NEW ORLEANS — The crime in the city often comes up in regular conversations as it impacts so many New Orleanians. As the interim NOPD chief laid out her plans, locals shared their thoughts.
Stan Norwood is a barber at Dennis' Barber Shop. He works to mentor his young clients by offering advice and life lessons.
"You see something you say something. You don't take part in nothing," he said to one of his 13-year-old clients. "Have enough courage to say, 'nah man, you're not doing that today.’"
As Norwood keeps a positive atmosphere inside the barber shop walls, he also knows many of his clients, young and old, have experienced pain from the city's crime.
"In third grade they had this one kindergartener... he was walking home with his sister, got shot, didn't make any sense to me," said 13-year-old Jay Butler.
At 13, he worried about the guns in the city.
"A regular pistol or something is bad, but machine guns, that's worse especially here," Butler said.
"The fact that these weapons are accessible to younger people is frightening," said Horace Derry, another of Stan's clients.
Norwood and his clients watched as Interim NOPD Superintendent Michell Woodfork laid out a crime fighting plan Thursday afternoon. She discussed a back to the basics concept with a focus on proactive policing by increasing gun, drug, and violent crime arrests and increasing visibility and traffic stops.
"There's a lot that has to take place, there's a lot that has to go on. The thing that stands out to me is they want to go back to random stops. That's a fine line of civil rights violations if you want to know the truth, but something has to be done so you have to have the good with the bad," Norwood said.
Woodfork also mentioned having the NOPD partner with groups to sponsor youth events and peace walks.
"Being able to get people to work together is the biggest component of the plan I'm seeing," Norwood said.
"We as a people tend not to trust police so it's going to be hard to have meaningful dialogue with people we don't trust," Derry said.
A big part of the plan is retaining and recruiting police officers. Woodfork said she plans to reach out to recently retired or resigned officers.
"The idea of recruiting and with the amount of officers, something has to be diligently done locally to actually promote the idea of wanting to be involved and wanting to be within policing of our own communities," Norwood said.