‘Murder Capital’ of US Just Got a Lot More Dangerous, Dem Mayor Forced to Watch Dept Dwindle

The New Orleans Police Department’s superintendent is set to retire, with the city having been named the nation’s “murder capital” for the first half of this year as officers reportedly left the force in droves.

Shaun Ferguson will retire at the end of 2022, Democratic New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Tuesday.

New Orleans’ Metropolitan Crime Commission named the city the “murder capital of the United States” for the first half of 2022, determining that its homicide rate outpaced any other city nationwide when population was taken into account, according to WDSU.

A statement from Superintendent Shaun Ferguson regarding the announcement of his retirement. pic.twitter.com/qPp5NTRwzm

— New Orleans Police Department (@NOPDNews) December 7, 2022

The NOPD has lost hundreds of officers overall in the past few years, according to The Associated Press. One officer, Scott Fanning, quit the department in July during his shift, later calling the job “just not worth it” and describing a “weird feeling of how unsafe, how lucky I’d been that nothing bad had happened while I’d been doing it,” WVUE-DT reported.

Cantrell appointed Ferguson in 2019, she noted in her Tuesday notice about his retirement. He had argued that Fanning “abandoned his post,” “the citizens of New Orleans,” and “the department,” according to WVUE.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell today issued the following statement on New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Superintendent Shaun Ferguson’s retirement announcement: pic.twitter.com/0k6sg7BjGp

— The City Of New Orleans (@CityOfNOLA) December 6, 2022

“Even when I started three years ago, there would be six or seven officers out with you on your shift,” Fanning told the outlet. “Now, it’s more like two or three. Four was a good day. But some nights, there has been literally one person. … I had worked a day where it was only me who showed up in the whole district.”

Fraternal Order of Police attorney Donovan Livaccari stated in July that “morale has not been that great recently” among New Orleans police, WWL-TV reported. An “unbelievable number of people” had moved to other police departments, Livaccari said.

The New Orleans Police Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.