“One is one too many,” a phrase echoed by two officials as East Baton Rouge Parish prepares to have the second deadliest year on record.
2021 was the second year in a row for record-breaking homicide rates in Baton Rouge according to an Advocate analysis. There were 114 deaths in 2020, and 149 deaths in 2021. This year, there were over 50 deaths before the half-way mark of the year, putting Baton Rouge on track for the second deadliest year on record.
Baton Rouge is not alone in these upticks of violence. Reports say New Orleans is leading the nation in per-capita murder rates with over 145 homicides this year.
Lieutenant Don Coppola of the Baton Rouge Police Department was one of the people saying “one is too many.” Coppola could only comment on gun violence within the city limits, but said that a lot of it comes down to education.
Coppola advised that guns should not be stored in vehicles. Guns left in vehicles are subject to theft in vehicle burglaries. Coppola said this leads to the guns falling in the wrong hands. He also said that firearms should be kept out of the way of children and separate from ammunition.
Coppola said that the department is increasing its community engagement. One program he highlighted was their weekly neighborhood walks. Every Thursday officers walk around different neighborhoods to connect with the communities.
Mark Armstrong, a spokesperson for Baton Rouge mayor Sharon Weston-Broome, explained that attacking gun violence was a “three pronged” issue. Law enforcement, community engagement and mental health were the three prongs he said Broome focuses on.
Armstrong said there have been over 1800 felony arrests made and 700 guns seized in those arrests this year. He also said that the police force numbers should be back to pre-pandemic levels within the next few police academy graduating classes. Broome gave police a 6% pay raise last year.
Armstrong also said that they have been focused on Operation Red Stick, which is the collaboration efforts of all local, federal and state agencies for sharing information.
“On the community engagement side, we’re always looking for ways that we can reach the people who are most at risk of either pulling the trigger or of being a victim of being shot,” Armstrong said. “And often times those are the same people.”
Armstrong said that recently they have launched several programs aimed at increasing community engagement and outreach. Broome recently allocated $2.5 million of federal funding to community based public safety.
“The idea is to put the public back into public safety,” Armstrong said. “The more community engagements you have the better.”
Armstrong said there have been monthly meetings with 80 partner organizations including the NAACP, 100 Black Men of America, Butterfly Society and the Power Coalition. These meetings are used to discuss the best strategies that they can employ to reach both perpetrators and victims of violence.
He said one of the ways they do this is by going into the communities and trying to address infrastructure needs. Armstrong said that by addressing these issues, they hope to address neighborhood issues, family issues and break the cycles of violence.
Armstrong said that one common complaint is that people do not have enough to do in Baton Rouge. To combat this, they started the Summer of Hope program. This program is an eight-week event that is a part of Broome’s Safe, Hopeful, Healthy initiative. Every week there are two to three events to give people something joyful and fun to do.
The final issue Broome has tried to tackle is mental health. Armstrong said that Broome has been a supporter of the Bridge Center for Hope, the first crisis stabilization center in Louisiana.
Congress recently allocated $1 million for trauma informed mental health services for neighborhoods in need. Broome and her team are working to develop a plan of implementation. Armstrong said that may express itself in traditional forms such as counseling, but also nontraditional forms such as community yoga. He said that plan should be announced by end of year.
These are all examples of smaller scale programs being incorporated into the communities and public safety in order to help individuals. Armstrong said that there are also larger scale projects looking to address societal issues that lead to increased violence.
Armstrong said that they are establishing an Office of Supplier Diversity to increase small business contracts and increase public investment. He said that by giving people located in disinvested communities, women and minorities the opportunity to grow their businesses it would grow the ecosystem and create a transformative change in the neighborhoods.  
Armstrong said that fixing this generational problems would not happen overnight.
“Gun violence is often a symptom of these underlying causes,” Armstrong said. “And it’s a terrible tragedy of a symptom and it’s something we have to end.”