Violent crime on New Orleans' streets has shattered three generations of Carol Alexander's family.
Last week she buried her son, 30-year-old Ted Alexander, who was shot in the back by carjackers. Her husband, Robert, was shot to death 22 years earlier by robbers in his office. Her father-in-law, Anthony, died 45 years ago of a heart attack after being hit over the head by a department store shoplifter."You want the truth: I didn't think it could happen again," she said. "I think I've had more than my share."
A schoolteacher for 22 years, Alexander retired after a youngster pulled a loaded gun in her middle school classroom. The boy was given a year's probation.
Her son's funeral Thursday capped an unusually violent week that left 21 people dead, including four people massacred in a house and a police officer killed during a robbery - with his former partner arrested as the suspect. Four people were wounded by gunfire during a Mardi Gras parade.
New Orleans, a city of 496,938 people, has experienced 80 homicides so far this year and had a record 421 for all of 1994. In comparison, Boston, a city of 574,283, has had 16 homicides so far this year and a total of 85 in 1994.
Last week, Louisiana was named the most dangerous state in the nation by Morgan Quitno Press, which publishes annual reference books of state and city statistical rankings.
Now Alexander wants to leave New Orleans.
"I am tired of losing the people I love to crime," she said.
Her daughter, Shawn Reuther, agrees.
"I am not burying any more of my family because of New Orleans," said Reuther, herself a mother to children 7, 11 and 13 years old. "If I stay here, my children will marry here, stay and go through the same thing."
And Alexander says she's frustrated by the justice system.
"The police do a good job," she said. "It is when it goes to the courts they get off."
A 14-year-old boy who pleaded guilty in her son's death was sentenced to a modified "juvenile life" sentence - meaning he'll be free when he turns 19. The 15-year-old boy who allegedly pulled the trigger has yet to be tried.
The man accused of killing her father-in-law in 1950 was acquitted of manslaughter.
One of the men involved in the 1973 murder of her husband was released from prison after a pardon from Gov. Edwin Edwards. Every two years, the Alexander family goes before the parole board to keep the man who pulled the trigger behind bars. Last time, the parole board was just one vote short of releasing him.
"The people who murdered my father have prison dances and conjugal visits," Reuther said. "All we are doing is paying taxes to support them."