Mayhem, before and after

Perhaps the most memorable violent crime to occur in New Orleans during our years there was the car-wash assault. It happened at a car wash on Louisiana that we used to drive by all the timie, and it happened while it was still light out. Three guys with assault rifles -- assault rifles! -- went after two others guys, apparently trying to avenge an earlier murder.

The quintessentially New Orleans twist is that the two guys they shot were, in fact, the wrong guys. They had nothing to do with that murder. They were both seriously wounded, but survived.

This attack was captured on videotape by surveillance cameras, and was quite a sensation on the local news.

The T-P says today that one of the shooters just got a 10-year sentence. That seems rather light to me, given the circumstances (and the paper adds that he is a "multiple offender," but I don't know the details there). At least they managed to arrest the three shooters. That's something.

Anyway, if you happened to miss it, the Times ran a good story the other day about the drug-and-violence problems of post-Katrina New Orleans; here it is reprinted in another paper.

The drug trade in New Orleans is flourishing again, after its dealers, who evacuated to the regional drug hub of Houston, forged closer ties to major suppliers from the Mexican and Colombian cartels. They have since brought back drugs to New Orleans in far larger shipments than before, as the seized truck illustrates, essentially creating violent distribution gangs now spread over a much bigger area.