Cresent City

"let's look at New Orleans before Katrina. Start with crime. That looters ran unchecked after the hurricane isn't surprising when you consider that criminals have had the run of the city for years. It is a perennial contender for Murder Capital. The 264 homicides last year were a drop of only 11 from 2003 - and the first decline in five years. New Orleans, with fewer than 500,000 people, had almost half the murders of New York, which had 570 homicides last year in a city of more than 8 million. Put another way, if New York had New Orleans' murder rate, we would have more than 4,200 murders a year. That the New Orleans police are hardly the Finest was proven by a shocking report yesterday: Nearly a third of New Orleans cops - some 500 of the 1,600 - are now unaccounted for. The department says some quit, but it doesn't know where most of them are. The top cop, Eddie Compass, has responded by offering all officers paid vacations to Las Vegas and Atlanta. Yes, that's right - he is pulling all cops off the street, even while bodies lie in the open. Never in New York.