish a perimeter around the French Quarter and defend it until we run out of ammo or beer, whichever comes first. Firebase Vieux Carré, out" |
| Posted by: Steve 2006-06-21 16:37 |
| #3 We should be "out of New Orleans" no later than the Congressional Holiday recess, or funding should be cut off to FEMA !!!!!! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-06-21 14:54 |
| #2 Will the senate offer a bill establishing a timetable for us to pull out of New Orleans? |
| Posted by: Cowboy is a compliment 2006-06-21 14:35 |
| #1 Remember last year, during the hurricane, how the Superdome was a hell-hole of lawlessness and the gangs were shooting at Coast Guard rescue helicopters? All those lurid tales that turned out not to be true? This kind of sounds like deja vu all over again. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-06-21 13:41 |