Prosecutor Woke criticized the dropping of cases against 15 gun suspects arrested at New Orleans Mardi Gras

The case of a Tennessee man who was arrested in New Orleans for carrying a modified machine gun along the city’s famous Bourbon Street was dismissed by a prosecutor from the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office.

Keaton Manghave, is among 15 people who were arrested in Crescent City during Mardi Gras last week, and had charges dropped.

The decision to drop the cases was made by Assistant District Attorney Emily Maw.

Maw, who now heads the Civil Rights unit, previously worked for the Innocence Project New Orleans for 16 years before transferring to the prosecutor’s office two years ago.

It refused to proceed with the charges on the condition that the weapons seized from the detainees not be returned, according to Fox8Live.

New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams, right, said Assistant District Attorney Emily Maw, left, wrongly decided to drop prosecution of more than a dozen illegal gun possession cases that stemmed from arrests in the Mardi Gras season in exchange for the suspects agreeing to seize their weapons.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams found that Maw wrongly decided to drop prosecution of more than a dozen illegal gun possession cases stemming from the Mardi Gras season arrests in exchange for the suspects agreed to confiscate their weapons.

Manghave, in particular, had been charged with illegal possession of a machine gun and illegal carrying of weapons.

Officers saw Manghave walking around with a weapon and later discovered that the weapon had been converted to a fully automatic weapon.

Despite the heinous nature of the alleged crimes, Maw refused to prosecute the case along with 14 other people.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams has since distanced himself from the decision, calling the attorney’s actions “improper and not representative of office policy.”

Williams has committed to conducting an internal review and taking appropriate action to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

In a statement Thursday, Williams said Maw, who was assigned to review the cases during the first court appearances Tuesday, deviated from the office’s standard practices, which include a “thorough selection process ” for each charge.

It was not immediately clear if authorities might choose to renew the prosecution of the suspects.

Despite the heinous nature of the alleged crimes, Maw refused to prosecute the case along with 14 other people.

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

Police work at the scene of a shooting at the Krewe of Bacchus parade last Sunday. Five people were shot, including a girl, during a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, police said.

The statement said Williams had ordered “an extensive internal review” of the cases and that his office was taking “appropriate corrective actions to prevent similar unauthorized activity in the future.”

The decisions made by Maw, who was a close ally of Williams in his campaign to introduce reforms in the district attorney’s office, were seized upon by Williams’s critics, who have since questioned the results of his progressive policies amid a increase in violent crime. that has seen New Orleans become the murder capital of the USA.

Former Innocence Project New Orleans director Maw, who was educated in Edinburgh, had been a longtime advocate for wrongfully imprisoned people before Williams brought her over to the district attorney’s office in 2021 to head the rights division. newly created civilians from his office.

His office was tasked with investigating cold cases, reducing sentences handed down by unanimous juries, and reversing wrongful convictions.

His appointment was one of several moves by Williams that aligned with his progressive philosophy on the criminal justice system, but as the number of murders, carjackings and violent carjackings has risen in the past two years, Williams it has backed down on some policies that include a promise not to charge minors as adults.

Crimes Based On Year To Date Show 2023 Will Be Even Worse Than 2022

New Orleans continues to be a hotbed of crime with murders seeking to break last year’s record.

New Orleans overtook St. Louis as the murder capital of the US in the first half of 2022, as the city struggles with its lowest level of police personnel in modern history amid an officer morale crisis .

In the first six months of 2022, New Orleans had 41 murders per 100,000 residents, a higher homicide rate than any other US city, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Association of Chiefs of Police. Big cities.

By comparison, the first-half homicide 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 most murders in a single year since 1996. The group says that number equates to about 70 homicides per 100,000 residents. .