Already America's unquestioned murder capital, New Orleans saw homicides jump by 14 percent last year, ending the year with 199 killings. For the previous three years, the murder rate in New Orleans had stabilized at around 175 killings a year. Even that number was a staggering amount that gave New Orleans the highest per-capita murder rate in the country by a comfortable margin. The uptick this year will likely place New Orleans far ahead of other cities with serious crime and homicide problems.

The year was bookended by the tragic shooting deaths of toddlers. Jeremy Galmon and Keira Holmes were both killed by bullets intended for other victims.

The cases provoked community outrage and despair, with residents appalled that violence in residential neighborhoods had claimed two innocents. For police, the uproar meant witnesses stepped forward. Arrests were swiftly made.

At a vigil earlier this month for Holmes, who was killed days before her second birthday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu noted how the city tends to unite and galvanize when a child is killed. The challenge is in maintaining the passion to end violence past the wake of a toddler's death.

The answer, Landrieu said, was in community buy-in, an all-hands-on-deck approach.

"It's all of us," he said.

The distinct spike in murders during the span between when Galmon was killed in September 2010 and Holmes was fatally shot two weeks ago leaves open the question of whether those galvanizing moments have real staying power.

For New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas, there are positive signs that people are getting fed up. He pointed to an 11 percent increase in viable tips provided the NOPD through Crimestoppers, as well as an increase in crime reporting in general.

"Which tells me there has been a subtle change in the way people believe giving information to the department can make a difference," Serpas said. "I think we are turning a corner there."

With three federal civil rights trials against New Orleans police officers since the end of 2010, all generating at least some convictions, the past year has unquestionably been a tough one for the NOPD's rank and file. City officials are also in the midst of negotiating a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, which will mandate broad changes throughout the department.

'Optimistic for 2012'

When the end-of-the-year crime statistics come out, they will show an increase in crime across other categories, particularly property crime, Serpas acknowledged. He added that while that is "unacceptable," the silver lining is that studies show more people are reporting incidents to the police.

For some critics of Serpas, however, the crime increases raise a red flag that the department is headed in the wrong direction.

"I have renewed concern that there is nothing constructive being done," said Baty Landis, one of the founders of Silence Is Violence, an anti-crime group organized in early 2007 in the wake of two high-profile murders that sparked a massive anti-crime march on City Hall.

Landis, whose group works with violent-crime victims, said detectives too often fail to communicate with families, which alienates people who already don't always trust the police. "There has to be better training, and there has to be time budgeted for victims," she said.

Serpas countered that this has been a rebuilding year for the NOPD, with major reorganizations of command, new tactics implemented and a significant restructuring of the homicide unit, part of which involved adding more detectives to investigate murders.

Serpas said he personally tries to reach out to victim families, adding that the department has several avenues for outreach. The NOPD plans to beef up the victim-witness division, he added.

"I am very optimistic for 2012," Serpas said. "We have put together a much more nimble and focused department, using the best technologies available in evidence-based policing."

Capt. Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, cautioned that the city needs to take a fresh look at troop strength, saying strategies that have worked in other places might be less successful in New Orleans because of decreased manpower.

Criminologist Peter Scharf expressed concerns that officers on the ground have been demoralized not only by the civil-rights trials, but by shifts in NOPD management strategies and the unknown changes that the pending federal consent decree will doubtless impose.

While agreeing that 2011 was undoubtedly "a tough year," Serpas said he believes officers are starting to see the department stabilize, which bolsters their morale.

"We are reaching out to the hard-working officers and reminding them that we believe in them and what they are doing," Serpas said.

Prevention efforts

Recent months have seen a flurry of announcements by the Landrieu administration aimed at tackling the homicide problem from a number of angles, not just focused on the criminal justice arena.

For example, the administration this fall channeled a $250,000 grant to city's version of the CeaseFire program, an initiative that started in Chicago and is aimed at stopping retaliatory killings by deploying "interrupters," trained people who know the streets and help cool down emotions after a shooting.

That program has been much discussed in New Orleans in recent years, but it has lagged in getting off the ground as a full-fledged effort.

Norris Henderson, a community activist who trained as a violence interrupter, said the slow launch has been frustrating. Since the City Council first began discussing the program a couple years ago, the epicenter of murder in New Orleans has shifted from Central City -- where the pilot program was first established -- to the St. Roch area, Henderson noted.

Former City Councilman James Carter, who spearheaded the push to adopt the Chicago CeaseFire program while on the council, said since he was hired as Landrieu's crime commissioner, the project has been on the front burner.

In the upcoming year, the program will hire not only interrupters but outreach workers who will be deployed to both Central City and St. Roch, Carter said.

City officials have begun working on another program, which the Landrieu administration has called the Strategic Command to Reduce Murders. Based on Milwaukee's homicide review panel, the effort consists of several teams that will examine murders committed in three of the NOPD's most active police districts. Carter said the teams will thoroughly investigate each murder and try to tease out trends that can be acted upon by law enforcement and others.

Looking at patterns

Exactly who is being killed on New Orleans streets and why are questions that have already been the focus of some attention this year. In March, the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance released a study that found both similarities and differences with murders nationwide.

Of course, the sheer number of murders is what distinguishes New Orleans from other cities, even those with higher overall crime rates. Since Hurricane Katrina, calculating the murder rate has been controversial, as city officials have often disagreed with official federal population counts.

After the storm, murders surged in 2007, reaching 210 that year. Although 2011's total tally for the first time since then again approached 200, the murder rate has actually gone down significantly -- from roughly 73 murders per 100,000 people to 58 murders per 100,000 -- because more people have returned to the city.

As in other cities, young, African-American men, often with criminal records, are disproportionately the victims and perpetrators of murder.

A map of incidents since 2008 compiled by The Times Picayune shows clusters of murder across the city, from Central City to the 7th Ward and St. Roch and the 9th Ward.

'Disorganized' crime

The BJA report, which was based on a review of NOPD's homicide investigations, concluded that one major difference between New Orleans murders and those in other cities is that local homicides are not as connected to gangs and organized drug markets. Instead, they concluded that many murders stem from the escalation of personal disagreements.

"There are extraordinary number of murders that the BJA accurately stated were 'ordinary,' " Serpas said. "We just can't explain why would a guy who got mad at a guy would kill him. We do have a lot of those types of murders in the city."

Scharf, however, wondered whether the Bureau of Justice Assistance analysis discounted the role that drug-dealing plays in New Orleans murders, noting that drugs play a dominant part in some neighborhoods' economies. "It feels like the wrong theory of what is going on," he said.

While New Orleans traditionally hasn't had the kind of highly organized gangs as other cities, law enforcement officials often discuss tracking more informal crews that typically form in a particular neighborhood or city block.

The "disorganized" nature of crime organizations in New Orleans could actually make them more dangerous and harder for law enforcement to disrupt, Serpas said.

"Yes, we do have young men who are associated with criminal crews. They aren't these complex organizations that direct behavior the way you see in organized gangs," he said. "As a result, you have this spontaneity that is more difficult to deal with."

Staff writer Brendan McCarthy contributed to this report. Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3316.