New Orleans crime scene - Update

I've been hearing rumblings that the recent shooting of the five teens in New Orleans was a gangland-style shooting, but had no hard evidence except the normal scepticism of an old cop.

Today, though, Time Magazine looks at the evidence that gangs are involved in a turf war in New Orleans.

"It's an opportunity right now, where you've got a population coming back to a major city, for gangs to develop in certain parts of the city and try to take strongholds of certain areas," Mark Chait, special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, pointed out in April.

And a damn disturbing opportunity, but one that the police should have been able to predict.

I've heard that there are some new players in the gangland field that is now New Orleans. They are trying to establish dominance and accumulate market-share in an area that is ripe for the taking. It's just business, after all.

It is the police's business to shut them down. Hard. If there are new players from up North, as some suggest, I'm sure that they will find Angola to be quaint and rugged. They probably won't like it there at all.

It's time to saddle up the boys and draw a hard line.