A far-left prosecutor’s recent carjacking only highlights that tried-and-true methods of law enforcement are what New Orleans needs.
A far-left prosecutor’s recent carjacking only highlights that tried-and-true methods of law enforcement are what New Orleans needs.
T he district attorney of New Orleans, Jason Williams, and his mother were recently carjacked at gunpoint. It was a terrible crime — and entirely predictable. As one of America’s many George Soros–backed district attorneys, Williams has dismissed charges for 66 percent of carjacking arrests over the past two years, encouraging more of the crime that he’s now experienced. Republican governor-elect Jeff Landry is set to be inaugurated in January, and he should prioritize protecting the people of New Orleans from their own district attorney.
New Orleans has long been a dangerous city. My wife and I left in 2019 largely because of widespread crime; my truck was broken into twice, and my wife and I were shot at while trying to stop a robbery. Yet the slide into chaos has only accelerated in the years since. In 2022, the city overtook St. Louis, Mo., as the “murder capital of the United States.” In terms of homicides per 100,000 residents, it’s one of the ten most dangerous cities in the world — beaten only by Mexican cities overrun by drug traffickers such as the Sinaloa Cartel. New Orleans didn’t see this many murders even in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when the city became synonymous with disorder.
Williams has directly contributed to soaring crime. After running a 2020 campaign as a “progressive prosecutor,” he promised “to go beyond punishment and invest in our community to heal, restore, and create justice that endures.” In a candidate questionnaire for the ACLU of Louisiana, he vowed to focus on “declining & diverting cases that should not be prosecuted,” with an eye toward “drastically reduc[ing] Orleans Parish’s state prison admissions.” His approach is grounded in his belief, as he said while campaigning, that “the criminal legal system is not just racist; it is racist and sexist.”
As night follows day, inaction has followed his ill-considered words. District Attorney Williams assured voters that he’d go soft only on low-level offenders, yet in the first eight months of his tenure, he dismissed 937 violent felony cases out of a total 1,400-plus arrests by the New Orleans Police Department. That represents a nearly 85 percent increase in violent-felony refusals over his predecessor.
Prosecutorial discretion is one thing. But this sudden and measurable decrease in the prosecution of violent crimes is something else, involving a willful neglect of duty in cases ranging from murder and rape to kidnapping and more. And the data don’t lie: Criminals have felt emboldened to commit more crimes of every kind. During my recent trip back to the city, my mother-in-law stated that she sees multiple cars run red lights every day. Other friends and family tell me they see much worse, much more often.
Do residents have any hope for the return of law and order? Williams’s six-year term doesn’t end until 2026, yet in such a blue city, he seems likely to win reelection if he runs again. Fortunately, Jeff Landry assumes the governorship in January and has promised a special legislative session focused solely on crime. He has overwhelming majorities of his fellow Republicans in the state legislature, and the question is what reforms he’s going to prioritize.
The smart move is to look to Florida. There, the governor is constitutionally empowered to remove district attorneys, a power Governor Ron DeSantis has exercised twice with Soros-backed officials. They had refused to enforce the law, with one even allowing pedophiles and violent offenders to evade incarceration. As Florida shows, this policy is about principles, not politics. Governor DeSantis has left many liberal district attorneys untouched, only going after those guilty of dereliction of duty.
If Louisiana isn’t ready to go that far, the state legislature could instead give the governor or attorney general the power to appoint special prosecutors in jurisdictions where current officials are falling short. Louisiana could also simply empower the attorney general to prosecute crimes that district attorneys won’t. All these policies would likely require a constitutional amendment, which lawmakers could propose and then put to voters as soon as the next statewide election.
Louisiana isn’t the only state that would benefit from strong reforms. So would Tennessee, where Memphis district attorney Steve Mulroy is soft on crime. The city’s police chief recently said crime is so bad, it wouldn’t matter “if we have the entire United States Army here in Memphis,” because the same people are committing crimes after being let go. Ditto Missouri, where Soros-backed St. Louis district attorney Kim Gardner let criminals run riot. She resigned in May, after more than a year of local outrage; state officials needed the authority to remove her earlier.
Wherever they live, families deserve public officials who prioritize law and order, not passing leftist fads. That’s clearly true in New Orleans, where Williams has now become a victim of his own soft-on-crime approach. Public safety is a necessity, yet public service is a privilege. It’s long past time that Louisiana held both lawbreakers and their political enablers accountable.