Mardi Gras brings joy - but also worry over violent crime
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans’ annual Carnival season entered its ebullient crescendo Tuesday with thousands of revelers gathering in the French Quarter and lining miles of parade routes in a citywide Mardi Gras celebration underpinned this year by violent crime concerns and political turmoil.
Celebrations began before dawn in some parts of the city. TV crews captured images of The North Side Skull and Bones gang — skeleton-costumed revelers — spreading out through the Treme area to awaken people for Mardi Gras. As the sun rose, peaking through breaks in the cloudy sky, parade watchers were already claiming spots along the St. Charles Avenue parade route. Barbecue smells wafted through the Central Business District.
Revelers were undeterred by violence that marred a glitzy weekend parade. Gunfire that broke out during a parade Sunday night left a teenager dead and four others injured, including a 4-year-old girl. Police quickly arrested Mansour Mbodj, 21, for illegally carrying a weapon, then upgraded the charge to second-degree murder.
Officials stressed Monday that the shooting was an isolated event.
“It’s discouraging, but it’s not going to stop me from coming,” said Roz Walker, 55. She and her friend Tracy Dunbar are Baton Rouge residents who were among the crowd awaiting the parades of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club and the Rex Organization. They have been visiting New Orleans on Mardi Gras for decades.
“In our 40-plus years of coming to Mardi Gras we’ve never been involved in a situation at all,” she said.
First-time Mardi Gras participant Ken Traylor of Houston had heard about the shooting, but shrugged it off. “I just think you have to be careful with your surroundings,” he said. “Things happen nowadays everywhere.”
There was no sign of political rancor as NOLA Mayor LaToya Cantrell watched St. Charles Avenue parades from a restricted access reviewing stand with city council members in front of Gallier Hall, the 19th century Greek Revival style building that once served as City Hall. She greeted Zulu’s parade leaders with hearty shouts of “Hail Zulu!” in a traditional mayoral tribute.
It was a continuous costume party along French Quarter streets, where carnival revelers typically gather for a more naughty experience. And some costumes were topical.
Jerome FitzGibbons wore a phony nose, mustache and glasses and carried binoculars as he strolled Chartres Street with a large white sphere strapped to the top of his head — he was a Chinese spy balloon. He and his similarly-clad wife, Jennifer, moved to New Orleans from New Jersey.
“This is our kind of crazy,” she said.
Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is the culmination of Carnival season, which officially begins each year on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, and closes with the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday.
New Orleans’ raucous celebration is the nation’s most well-known, but the holiday is also celebrated throughout much of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. Mobile, Alabama, lays claim to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the country.