With low-cost apartments, a party atmosphere and a location approximately 1.5 miles from the University and on the Tiger Trails bus route, the Tigerland neighborhood is set up to be perfect for student living.
But two deaths in two months show the neighborhood and the area that surrounds it may be a better place for crime to thrive than for students.
An early Monday rain shower diluted a puddle of blood next to a driveway in the 1400 block of Sharlo Avenue, located off Alvin Dark Avenue behind the popular Tigerland bars.
A few feet away, a red outline from where a body lay on the concrete slowly washed away.
On Sunday, multiple shotgun blasts at the location left 29-year-old Brandon Harris dead. The killing is the second death to occur near the Tigerland neighborhood in two months.
On March 7, 23-year-old Gunner Williamson was found unconscious and apparently robbed on the side of Bob Pettit Road. He died March 12. Many believe he was beaten to death, though autopsy reports are inconclusive, according to Sgt. Don Kelly, Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman.
The Tigerland neighborhood comprises approximately seven streets off Alvin Dark Avenue and a cluster of five bars.
Four walks down Alvin Dark Avenue in the last month and numerous interviews with long-term residents have shed some light on possible sources of the problem.
Though most residents were afraid to go on record, nearly all agreed the neighborhood’s violent descent began about a year and a half ago, when University alumnus Charlie Cangelosi was shot trying to thwart a robbery.
Cangelosi was walking with friends from Brightside Drive to Tigerland in November 2010 when he heard a woman scream and ran to help. As he tried to prevent the robber from escaping, the criminal shot Cangelosi in the stomach.
Following the shooting, the neighborhood’s violent crime spiked in the media.
In May 2011, a 21-year-old woman was raped in a ditch on Alvin Dark Avenue.
In June 2011, two men allegedly forced their way into an apartment on Jim Taylor Drive, beat a man with a handgun, then sexually assaulted a woman inside.
And in July 2011, an unidentified 18-year-old woman was severely beaten on Earl Gros Avenue.
Need I go on?
A few residents explained violence increased in the period around Cangelosi’s shooting after police increased their presence in the Gardere Street area – located about four miles southeast of Tigerland – and criminals moved to Tigerland for a new hunting ground.
Their explanations check out.
In past years, East Baton Rouge Parish police have increased patrols in the Gardere area, leading to a decrease in crime, according to The Advocate.
If it worked around Gardere Street, why isn’t BRPD doing this around Tigerland?
Residents said they would like to see more patrols in the area, and research by Georgetown criminology professor David Weisburd shows “hot-spot” policing can alleviate violence in high-crime areas.
BRPD currently patrols the area as it would anywhere else, Kelly said, and extra units are present in Tigerland on weekend nights because of the high concentrations of bar-goers.
This doesn’t mean additional patrols, though. Some extra units are off-duty and paid by grants solely focusing on curbing underage drinking and bar fights. Thus, they are not patrolling the neighborhood.
Adding extra on-duty patrols would mean fewer patrols in other parts of Baton Rouge, he said.
Kelly also said BRPD hasn’t seen a big enough statistical increase in crime to justify increasing patrols.
“As long as I can remember, they’ve had these crimes,” Kelly said. “It’s part of the character of the neighborhood.”
BRPD’s judgments are contentious, considering statistics show violent crime has almost doubled in the last decade.
In 2011, BRPD recorded two rapes, 34 aggravated assaults and 32 robberies in the Tigerland’s subzone. The subzone includes parts of Brightside Drive and Nicholson Drive. 
Statistics from 2011 show the subzone is about 48 percent more violent than in 2007 and a massive 70 percent more violent than in 2001, which saw 40 offenses as opposed to 2011’s 68. 
Kelly also said the violent crime increase may be due to the area’s population increase or could simply be a perception problem.
But a near 50-percent increase in four years is not a perception problem. It’s reality.
And that reality leaves a handful of questions unanswered. Could police better allocate their resources? Why isn’t BRPD acknowledging the increase in crime?
On paper, the area surrounding Tigerland is a perfect place for students to live, but a 70-percent rise in violent crime since 2001 proves it is unsuitable for students.
So why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?
 
Chris Grillot is a 21-year-old English and mass communication senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_cgrillot.
 
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Contact Chris Grillot at [email protected]