Slow recovery goes on in crime-weary New Orleans

By Jeff Franks

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The recovery of New Orleans slowly drags on two years after Hurricane Katrina but one thing back in full swing since the killer storm is crime, particularly murders.

The drumbeat of violence that made New Orleans a U.S. murder capital before Katrina slowed after it struck on August 29, 2005, but the pace picked up as people returned to the city.

So far in 2007, police say 136 people have been murdered in New Orleans, compared to 161 for all of last year. August has been particularly bloody, with 19 killings in a 14-day period ending August 25, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

New Orleans, beset with an explosive mix of poverty, drugs and guns before and after Katrina, is no stranger to murder.

It has had one of the nation's higher per capita murder rates for years and peaked in 1994 with 425 homicides. In 2004, the year before Katrina, there were 265 killings.

City leaders say fear of crime ranks up there with fear of another Katrina as reasons only about 60 percent of the pre-storm population of nearly half a million has returned.

A study released early this year by the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a local watchdog group, found almost 80 percent of those surveyed in New Orleans' Central City area were afraid of crime, more than before Katrina.

Crime is a constant topic of conversation in New Orleans, where many say they are arming themselves for the first time.