Louisiana Sheriff's Suggestion Upsets Blacks

By MARY FOSTER (Associated Press Writer)

From Associated Press October 27, 2006 11:30 PM EDT

GRETNA, La. - An outspoken sheriff in suburban New Orleans has again upset black leaders, this time by suggesting deputies would stop, search and run background checks on young black males congregating in high-crime areas.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said Friday he was abandoning the plan, but made no apologies for it during a joint news conference with Dannatus King, president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"I would prefer to prevent murder rather than solve a murder. But apparently not everyone feels that way," Lee said.

"There are no other people in this community more worried about solving crime and preventing murder than the black community. But not by stopping black people and harassing them for doing nothing," King responded.

The number of murders has increased in Jefferson Parish this year - 45 between Jan. 1 and Oct. 26, compared with 27 for the same period in 2005. Twenty-nine of the victims and 30 of the suspects have been black.

Lee has said the increase coincides with population shifts following Hurricane Katrina, saying drug trafficking has moved from devastated New Orleans to areas that suffered less damage.

Lt. Kenneth Jones, the sheriff's liaison with the black community, said he had urged the sheriff to make the random stops as a means of helping get guns off street.

"I support him and strongly recommend that we do what we have to do to take the weapons off the streets," said Jones, who is black.

In his 26th year as sheriff, Lee is a blunt-talking, country music loving Chinese-American whose resume includes work in the 1960s for Hale Boggs, the late Louisiana congressman who was an early supporter of racial integration.

Yet Lee's tenure has been marked by his rocky relationship with black leaders in and around his predominantly white parish, which dates to 1986, when white, upper-class neighborhoods were hit by a series of robberies in which two young black men robbed people in their driveways.

"If we see two young blacks driving a rinky-dink car in a predominantly white neighborhood, they'll be stopped," Lee said at the time.

Despite the latest disagreement, Lee said he would continue working with the NAACP to seek ways to reduce violent crime, including funding youth programs with tax dollars.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.