How to keep guns off Bourbon Street? Designate a police station as a school

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How to keep guns off Bourbon Street? Designate a police station as a school

2024-07-02 07:12 Last Updated At：07:21

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A police station in New Orleans' French Quarter will be designated a vocational technical school in a move that will instantly outlaw gun possession in the surrounding area — including a stretch of bar-lined Bourbon Street — as a new Louisiana law eliminating the need for concealed carry firearm permits takes effect.

Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick announced the measure at a Monday news conference at the 8th District police station on the Quarter's Royal Street. However, the move may face legal challenges. The state attorney general raised doubts about the plan.

State law forbids carrying concealed weapons within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of such a facility, Kirkpatrick said. That radius from the station will cover a large section of the Quarter, including several blocks of Bourbon Street.

Kirkpatrick said the station includes a classroom and is used for training. She described the station as a “satellite” of the city’s police academy.

“I wouldn’t call it a work-around,” District Attorney Jason Williams told reporters gathered in the lobby of the two-story, 19th century building. “It’s using laws that have always been on the books to deal with a real and current threat to public safety.”

Designating the 8th District station a school is just one way of giving police officers more leeway to stop and search people suspected of illegally carrying a weapon in the Quarter, Kirkpatrick said.

She also listed other facets of state law that could allow the arrest of someone carrying a weapon in the tourist district. They include bans on carrying a gun in a bar or by anyone with a blood alcohol level of .05%. That’s less than the .08% considered proof of intoxication in drunk-driving cases.

State lawmakers earlier this year passed legislation to make Louisiana one of the latest states to do away with a permit requirement for carrying a concealed handgun. Past efforts to do so were vetoed by former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. But the new Republican governor, Jeff Landry, supported and signed the new law.

Twenty-eight other states have similar laws, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.

Lawmakers rejected repeated pleas from police and city officials to exempt New Orleans entirely or to carve out the French Quarter and other areas well-known for alcohol-fueled revelry. Their refusal set city officials to work finding ways to deal with a possible proliferation of guns in high-traffic areas, said City Council President Helena Moreno.

“Ultimately what we realized was, ‘You know what? What we need is a school,’" Moreno said.

Late Monday, Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill issued an emailed statement critical of the plan.

“I’m working hard to help keep New Orleans safe, but the City cannot avoid state law by unilaterally designating police stations ‘vo-tech locations’ — that’s just not how our community college and vocational-technical system is set up," Murrill said.

Murrill also criticized city officials' announcement that the law, which takes effect Thursday, won't be enforced in New Orleans until Aug. 1, when an existing city firearms ordinance expires. “As to the delay, state law preempts municipal ordinances which conflict so the ordinance yields to state law,” Murrill said.

Italy appeals court upholds conviction of 2 Americans in death of policeman but reduces sentences

2024-07-04 08:56 Last Updated At：09:00

ROME (AP) — An Italian appeals court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of two American men in the killing of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation five years ago but significantly reduced their sentences.

The new verdict, ordered after Italy’s highest court threw out the original convictions, drew acceptance from the men's families and disappointment from the officer's widow.

Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth had been found guilty in the July 2019 killing of Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, and after the first trial, were both sentenced to life in prison, Italy's harshest penalty.

Those sentences were reduced on appeal before Italy’s highest Cassation Court last year ordered a new trial altogether. On Wednesday, the appeals court convicted Finnegan and sentenced him to 15 years and 2 months in prison. Natale-Hjorth was sentenced to 11 years and four months, along with a 800 euro ($863) fine.

“I don’t think we could ask for a reasonable, better decision today,” said Ethan Elder, Finnegan Lee Elder's father.

Teenagers at the time of the killing, the former schoolmates from the San Francisco Bay area had met up in Rome to spend a few days vacationing. The fatal confrontation took place after they arranged to meet a small-time drug dealer, who turned out to have been a police informant, to recover money lost in a bad drug deal. Instead, they were confronted by two officers.

Cerciello Riga was stabbed 11 times with a knife brought from the hotel room.

In ordering the retrial, the Cassation Court said it hadn’t been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants, with limited Italian language skills, had understood that they were dealing with Italian police officers when they went to meet the alleged drug dealer.

The defense had argued that the defendants didn’t know they were facing law enforcement when the attack happened, an argument repeated during the new trial.

Prosecutor Bruno Giangiacomo said his office would wait to read the court's written reasonings before deciding on a possible appeal to the Cassation. In Italy, both defendants and prosecutors can appeal at every level of judgement.

“Both aggravating factors that were increasing the penalty were excluded," Giangiacomo said after the verdict. "This could be a delicate point where we can think about an appeal to the Cassation Court.” Prosecutors had asked that Finnegan be sentenced to 23 years and nine months and Natale-Hjorth to 23 years.

Rosa Maria Esilio, the widow of Cerciello Rega, was “devastated” by the verdict, according to her lawyer Massimo Ferrandino.

“For five years she has been carrying a huge pain. She was the one who closed the eyes of her husband in the morgue. You can imagine her pain today too,” he said.

The killing of the officer in the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps shocked Italy, and the 35-year-old Cerciello Rega was mourned as a national hero.

Prosecutors alleged Elder stabbed Cerciello Rega with a knife that he brought with him on his trip to Europe and that Natale-Hjorth helped him hide in their hotel room. Under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder without carrying out the killing.

But lawyer Francesco Petrelli, who represented Natale-Hjorth, said the appeals court clearly recognized that there was a different level of participation by his client.

“There was a reduction, mainly of the responsibility," he said, adding that “there was a shift from intentional malice to negligence."

Prosecutors contend that the young Americans concocted a plot involving a stolen bag and cellphone after their failed attempt to buy cocaine with 80 euros ($96) in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district. Natale-Hjorth and Elder testified they had paid for the cocaine but didn’t receive it.

In a statement released by lawyers after the new verdicts, Leah Elder, Finnegan Elder’s mother, insisted that her son was prepared to take responsibility for his actions and move on.

“This trial is unfortunately connected to the tragedy of a person’s death, a grave fact that has marked and will forever mark the lives of all the families involved,” she said. “Bringing out the truth of the facts would help Finnegan take full responsibility for the pain he caused with his tragic reaction. I hope that, even as he pays for his mistake, he will also open up to hope for the future.”

Barry reported from Soave, Italy.