‘WSJ’ highlights B.R.’s rising murder rate

Baton Rouge is not alone in being a medium-sized city combating a rising murder rate, as The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend on its front page, focusing on the March shooting of Silas Gibbs Jr., a former star Clinton running back who died at age 24. The “vast majority” of the killings “will be over nonsense,” East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III tells the newspaper. While there have been 73 killings across the city-parish this year, four or five of those have been ruled as justifiable, Moore tells the Daily Report. “The number is high; just in the city we are 28% higher than we were last year,” Moore says. “I don’t think we’re going to be the highest ever, but I think we’re heading in that direction.” Moore says the Wall Street Journal story focused on Baton Rouge because of the senselessness surrounding Gibbs’ death, which exemplifies patterns of violence among young black men in small- and medium-sized cities nationwide. Gibbs’ longtime friend Walter Fort allegedly killed him. The story also focuses on Baton Rouge’s effort to curb violence with Project BRAVE. Moore says the city-parish has experienced success in stemming group-on-group violence, but killings over “stupid stuff,” such as arguments, are on the rise. “It could be over a dime bag of marijuana,” Moore says. To read the WSJ story, click here (subscription may be required). —Adam Pearson