Big Un-Easy Frets Over Crime Surge

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 17, 2007 — -- Mardi Gras festivities are in full swing in New Orleans. Planners hope the party will be as big and boisterous as ever but behind the glitter, there's a deadly crime surge.

Since January, at least 24 people have been killed in the city, and at this rate, the city once known as the murder capital of the country is on target to set a new annual record.

Fed Up and Frustrated

Across New Orleans, people say they're fed up and frustrated.

Jacquelyn Robinson recently moved back to New Orleans after being relocated to Atlanta after the storm. She's glad to be home but has reservations.

"The crime problem, there's nothing that they can do," says Robinson. "I mean, they gonna kill each other regardless. And I know that personally because my son was killed."

So Many Violent Crimes

This weekend, police are on the lookout for someone who killed two high school students late Thursday night.

Also on Thursday, police say, a second gunman opened fire in a crowded night club. Six people were seriously hurt, officials say, including one young man who was shot in the head.

The shootings came just days after an incident that started as a fist fight between boys, but ended in murder after a 17-year-old in the fight allegedly went home and told his mother, Vanessa Johnson, according to police.

"Ms. Johnson, after hearing the details of this story, provided her son, the 17-year-old, with a handgun," New Orleans Police Sgt. Joe Narcisse said, "and instructed him to go back and find the victim, along with any bystanders, and kill them all."

It was another high-profile shooting in a city that's seen so many. And some residents are more worried than ever, because violent crime is now moving to areas of New Orleans previously considered safe.

Protecting Themselves

David and Cheryl Gross were so concerned that they built a brick-and-iron fence in their neighborhood in the Lakewood section of the city.

The Grosses say they just want to protect their family.

"We live within the gates," says David Gross. "We're completely gated in here."

The city has tried just about everything -- extra police, bringing in the National Guard, and now surveillance cameras all over New Orleans. Officials know the best chance for the city's resurgence, after Hurricane Katrina, is it's once vibrant tourism industry. That will collapse if the streets are not safe.

And with Mardi Gras just days away, residents are holding their breath and listening for gunfire.