RIP Will Smith (Football Player)

[silverscreenselect]

Not the actor but the former New Orleans Saint defensive end who played ten years with the team, including in their Super Bowl season. He was shot and killed after a traffic accident after a Hummer rear ended Smith's Mercedes. Smith exchanged words with the driver of the Mercedes who then shot him. The other driver has been arrested for murder and had been convicted two years earlier of illegal possession of a firearm and drug paraphernalia.

This story is sad on a number of levels. Smith was 34; the man arrested was 28.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nf ... /82861242/

[lilclyde54]

I have been to New Orleans multiple times every year since my freshman year of college. (1972) I love the city and have walked it's streets at all hours of the day and night without incident over four decades. I was down there for 3 nights two weeks ago. Having said all that, New Orleans is a much more dangerous place than it was even five years ago. I now take precautions that I would have laughed at during my early days. While New Orleans always had pockets of dangerous turf, the violence is no longer limited to those areas. When you have shootings at two in the afternoon on Canal Street, no place in the city is immune to this stupid dangerous behavior. I hate it for the city because it is truly a one of a kind place.