Friday night I was hangin’ with the neighbs across the street. Everybody was joking and laughing and having a good time. I remember thinking it was odd when Debra took off on her bicycle. Where was she going so late at night?
This morning (Saturday) I was awakened early by a knock at the door. It was Debra’s son, Josh, and Debra’s friend who lives in the same building, Trenetta. Debra hadn’t come home. Trenetta wanted to borrow my cellphone to calling Debra, but there was no answer. She tried calling Central Lockup but got no answer.
I went back to bed. Later they stopped by again to let us know they’d found Debra indeed was in jail. She’d been arrested for public intox and also for an outstanding traffic warrant.
Still later in the day they stopped by to borrow $200 for bail. We only gave $100.
I guess they were successful because the final visit from Trenetta and Josh indicated they’d paid the bail and Debra would be out soon. I still haven’t seen her.
We’ve loaned Debra lots of money over the last year, mostly in increments of $10 or $20 but adding up to over $100 at times. She’s always paid us back. However, lately we’ve begun to suspect that the stories she’s told about why she needs money aren’t always true. She’s seemed kind of messed up lately, like she was headed for a fall. I just hope she doesn’t fall further.
Perhaps you shouldn’t distrust Debra just yet. Here is a clip from The Times Picayune about NOPD’s recent arrests.
The Crime Commission analysis looked at the roughly 14,800 arrests made by New Orleans Police Department officers in the first quarter of 2007, finding that 7,585 — or 51 percent — were for traffic and municipal violations. The analysis also compared the total number of arrests in that period to the roughly 23,500 made in the first three months of 2005. Adjusting for the reduced number of New Orleans inhabitants — and using the most generous figure pegging the city’s population at 255,000 — the Crime Commission calculated that the NOPD made 12 percent more arrests per capita than before the storm.
Crime Commission president Rafael Goyeneche, called the focus on comparatively trivial offenses particularly troubling because it matches the pattern before Katrina, when 56 percent of all arrests in the first quarter of 2005 represented minor violations. Historically, such minor busts have done little to reduced the overall crime rate — particularly violent crime — and have the undesireable side effect of turning people in violent neighborhoods against the police department.Goyeneche pointed out that in some cases, people arrested for traffic or other minor crimes can end up in the jury pool at Criminal District Court, where state crimes are prosecuted.
“They are alienating a substantial portion of the community that will be sitting in judgment of officers’ credibility when serious felony cases are being tried,” he said.
The emphasis on small crimes is nothing new, the report noted. “These were problems pre-dating Hurricane Katrina, going back for a couple of decades,” Goyeneche said.
These are exactly the sorts of things that the small group of Jordan supporters talked about during Eddie Jordan’s visit to City Council.
Would you be causing trouble or being too heavy if you had tossedin a “if you need to talk” phrase next time she asks for money? You know, sort of “a you have a friend who will listen & not judge” if you need one thing [although I am sure she knows this by now about you both]