National Guard troops roll into New Orleans By Peter Henderson : NOLA Indymedia

National Guard troops roll into New Orleans
By Peter Henderson
Tue Jun 20, 2:20 PM ET
See http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/7882.php for more info (Also Front Page News)

National Guard troops roll into New Orleans

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060620/us_nm/weather_hurricanes_guard_dc_1
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - National Guard troops convoyed into New Orleans on Tuesday in support of a police force trying to keep the peace following brutal weekend murders in a city still badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

"We are rolling in with a hundred" troops, Guard spokesman Peter Schneider said, confirming their arrival at the convention center.

Guardsmen and women from around the nation had been first called in after the storm to secure the city and quell looting, but they departed as the emergency situation eased.

But the number of murders has been rising in recent months, to more than 50 so far this year, prompting public outcry and a growing sense the post-storm calm has lifted even before the city can completely recover.

(Transporters (XPorter) Note: 53 murders this year and crime is down according to the neocons, (theft is WAY UP), 265 murders in 2004, 421 murders in 94. All of a sudden, we need the army to come back in. Army patroling the borders. Look for more and more 'reasons" for "the army" to have to come into cities and states. Already under martial law (emergency order) here, STILL, how much longer will we stay under it? We have been under martial law for 10 months. Now there are troops on the streets.)

Only about 220,000 people, or half the pre-storm population, has come home, leaving many streets dark and increasingly dangerous.

The troops will fan out to three of the most storm-ravaged and least-populated sections of town, the lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans East and Lakeview, so city police can concentrate on the neighborhoods returning to life fastest. The Guard force will swell to 300 within a week, it said.

State police, meanwhile, have been assigned to protect the French Quarter, the key tourist center.

One or more assailants with semi-automatic handguns sprayed a sports utility vehicle shortly before dawn on Saturday, killing a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old and three 19-year-olds, said police, who found the vehicle slammed into a utility pole, surrounded by shell casings.

FORCED EVACUATION

Four were dead on the spot and the fifth died shortly thereafter, raising the number of killings to 52 this year.

Police say the latest slayings may be revenge or drug-related.

Almost every New Orleans resident was forced to evacuate as a flood swept 80 percent of the city in the wake of Katrina's arrival on August 29.

"You will see a police officer almost on every corner," Mayor Ray Nagin said on Monday, announcing the call for reinforcements. "The things that happened pre-Katrina are definitely no longer acceptable."

Before the storm, New Orleans had a high crime rate. But the evacuation forced both the criminal element and its potential victims out.

New Orleans residents and city and state officials are looking desperately for a silver lining from the disaster, aiming to build a safer city with better public services and a stronger economy.

But rebuilding and even destruction of crazily tilting houses has been slow, potholes still bedevil motorists and nearly every neighborhood has streets piled high with storm debris.