NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s Republican governor requested for Nationwide Guard deployments to New Orleans and different cities, saying Monday that his state wants assist preventing crime and praising President Donald Trump’s determination to ship troops to Washington and Memphis.
NOTE: The video is from a earlier report.
Gov. Jeff Landry, a Trump ally, requested for as much as 1,000 troops by fiscal yr 2026 in a letter despatched to Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth. It comes weeks after Trump steered New Orleans could possibly be considered one of his subsequent targets for deploying the Nationwide Guard to combat crime.
Trump additionally despatched troops in latest months to Los Angeles and his administration has introduced plans for comparable actions in different main cities, together with Chicago and Portland, Oregon.
Landry stated his request “builds on the confirmed success” of deployments to Washington and Memphis. Whereas Trump has ordered troops into Memphis with the backing of Tennessee’s Republican governor, as of Monday evening there had but to be a large-scale operation within the metropolis.
“Federal partnerships in our hardest cities have labored, and now, with the help of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, we’re taking the following step by bringing within the Nationwide Guard,” Landry stated.
Leaders in Democratic-controlled states have criticized the deliberate deployments. In Oregon, elected officers have stated troops in Portland usually are not wanted.
In his request, Landry stated there was “elevated violent crime charges” in Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans in addition to shortages in native legislation enforcement. He stated the state’s vulnerability to pure disasters made the difficulty more difficult and that additional help could be particularly useful for main occasions, together with Mardi Gras and faculty soccer bowl video games.
However crime in a few of the state’s greatest cities has really decreased lately, with New Orleans, seeing a very steep drop in 2025 that has put it on tempo to have its lowest variety of killings in additional than 5 many years.
Preliminary information from town police division exhibits that there have been 75 homicides up to now in 2025. That depend consists of the 14 revelers who have been killed on New Yr’s Day throughout a truck assault on Bourbon Road. Final yr, there have been 124 homicides. In 2023 there have been 193.
In Baton Rouge, the state capital, has additionally seen a lower in homicides in comparison with final yr, in line with police division figures. Knowledge additionally exhibits, nevertheless, that robberies and assaults are on tempo to surpass final yr’s numbers.
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Related Press reporter Sara Cline contributed to this report.
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