Woke British prosecutor is slammed for dropping cases against FIFTEEN gun suspects arrested during New Orleans Mardi Gras - after city became US murder capital

Woke British prosecutor is slammed for dropping cases against FIFTEEN gun suspects arrested during New Orleans Mardi Gras – after city became US murder capital

A man from Tennessee who was arrested in New Orleans for carrying a modified machine gun along the city’s famous Bourbon Street has had his case dropped by a woke prosecutor from the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office. Keaton Manghave, is among 15 people who were arrested in the Crescent City during Mardi Gras this past week, and who had their charges dropped. The decision to drop the cases was made by Assistant District Attorney Emily Maw (pictured right).

Maw (pictured), who now heads the Civil Rights unit, previously worked for Innocence Project New Orleans for 16 years before transferring to the DA’s office two years ago. She refused to proceed with the charges on conditions that the weapons seized from those arrested not be returned to them, according to Fox8Live.

Manghave in particular had been charged with unlawful possession of a machine gun and illegal carrying of weapons. Officers saw Manghave walking around with a gun and later discovered that the gun had been converted into a fully automatic weapon. Despite the egregious nature of the alleged crimes, Maw refused to prosecute the case along with along with 14 others. Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams (pictured) has since distanced himself from the decision calling the attorney’s actions ‘improper and unrepresentative of office policy.’

Williams (pictured) has pledged to conduct an internal review and take appropriate measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. In a statement released last Thursday, Williams said Maw, who was assigned to review the cases during first appearances on Tuesday in magistrate court, deviated from the office’s standard practices, which include a ‘thorough screening process’ for every charge. It was not immediately clear whether authorities could choose to renew prosecution of the suspects.

The statement said Williams had ordered ‘an extensive internal review’ of the cases and that his office was taking ‘appropriate remedial measures to prevent similar unauthorized activity in the future.’ The decisions made by Maw, who was a close ally of Williams in his campaign to bring a reforms to the district attorney’s office, were seized on by Williams’ critics, who have since questioned the results of his progressive policies amid a surge in violent crime which has seen New Orleans become the murder capital of the U.S.

The former director of Innocence Project New Orleans, Maw, who was educated in Edinburgh had been a longtime advocate for wrongfully incarcerated people before she was brought into the DA’s office by Williams in 2021 to head his office’s newly created civil rights division. Her office had been tasked with digging into cold cases, reducing sentences handed down by non-unanimous juries and reversing wrongful convictions.

Her appointment was among a number of moves made by Williams that aligned with his progressive philosophy on the criminal justice system, but as the numbers of murders, carjackings and violent carjackings have increased in the last two years, Williams has pedaled back on some policies including a promise not to charge juveniles as adults. Pictured: Police work the scene of the shooting at the Krewe of Bacchus parade last Sunday.

New Orleans Police Department Detective Louis Martinez Jr., next to New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, interim NOPD Superintendent Michelle Woodfork, Col. Lamar Davis of the Louisiana State Police, (right), along with other members of law enforcement, NOFD and EMS walk down Bourbon Street just after midnight ceremoniously closing down Mardi Gras.

New Orleans overtook St. Louis as the U.S. murder capital in the first half of 2022, as the city struggles with its lowest police staffing level in modern history amid a crisis of officer morale. In the first six months of 2022, New Orleans recorded 41 murders per 100,000 population, a higher homicide rate than any other U.S. city, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

By comparison, the first-half murder rate per 100,000 was 11.5 in Chicago, 4.8 in Los Angeles and 2.4 in New York City. According to the nonpartisan watchdog Metropolitan Crime Commission, the city recorded 280 murders in New Orleans in 2022, the highest number of killings in a single year since 1996. The group says that number equals about 70 homicides for ever 100,000 residents.