I missed this from earlier in the week.
Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman helps administer a state fund, the Louisiana Crime Victims Reparations Board, which helps families pay for funeral and hospital expenses. But the fund hasn't been making very many payouts, which is surprising considering that New Orleans has the highest murder rate in the industrialized world.
Gusman's office submitted 203 applications to the state board last year and 150 in 2007, resulting in a total of $330,000 delivered to victims of crime in Orleans Parish. The parish's convicts have kicked in $86,000 to the fund during the same time period, Gusman said during a City Hall meeting of the council's Criminal Justice Committee.
"That (payout) figure should be so much higher and it's not," said Capt. Mechelle Delahoussaye, who orchestrates the crime victims' reparations fund for the sheriff's office. "It looks great on paper, but that's in the year and a half in Orleans Parish. We're not running out of money."
Victims' rights advocates, including David Kent of Victims and Citizens Against Crime Inc. said NOPD officers aren't routinely handing out information about the assistance program.
-
Victims don't always get an item number from responding police officers, let alone the brochure about the compensation fund, said civil rights attorney Mary Howell.
"This (informing victims) needed to be done yesterday," Howell said. "I'm sick of talking to people who don't know about it. This is not complicated. If you get into a car accident, you get an item number. But you don't get that slip of paper when your child is murdered."
NOPD Detective Latina Thomas interjected, "Every victim in any crime receives an item number. That's part of our procedure."
"It's not happening," Howell responded, adding that police are by law supposed to notify victims of the fund.
So in other words, the fund isn't being tapped because the police aren't informing the families of victims about their eligibility.
Why don't we look at how this ridiculousness hurts our community with a real life example?
Everyone remembers the tragic murder of Ja'Shawn Powell, an innocent 2-year-old child killed by his absent father around the New Year. This community remains devastated by the event but rallied in support of the victim's family, establishing a memorial fund on their behalf.
It was supported far and wide. There was a vigil, there was a second line.
The memorial fund was established to help defray funeral costs for the family, which is precisely the function of the Louisiana Crime Victims Reparations Board's budget.
The money that should have gone to help pay for little Ja'Shawn's funeral continues to languish in a bank account while the citizens had to scramble for loose change from their couch cushions to help - all because the NOPD can't get it together to hand out brochures to the families of victims.
It is NOPD policy to inform families about the fund but apparently NOPD officers aren't doing that. So is it actually NOPD policy?
Why would Warren Riley not want to take advantage of a the Sheriff's program? It's not like there's any extra paperwork on the NOPD's end. Could it be residual resentment from Gusman's electoral victory over Riley in 2004?
Posts
