New Orleans is a city marked by tragedy. But don’t call locals resilient

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — She ran around in silver sparkling shoes, her faux chainmail tunic shimmering in the freezing breeze, maneuvering horses made of paper mâché, a giant green dragon, and sheep constructed from milk cartons.

Antoinette de Alteriis was preparing with hundreds of others to put on the Joan of Arc parade, a joyous, freewheeling kickoff to Carnival season.

Just a few blocks away, people wept and laid flowers and crosses at the site of a horrific truck attack that killed 14 people only six days earlier. A memorial to the dead stretched for half a block.

“That’s a hard thing. How do you reconcile that with having a parade?” de Alteriis said. “Here’s how we reconcile it: We chose hope.”

Countless times in the past week, politicians and outsiders have praised the city for its ability to bounce back. New Orleans has faced tragedy again and again, perhaps more than any other American place.

Locals wince when people praise the city’s “resilience.” They say they're exhausted at being asked to endure the systemic problems and inequities and government failures.

Mark Schettler, a veteran bartender, said he prefers to think of this parade, and all the ones that will come after it, as an act of defiance that inspires others to follow, to act. That, he said, is what the city needs most right now.

“We’re so sick and tired of having to be resilient. How about for once things just work?" Schettler said. “But as long as I have two middle fingers I will always be waving them around defiantly.”

Schettler watched the parade from the Double Club on Chartres Street, at a party reserved for people in the service industry. It was his 39th birthday -- he had a stack of dollar bills pinned to his chest, a New Orleans birthday tradition -- but there was a bittersweet tinge to the celebration.

Schettler grabbed random people at the bar and quizzed them: What’s the R word that you hate the most? Most knew the answer right away.

“Resilience?” said service industry worker Andy Pratt. “Pay us! We’re sick of being resilient.”

“It’s not fair to be judged by your ability to navigate trauma,” said Dominic Hernandez, the club’s co-owner with his wife Cierra.

“It is so dismissive,” said Cierra Hernandez.

“It’s honestly insulting,” said Rafaela Lopez, a tattoo artist and bartender.

They were given little choice but to keep moving: Bourbon Street reopened a mere 36 hours after the carnage, before all the bodies had yet been identified by the coroner. The Sugar Bowl was delayed, but by less than 24 hours. Officials, eager to move forward, plugged the upcoming Super Bowl.

Many people who work as waiters, bartenders or dancers in the French Quarter had to go back to work the day after the attack.

Still grappling with the bloodshed in their streets, some said they felt forced into a state of resiliency by leaders prioritizing those who visit the city, over locals’ need for time and space to heal. Louisiana relies on tourism, with 42.6 million visitors in 2022 generating $17.1 billion.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who oversees Louisiana’s marketing and tourism efforts, said that while he understands the need for time to mourn, he also recognizes that the state needs tourism dollars to survive.

“Those tourism dollars are what keeps the rest of the city and the rest of the state working,” Nungesser said. “How we shine for the Super Bowl will affect tourism for years to come."

And although some view the return to normalcy as resilience, others don't share that view or see it as a compliment. It’s a forced state of being that requires nothing of anyone but the people who are hurting.

Dressed in leopard print with glitter sparkling all over her cheeks, Lopez said the only real resilience is in the support that the community has for itself.

“The only people who take care of each other is us,” Lopez said.

Someone brought out shots for the table, and they all raised a glass. They laughed and made a toast: “To resilience, y’all!”

It's been just 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and in the decades since there have been more hurricanes, the BP oil spill, and spasms of violence. The city had the highest per-capita homicide rate in the nation in 2022. The numbers have decreased in the years since, but residents still say violence is so ingrained in city life, they’re often numb to it.

On New Year’s Day, just hours after the carnage on Bourbon Street, the owner of a Vietnamese supermarket was gunned down in a robbery. Thanh Vu, a mother of six and widely known as Ms. Maria, was described to the local media as a “beloved matriarch.” Two others were killed in separate shootings that same day: 19-year-old Kayron Hall and 41-year-old Percy Baytop.

“Things keep happening here — hurricanes, floods, now a terrorist attack. We’re just expected to dust ourselves off and keep going,” said New Orleans native Julie Laskay.

De Alteriis said she still has post-traumatic stress disorder from surviving Hurricane Katrina. She spent months after living in a makeshift shelter with her elderly mother, her son and two cats, and still gets pangs of fear when a bad storm rolls in, a compulsion to check in with friends – the same instinct she felt after the attack on New Year’s Day.

Some people have criticized Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Chief of Police Anne Kirkpatrick for leaving the French Quarter vulnerable on New Year’s Eve; the city was in the midst of replacing the steel barriers, leaving a security gap that gave the attacker an entry onto the street. The mayor later admitted she remains unsure if the expensive new barriers would be able to stop a similar vehicle attack.

The parade marched on. It was a motley assembly of hundreds of volunteers, smaller than in past years, from retirees who had participated for nearly two decades to twentysomethings who signed up on a whim for the first time ever.

Spectators expressed gratitude for the knights, monks, angels and others who had donned their elaborate costumes in near-freezing weather: “Thank y’all!” “Y’all look so great!” “Gorgeous!” Strangers smiled at each other, friends reconnected and hugged along the route and the warmth of the moment seemed to hold the city together.

Hannah Miller held a sign reading “I love you New Orleans”″ with little lights around it.

“Tonight felt almost like a protest or a rally,” she said. “Because love is bigger than fear.”

It felt, some said, like a light in the darkness.

Wren Misbach, a marcher dressed in a silvery tunic, viewed it as an act of service to the city she loves.

“We take care of ourselves here,” Misbach said. “We rise again, we live to fight another day, we put ourselves back together.”

Yasin Frank Southall and his friends celebrated in a most New Orleans fashion: Pouring out free hot toddies and slicing king cake for anyone who passed.

“Going back to normalcy is really important. It’s about tradition, it’s about love,” said Southall, a 42-year-old community engagement manager for a housing organization.

As the parade wound to a close, Kathleen Ford, a 56-year-old realtor draped in a pink and white coat with a bejeweled felt crown, called out to the marchers: “Pray hard!”

She had to be here tonight despite the cold, despite how tired she was of bouncing back ever since she lost her house beneath 10 feet of water after Hurricane Katrina. A former French Quarter resident, her favorite bar was just a block away from where the attack happened.

This parade, she said, isn’t about resilience. It's about the city, and what it means, its beauty, its pain, its grit.

“It’s what we do, it’s part of our DNA, my DNA,” Ford said. “It’s the soul of my heart and soul of New Orleans.”

As the parade ended before her, a procession of angels brought up the rear, their white-gloved hands clasped in prayer to the tune of Hallelujah.

They marched through a flutter of confetti and flashing blue police lights.

Galofaro reported from Louisville, KY, and Cline from Baton Rouge, La. Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96. Follow Cline on the social platform X: @SaraLCline.

Marchers in the Joan of Arc parade on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in New Orleans, hold aloft a banner with a quote from the French saint. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Antoinette de Alteriis, co-captain of the Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc, organizes volunteers before the start of the Joan of Arc parade on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Antoinette de Alteriis gathers props in preparation for the Joan of Arc parade Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in New Orleans' French Quarter. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Volunteers carry a makeshift dragon through the streets of New Orleans famed French Quarter for the Joan of Arc parade kicking off the start of the city's carnival season Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

A marcher in the Joan of Arc parade carries a wheel symbolizing the sainthood of St. Catherine at the Joan of Arc parade on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

A person dressed as Joan of Arc rides a horse during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Parade-goers walk during during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A woman holds a torch during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Parade-goers dressed as angels walk during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A person dressed as Joan of Arc holds a sword on-top of a horse during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A person dressed as Joan of Arc holds a sword on-top of a horse during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Parade-goers walk during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Parade attendees toast to victims of the deadly New Years truck attack, during the annual Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc parade, kicking off the Mardi Gras season, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) — In the final weeks of her life, a man Kristil Krug believed to be her ex-boyfriend sent her threatening and lewd texts and emails that made her think she was being watched. He knew the registration stickers on her license plates were expired and that she had been to the dentist one day, according to investigators.

But shortly before Kristil Krug was found beaten and stabbed in the heart in her suburban Denver home, her marriage was “all but over," and she thought it was possible that her husband, Daniel Krug, might actually behind the messages, a prosecutor said Friday during opening statements in his trial.

"She was putting the pieces together, and he was running out of time,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Kate Armstrong told jurors about why prosecutors believe Daniel Krug waited for his wife in their garage and attacked her after she returned from dropping off two of their three children at school on Dec. 14, 2023. She said he then used his wife's phone to send texts, including one in which she claimed to have been having an affair, before driving to his job at the state health department, Armstrong said.

But defense lawyer Joe Morales said there was no physical evidence linking Daniel Krug, 44, to the violent killing, noting that there was no blood found in his car or his clothes, which his daughter said were the same he was wearing when he drove her to the bus stop that morning. None of Daniel Krug's DNA was found at the scene, though partial DNA from an unknown person was found on her neck, he said.

Morales alleged that sloppy police work had failed to keep Kristil Krug, a biochemical engineer, safe and then bungled the investigation into her death. The detective who investigated the stalking that Kristil Krug had first reported in October 2023 was lazy and incompetent, he said. He also said that police failed to test Kristil Krug's phone for fingerprints even though they allege that Daniel Krug sent texts from it after killing her.

Morales urged jurors to find Daniel Krug not guilty of first-degree murder, stalking and criminal impersonation and serve as a “barrier” against an unjust conviction.

“You’re the last link in this awful train for this family,” he said.

According to investigators, the email account that was used to send messages to Kristil Krug was created on the computer network at Daniel Krug's workplace. A burner phone that was used to send some of the texts, purchased with a gift card registered to Daniel Krug, was often found to have been in the same general location as his phone, Armstrong said.

Three of the home's surveillance camera. which Kristil Krug’s mother said she installed because of the recent stalking, were not recording when she was found, according to Daniel Krug's arrest affidavit. The one in the garage was covered with tape. Morales said the tape also had DNA from an unknown source.

Prosecutors say Daniel Krug told police that he thought the ex-boyfriend was to blame for her killing. But after police confirmed that man was at home in Utah, an eight-hour drive away, when his wife was killed, he said maybe Kristil Krug was having affairs, Armstrong said.

“It’s always the husband," Armstrong quoted Daniel Krug as telling detectives as she said he rolled his eyes.

The ex-boyfriend is set to testify during the trial, which is expected to last two more weeks.

An image of the home in which Kristi Krug was found stabbed and beaten to death taken April 1, 2025, in Broomfield, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

An image of the home, right, in which Kristi Krug was found stabbed and beaten to death taken April 1, 2025, in Broomfield, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

FILE - In this undated image provided by the Broomfield Police Department, Colo., shows Daniel Krug. (Broomfield Police via AP, File)

An image of the home in which Kristi Krug was found stabbed and beaten to death is seen April 1, 2025, in Broomfield, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)