New Orleans logged the lowest number of killings in 47 years during 2018, but an analyst notes that the murder rate remains among the nation’s highest.
    
The 145 homicides in the city in 2018 marked the lowest total since 116 in 1971. It also marked the second drop in a row: from 174 in 2016 to 157 in 2017 and 145 last year.
    
The murder rate is about 37 per 100,000 residents. Crime analyst and City Council consultant Jeff Asher tells The New Orleans Advocate that’s at best fourth-highest, and it would take a further significant reduction for New Orleans to drop to No. 5.
    
LSU Health criminologist Peter Scharf tells WVUE-TV that New Orleans’ murder rate has been flat for four years.