New Orleans police responding to a report of shots fired at 9:47 p.m. Tuesday found a man lying face down dead in in the 2900 block of Gen. Taylor Street.

The man had been shot several times in the chest, said NOPD spokesman Officer Garry Flot. EMS medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

The man was found face down among bullet casings on Gen. Taylor between South Claiborne Avenue and Willow Street. Police have no suspects or motive.

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard is calling for a public vote on raising the local sales tax by one-quarter cent, to 9 percent, to improve law enforcement.

Jeremy Steeghs, killed in Michigan car crash

Chalmette High School students are grieving the loss of a senior who died last week while visiting friends in his old hometown in Michigan.

ELLIS LUCIA / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEAshley Snipes, 20, rests after a morning fire badly damaged her small house off South Pontchartrain Drive in Lacombe on Tuesday. Snipes, who lives in the home with her boyfriend and another friend, was alone and asleep at the time of the fire but ran out in time to avoid injury.

A fire apparently triggered by a generator severely damaged a house on South Pontchartrain Drive in Lacombe on Tuesday morning, leaving three residents homeless.

The motorcyclist killed during a Thanksgiving night wreck in Lafitte has been identified as 47-year-old Robert King, according to a Jefferson Parish coroner's spokeswoman.

Chuck Cook / The Times-PicayuneRelatives of murder victim Liz Marinello, including her mother, Bertha Norman, far right, walk to the Lafayette courthouse on Monday.

LAFAYETTE - Jurors got a preview of the prosecution's case against former sportscaster and talk radio personality Vince Marinello this afternoon during the opening statements of his second-degree murder trial now under way in Lafayette.

Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman will hold an 11:30 p.m. news conference today to discuss the details of an investigation that thwarted attempts to smuggle drugs into Orleans Parish Prison, according to a spokesman.

Photo providedMarcus Fleming, 22, was booked with second-degree murder.

St. John the Baptist Parish authorities have arrested a LaPlace man in connection with the fatal shooting of a 28-year-old man Sunday.

A second murder trial for a man accused of killing artist Daniel Breaux during Jazzfest four years ago was postponed today. It had been slated to get under way this morning, but was delayed at the request of defendant John Duncan's lawyers.

Susan Poag/The Times-PicayuneVince Marinello, left, walks into the Jefferson Parish Courthouse in October with his attorney Lee Faulkner Jr. His murder trial begins today in Lafayette.

The high profile murder trial of Vince Marinello, accused of killing his estranged wife in 2006, gets underway this morning in Lafayette and could last as long as two weeks, authorities have speculated.

• See archived coverage of the case

Unable to locate any relatives of a man who was shot to death late Wednesday in Kenner, investigators released his identity Sunday in hopes of finding clues leading to his killer.

Separate shootings in the Lower Garden District and the Carrollton neighborhood sent two unidentified men to the hospital Sunday night, the New Orleans Police Department said.

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneVince Marinello, right, walks into the Jefferson Parish Courthouse in October with his attorney Paul Fleming, Jr. Marinello goes on trial in Lafayette Monday for the murder of his wife, Liz.

Bertha Norman remembers how her son-in-law Vince "Vinnie" Marinello kept copious notes, listing talking points he gathered from news sources in preparing for his radio talk shows.

"It was one of his habits to make check-off lists," said Norman, of Purvis, Miss. "He made checklists all the time."

So she isn't surprised that such a list will be among Jefferson Parish prosecutors' key pieces of evidence when Marinello stands trial this week in the death of her daughter, Liz Marinello.

Three men were shot near the intersection of Chef Menteur Highway and Michoud Boulevard in eastern New Orleans early Friday morning, a police spokesman said.

A man was shot to death Wednesday night in a Kenner neighborhood, and authorities are still searching for a motive and a suspect.

WASHINGTON - Citing constitutional issues of "exceptional importance," Rep. William Jefferson's attorneys Wednesday asked the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to consider dropping 14 of the 16 criminal charges pending against their client.

Preliminary findings of an autopsy on a LaPlace woman found dead Friday reveal that she had been strangled, the St. John the Baptist Parish coroner said.

Ted Jackson / The Times-PicayuneAntoinette Frank is escorted out of the Kim Anh restaurant after the jury was given a tour of the murder scene Sept. 9, 1995.

The Louisiana Supreme Court has canceled the Dec. 8 execution date for convicted killer Antoinette Frank, who remains on death row for the 1995 triple murder at the Kim Anh restaurant in eastern New Orleans.

Newly elected Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro appeared in court this morning, successfully arguing to continue a high-profile murder case until January and promising to assign prosecutors "on a permanent basis" to each section at the Criminal District Court.

Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies believe a half-dozen robberies in Terrytown may have been committed by the same group, which include members as young as 15.

A former employee of a Slidell medical practice is behind bars in Picayune, Miss., on suspicion of stealing a doctor's pad, writing dozens of fake prescriptions and selling the pills.

Albert Woodfox

A federal judge Tuesday ordered the state to release one of the "Angola 3" inmates, freeing Albert Woodfox from a maximum security prison cell for the first time in 37 years.

Woodfox, 61, awaits his third trial for the 1972 murder of a Louisiana Penitentiary guard -- a stabbing that rocked the prison at Angola, La., during an already tumultuous time when Woodfox and others were organizing as Black Panthers to end inmate-gang rapes and other violence.

A former employee of a Slidell medical practice is behind bars in Picayune, Miss., after allegedly stealing a doctor's pad, writing dozens of fake prescriptions and selling the pills.

Joseph Cammatte

Metairie murder suspect Joseph Cammatte is back in Louisiana to face charges in the drug-related beating of a construction worker at a Focis Street house.

Extradited from California, Cammatte, 30, of 3724 Laurel St., New Orleans, was booked Thursday with first-degree murder at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna, a Sheriff's Office arrest report said. Los Angeles police arrested him Nov. 15 after a chase involving cars and a police helicopter.

Louisiana State PoliceIn this 1953 photo, Louisiana State Police Superintendent Francis Grevemberg swings a sledge hammer at a slot machine at state police headquarters in Baton Rouge. Grevemberg died today. He was 94.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Francis Grevemberg, a former state police superintendent who led a sledgehammer-swinging crackdown against illegal gambling in Louisiana in the 1950s, has died of respiratory problems after surgery for a broken hip. He was 94.

A well-known fishing guide was killed overnight in a single vehicle crash in St. Bernard Parish, authorities said.

A man found dead inside of a burning pickup truck Monday evening likely became ill and crashed his truck, according to authorities.

WASHINGTON -- It's now official. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, won't go to trial this year on his 16-count corruption indictment.

That was confirmed last week when trial Judge T.S. Ellis III scheduled a status hearing in the case for Dec. 19, 17 days after the trial was slated to begin. The hearing notice was posted on the Web site of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., on Monday.

The unidentified body of a man was found in a truck that had been set afire and left in a grassy area off Hayne Boulevard a few blocks west of the Industrial Canal, police said.

TED JACKSON/THE TIMES-PICAYUNEOrleans Parish District Attorney-Elect Leon Cannizzaro, right and NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley address the media Monday, November 24, 2008 after a national study named New Orleans the most violent city in the country. The annual crime ranking, compiled by researchers and published by CQ Press, examined statistics for six major types of crime in nearly 400 cities.

After a two-hour meeting Monday at police headquarters, Police Superintendent Warren Riley and newly sworn-in District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro pledged "better cooperation" between the agencies which have for decades clashed over cases.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office today announced the indictment of 31-year-old Mark Anthony Ott on one count of second degree murder in the June 2007 beating death of French Quarter hair salon owner Robin Malta.

The St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office said a woman admitted fatally shooting her boyfriend through a pillow as he slept early Monday.

A New Orleans grand jury today announced the indictment of 31-year-old Mark Anthony Ott for first degree murder in the June 2007 beating death of French Quarter hair salon owner Robin Malta, according to the office of Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro.

Michael DeMocker, The Times-PicayuneNew Orleans police investigate the slaying of a 24-year-old man on Friday near Cambronne and Spruce streets. The city tops a new survey of the nation's most violent urban areas in a study released today.

Long known as an American murder capital, New Orleans also has the highest rate of overall crime in the country, according to a high-profile and controversial study released Monday.

A map showing the top 10 most crime-plagued cities in the United States.

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-PicayuneDistrict Attorney Leon Cannizzaro talks with NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley at the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation luncheon last week.

A week after officially taking office, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro is scheduled to meet today with New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley to begin establishing a relationship many see as essential to the success of the city's criminal justice system.

A New Orleans man suspected of planting a bomb in a car that exploded in Irish Channel Sunday morning was apprehended by New Orleans police hours after the blast and was found to have bomb-making materials stockpiled inside his residence.

G. Andrew Boyd / The Times-PicayuneAn Abita Springs tanker unit dumps water into a pool used by a pumper engine as fire equipment blocks two-lane Highway 21 north of Covington. A Baton Rouge man and his son were killed when fire heavily damaged a house at 73212 Highway 21 north of Covington early Sunday morning, also known locally as Military Road, completely blocking the highway for several hours as firefighters fought the blaze. About a dozen firefighting units from Fire District 12, Abita Springs and surrounding units pitched in to help.

A Baton Rouge man and his 3-year-old son were killed in a house fire near Covington early Sunday, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said.

A man was shot to death in an apparent robbery Friday evening in a parking lot in Kenner, Kenner police said.

A New Orleans jury deliberated just 50 minutes Friday before acquitting 22-year-old Louis Daniels of gunning down a 27-year-old man in front of his family's Gallier Street apartment last summer.

New Orleans police just arrived on the scene of a shooting with multiple people wounded. Details are not yet available, but officers have swarmed the area near Spruce and Cambronne streets in the Carrollton neighborhood.

Stay with Nola.com as the story develops

A 33-year-old man shot Wednesday evening in West Carrollton neighborhood died from his wounds early Thursday morning, and now, it is up to his family to raise the three children he left behind.

Harry F. Connick

Below is a letter to the editor written by Former New Orleans District Attorney Harry F. Connick:

Re: "Lack of police report dooms cases," Page 1A, Nov. 20. Police Superintendent Warren Riley should be fired. And the district attorney should charge him with malfeasance.

A teary-eyed but tough 73-year-old mayor of Madisonville called it "justice" Thursday afternoon after a St. Tammany Parish jury found Charles Holcombe guilty of robbing him outside his restaurant in 2006.

An 18-year-old St. Rose man out on bond in an armed robbery charge is considered the prime suspect in two St. Charles Parish slayings, Sheriff Greg Champagne said Thursday.