Mardi Gras festivities will proceed in New Orleans this year despite the city’s police shortage, after local leaders announced they will bring up to 200 additional officers from across the state to help patrol the holiday parades.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell and New Orleans Police Department Interim Superintendent Michelle Woodfork announced Monday that 100 officers from across the state would be brought to the city to patrol parades on "regular days," according to Nola.com. On "big weekends," 150 to 200 outside police officers will be deployed to the streets of The Big Easy to manage festivities.
Cantrell said the New Orleans Police Department "would be galvanizing all law enforcement officers who plan to work in the city of New Orleans, to ensure that everyone is on the same page, relative to policies, procedures, as well as placement."
The police department will also meet with the additional officer "prior to anybody taking any positions on the route, explaining what our policies are," according to Woodfork, Nola.com reported.
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Like many other city and local police departments across the country, New Orleans is coping with police department staffing issues, with the department sitting below 1,000 officers as of September compared to the 1,300 officers employed just a few years ago, the Hill reported. Staffing problems hit a fever pitch in September, when the city announced the department would hire civilians to help respond to some calls and handle administrative jobs.
The staffing issues have been so bad for the city, that the mayor threatened Mardi Gras would be canceled if the staffing issues continued.
"If you don't have adequate police, it could mean there will be no Mardi Gras. That’s a fact," Cantrell said back in August.
She quickly walked the comment back saying the famed festivities would not be canceled.
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In fact, this year will be the first since the pandemic that parades will return to their traditional routes. The city held Mardi Gras festivities in 2022 after canceling the year prior due to the coronavirus, but shortened the length of the routes due to the police department being short-staffed, WWL-TV reported.
"The returning of our beloved Mardi Gras parades to their original routes symbolizes the great cultural, economic and historical significance Carnival Season has for our great city," Cantrell said this week.
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Amid the police shortage, New Orleans has been battered by a crime wave, including recording a sky-high homicide rate in 2022.
In September, New Orleans unseated St. Louis as America’s "Murder Capital," recording 52 homicides per 100,000 residents. St. Louis, which has long been ranked and considered one of the country’s most dangerous cities, had 45 homicides per 100,000 residents that same month.
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In the following months, violence continued raging in the city, clocking in 280 homicides for calendar year 2022 and a homicide rate of 70 per 100,000 people, WDSU previously reported.
As the city works to address the violent crime issues, homicides have so far not backed down in 2023. It took only four hours into the new year for police to launch their first homicide investigation after a fatal shooting in Central City, Fox8 New Orleans reported. There have been 24 reported homicides in the city as of Monday, according to WWL-TV.
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