IT WASN'T THE RAIN, BUT THE REGIME:

A violent tempest in New Orleans: As the city struggles to control crime, cases have been bungled, and Dist. Atty. Jordan has become a lightning rod for dissatisfaction. (Miguel Bustillo, July 31, 2007, Los Angeles Times)

The district attorney of this bloodstained city dropped murder charges this month against a man alleged to have massacred five teenagers, saying the sole witness was nowhere to be found.

A day later, an angry New Orleans police chief, who had not been warned that one of the city's most sensational criminal cases was being abandoned, trotted out the supposedly elusive witness at a news conference. He said it took his investigators three hours to locate her by calling a phone number sitting in the case file.

The bungling of the quintuple-murder case — which has outraged New Orleans and led some officials to call for the head of Dist. Atty. Eddie J. Jordan Jr. — illuminates the city's continuing inability to bring even high-profile suspects to justice.

Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina, it has become clear that New Orleans' failure to control violent crime presents an obstacle to the city's repopulation every bit as big as the shortage of affordable rental housing and the slow disbursement of government aid to rebuild homes.

Yet the criminal justice system continues to be plagued by political backbiting, inexplicable communication breakdowns and, in some cases, outright incompetence.