New Orleans, one of the most deadly cities in America, shockingly overnight became one of the only places with no murders reported for the last two weeks, its longest non-lethal streak in a decade. WDSU TV reported the information from the New Orleans Police Department.

Now I dare to make a connection between this latest trend and a crime-fighting group I’m involved with. This new coalition involves local, state, and federal lawmakers, law enforcement, prosecutors, attorneys, clergymen, business people, educators, community activists, and ordinary citizens who meet at a local church. Some in the group have connections on and in the streets. The goals include combining prayer, planning, law enforcement, education, community outreach programs, and community action to fight crime.

We’ve heard it all before. Over the years, many forces have tried to defeat the element of crime in New Orleans, a pariah for a city that care forgot. A valued, historical city that a federal government forgot to care for. A truly loving city that’s portrayed as a model of decadence, poverty, corruption, and violence.

If we are to address crime in New Orleans, it will take the right, consolidated, moves. Not just talk, or a march on city hall, or finger-pointing. It will take prayer, coordination, planning, and people getting involved. Not taking the law in their own hands, but working with the law, not against it. And if they want to work for the law, well – that’s fine, too.

The well-intended motivation and determination of this new band of crimefighters has yet to be tested. But strangely enough, what makes this group seem to stand apart is that topics of discussion ironically appear to be – astonishingly and ironically – subtly addressed within weeks after each meeting.

For example, soon after a discussion about drug abuse, and availability of drugs, among them prescription pills, a raid of two “pain clinics” that distributed pills without prescriptions resulted in arrests and shut them down. At another meeting, one of the topics was an unnamed “most wanted” criminal. Within a week, police were issuing new public warrants for the arrest of a “most wanted” in the Christmas Day murders of two young men on an uptown street.

Then there was the “40-day moratorium” ( for the lent season) on murders in New Orleans, proposed by members of the crime-fighting group, which held its second meeting 15 days ago. Which brings me to the news that post-Katrina New Orleans should be proud of: FOR 15 DAYS THERE HAS NOT BEEN ONE MURDER IN THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS, THE LONGEST NON-LETHAL STREAK IN A DECADE (disclaimer: at least up to the time of this writing). You do the math.

Nope, no one was killed after the NBA All-Star game (though there was an unrelated shooting miles away hours after the game). Quite a few other cities have reported murders, but for the city synonymous with bloodshed, maybe – just MAYBE – for once, with death hopefully enjoying a holiday away from the city, New Orleans can have something to really be proud of.