The St. Augustine High School Purple Knight marching band is good. Real good. We watched them practice after school this week while in New Orleans.
The families of these kids are very proud. And many of them are also relieved; relieved that their kids spend so much time practicing music after school, because it keeps them off the streets.
Life in New Orleans has been tough enough since Hurricane Katrina decimated the city's infrastructure. But as the months wear on, many parents say they their biggest problem may not be the rebuilding, but the rising crime rate that potentially imperils their children.
They say the streets of the Big Easy seem more dangerous these days. Police have even begun random checkpoints where they stop all cars in an effort to clamp down on crime. What's also troubling though is that teens between the ages of 17-19 are a big part of that crime increase, according to Orleans Parish Court officials.
So parents have two concerns: 1) keeping their kids away from troublemakers and 2) keeping their kids out of trouble.
We spent some time talking to a 15-year-old girl who did not want us to use her name. She says her family will no longer let her leave home after the sun goes down. She says she often hears gunshots in her neighborhood, particularly on the weekends, and that she rarely heard them before Katrina.
We also talked with an 18-year-old named John. He says the streets are much more violent now.
"You don't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," he says. But he claims he is not scared.
"Whatever happens is going to happen," he tells me. Not exactly words of inspiration for the worried parents of New Orleans.
