US National Guard to fight New Orleans crime

NEW ORLEANS - National Guard troops and state police are being deployed to New Orleans to fight rising violence after five teenagers were shot and killed, Louisiana State Governor Kathleen Blanco has said.

The brutal pre-dawn shooting on Saturday was one of the most deadly attacks in the history of New Orleans and raised fear among residents that crime is returning before the city can completely recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

"The situation is urgent and we will accelerate our plans to deploy law enforcement to the city tomorrow," Blanco said in a statement after Mayor Ray Nagin and the city council called for reinforcements for city police.

"We will respond with personnel from the State Police and National Guard," she said, adding that 300 National Guard troops and 60 state police would start arriving on Tuesday local time.

The mayor and city council members held a special meeting in the wake of the shooting in the city which used to have one of the highest murder rates in the United States.

"We are not going ... to let hurricane crime replace Hurricane Katrina," City Council President Oliver Thomas said in televised remarks. Nagin also said he would set a curfew for young people in the city.

The mayor and governor both said that before the shooting they had been working on a plan to reinforce the city.

New Orleans is still reeling from Katrina, which hit last August 29, and only about 220,000 people, or half the pre-storm population, have come back, leaving many neighbourhoods dark and many returning citizens isolated.

One or more assailants with semi-automatic handguns sprayed a sports utility vehicle shortly before dawn on Saturday, killing a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old and three 19-year-olds, said police, who found the vehicle slammed into a utility pole, surrounded by shell casings.

Four were dead on the spot and the fifth died shortly thereafter, raising the number of killings to 52 this year.

That is less than half the number a year ago, but the city's population is similarly low and killings have accelerated in the last two months, according to police statistics. Residents and local media frequently voice a fear that crime is accelerating.

New Orleans was once one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, but the level of violence dropped sharply in the wake of Katrina, which killed more than 1500 and drove nearly the entire population from their homes.

- REUTERS