The trial of local musician Dinerral Shavers came to a conclusion yesterday. Dinerral was the drummer for the Hot 8 Brass band and created the band program at a local high school. He was gunned down in his vehicle in 2006. It was a shooting that woke many people up to the issues going on in the inner city of New Orleans. Along with the killing of filmmaker Helen Hill.
The “This is like Baghdad” quote above was spoken by the judge overseeing the trial. This isn’t just some local yahoo making crazy jumps, trying to bring understanding to a situation that most people cannot understand. This is a quality judge who is not known for making out of my ass statements. His point is that the killings occurring on the streets of New Orleans are about “turf”, my “hood”, about the lack of parental influence and an overall lack of being able to function within a society.
When Recovery director Ed Blakely stated that New Orleans was like Iraq in the way that Sunni’s, Shiites and Kurds cannot reach a common ground, he was thrown under the bus. I said at the time that he was right and I stand by that statement. What we have going on here is a mini war, for lack of a better phrase, between “wards”. Wards in New Orleans are basically neighborhoods. Young black males in say the 6th ward, don’t care for the young black males in the 8th ward. When one sees the other in their ward, the bullets start flying. And the innocent people, such as Mr. Shavers, get caught in the middle.
The alleged gunman was attempting to shoot Mr. Shaver’s son, who was not welcome in this particular ward. The prosecution had three witnesses, one key witness who supposedly saw the alleged gunman fire the shots in the Shavers vehicle.
When it came time for this witness to identify the suspect in court, she stood up and said, ” I don’t see anybody. I must need glasses.” During the trial, it was reported that the alleged gunman was making gestures toward witnesses. Those gestures must have worked. The alleged gunman was acquitted of all charges Thursday afternoon.
I don’t know what’s going on locally in any other city. I don’t know if the cities of America are all experiencing the kind of craziness and murders and shootings and just plain old pain that New Orleans is experiencing. I have a hard enough time getting through the things going on here to understand other cities problems. I don’t know for sure if the alleged gunman is getting away with murder or not. I know what my gut says. I also know how this city works. Whether the alleged gunman got away with murder or not, I know from the past that the alleged gunman better haul ass outta town. Because just like Baghdad, New Orleans has it’s own style of justice in the streets. The only real difference that I can see is that the beheadings haven’t reached the Big Easy…yet.
