New DA, same old results

DA lets defendant go: It would be nice to know why these things occur. Yesterday (1.6.09) an assistant district attorney, representing the new district attorney, Leon Cannizzaro, walked into new Criminal District Criminal Judge Karen Herman's courtroom and announced that the DA wouldn't be prosecuting the guy police said committed 3 robberies in the Lower Quarter that terrorized neighbors.

Why? Is this another case of the DA only taking the "safe" cases he knows he can win? Did the victims disappear? Is it another case of the NOPD doing a shoddy investigation? Or not filing the right reports at the right time? Let us know so we know where to direct our anger.

8th District detectives were sure Taurus Legrandre, 27, was the guy who robbed 2 women and a man who were out walking just after midnight on 10.10.08. The thief hopped out of a car in the 1300 block of Royal Street (between Barracks Street and Esplanade Avenue) and robbed the women, both 24, and the man, 27, at gunpoint before jumping back in the car and fleeing.

The detectives quickly developed Legrandre as a suspect and showed a photo lineup to the victims who positively identified him, according to the police, who then issued a warrant for his arrest. He was finally apprehended 11.3.08 and charged with 3 counts of armed robbery with a firearm.

Neighbors in the vicinity were on edge after this robbery, which followed by only 2 days the attempted robbery of a woman walking in the same block by 5 black boys on bicycles. Police did manage to arrest 3 of the young punks, 13,14, and 15 years of age.

But now Legrandre is on the streets again and all we can do is ask, "Why, Leon, why?"

Later and not that far away: Just down a couple of blocks from those robberies, a white man walking in the 1400 block of Bourbon Street (between Esplanade Avenue and Pauger Street) Sunday night (1.4.09) around 8:17 p.m. was approached from behind by 2 black dudes. One pulled a handgun and demanded money. The victim complied and the thieves fled on foot down Pauger.

Both perps were said to be 18 to 23, one with short dreadlocks, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans with a red bandanna around his neck, and the other wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans.

Is that all there is?: The only other incident reported over the weekend--even with the Sugar Bowl being in town and the aftermath of New Year's Eve--was an altercation in the 300 block of Bourbon Street (between Bienville and Conti streets) on Saturday (1.3.09) around 3 a.m. A white guy got into an argument with 2 brothers over god-knows-what and one of the brothers hit him in the head with a beer bottle.

Police arrested Anthony Hurty, 25, and charged him with aggravated battery. He got out of Central Lockup on $15,000 bond later that day.

You'd have to be crazy: Remember the old saying, "Keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool rather than open it and prove it"? Apparently Donny J. Pierre never got that memo.

He was scheduled for a lunacy hearing yesterday (1.6.09) at Tulane and Broad after sitting in the hoosegow since the last day of August, 2007 after he was arrested for an armed robbery in the 1000 block of Dumaine Street the same day. But yesterday, Pierre apparently acted out so badly in front of a couple of shrinks in the courtroom that they couldn't interview him, so Judge Keva Landrum-Johnson sent him off immediately to the funny farm in Feliciana.

Pierre, 36, whose last known address in the outside world was in the 1100 block of N. Villere Street, has a long criminal history going back for years with arrests--but few convictions--for rape, forgery, bank fraud, forcible rape, false imprisonment, soliciting crime against nature, simple and armed robbery, and so on.

So what really happened?: With all the hubbub over the cops plugging that suspect at Gov. Nicholls Street and N. Claiborne Avenue 14 times on New Year's Day, there might be an inadvertent clue in the first police report written about the incident.

In the "Superintendent's Major Offense Log" for crimes between 6 a.m. 12.31.08 to 6 a.m. 1.1.09, an unnamed officer in car #4144 wrote in the gist for report #A00426-09 for a code 108 (officer's life in danger) that "officers approached a suspicious vehicle, the subject inside the vehicle pointed a gun at the officers. Officers fired at the subject. The subject expired on scene."

There was no mention of the subject firing a gun, only pointing it at the officers.

Then the next day in the Superintendent's Log, a "Sgt. McMullen" in car #4150 revised the early report, now saying "Officers approached a suspicious subject. The subject fired at the officers, the officers returned fire striking the subject. He expired on scene."

This time the report said the subject fired a gun.

Perhaps the eagle eyes of the FBI will pick up on this discrepancy.

Interesting, isn't it?: Big Chief Warren Riley said he didn't have enough officers to sent them out until 2 days after the above shooting to check the deadman's car, in which another weapon was found.

So where did he get the surfeit of officers he had yesterday to send goon squads to 2 churches to evict squatting parishioners?

It's as we've said before: It's not just numbers--it's what you do with what you've got.

So much for the separation of church and state.

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As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome at NOcrimeline@gmail.com

Thom Kahler