Storm Of Murder

Breakdown Of New Orleans' Infrastructure Escalates City's Murder Rate

(CBS)  Just days before Helen was murdered, another killing would rock New Orleans: Dinerral Shavers was shot on Dec. 28, 2006.

Dinerral, just like Helen, knew what he wanted to be from a very young age. Growing up in the tough Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Shamarr Allen and Dinerral were best friends. Along with their buddy Joe Williams, music was their playground.

"He was playing drums and I was playing the trumpet," Shamarr remembers. "We wanted the same thing, we wanted to be good at music."

They were all barely into their teens when they were asked to join the "Hot 8" brass band.

"And every morning he would wake up and play the drum and wake everybody up. I mean, he was really into it," remembers Dinerral's mother Yolande. "I was very proud of him. And when I first went to one of their performances, I was like, 'Oh, this band is amazing.'"

By the mid-1990's, Hot 8 was growing into a musical force in New Orleans. "We used to go out in the French Quarter on the weekend and play on the corners. It was cool, it was real cool," Shamarr remembers.

The band started to tour the country, and cut CDs. At the same time, Dinerral was also going to college and paying the bills with a variety of jobs. For a time he was a civil sheriff.

But the violent crime that has always plagued New Orleans took its toll on him. "He would get very upset when, every time he call, 'Mama, there's another murder in the city,'" Yolande remembers.

And then in August 2004, his close friend Joe Williams was shot and killed by New Orleans police officers. Dinerral, in uniform, was at the scene, where he talked to a news crew. "Something needs to be done about this. It’s a damn shame. It’s the third police shooting in three days," he told the crew.

It was Joe's death that inspired Dinerral to write a song that challenged the people of New Orleans. "I have a song that I wrote, entitled 'Get Up.' It’s about stopping the violence. I mean, stopping the violence and let's get up and dance," Dinerral said in a video.

"When I first learned the words, it just broke me down. It was a part he say, 'My people keep the peace. Bring this murder rate down,'" remembers Chad Honore, who plays the trumpet in Hot 8.

But the music stopped with Katrina. Dinerral's relatives, like so many others, were scattered across the country. So was the band. A few months after the storm, in Atlanta, Ga., Hot 8 reunited.

"The most important thing is playing music, being together. It’s just us being Hot 8, that’s the most important thing," Dinerral said in a video.

And so by Mardi Gras 2006, the band was back and playing a part in the rebirth of their city. Dinerral wanted to do more -- he believed music could teach.

"Dinerral began working with us as a day to day substitute at the school," remembers Kevin George, the principal of Robouin High School.

In the fall of 2006, he was trying desperately just to provide basic education for hundreds of kids from all over New Orleans. "At the beginning of the school year we had no textbooks and we had trouble staffing our school with teachers," George remembers.

Dinerral had bigger plans, telling George that he wanted to start a band at the school, despite that there wasn't a single instrument in the entire school. It wasn't a problem to Dinerral. He was sure he could get instruments, but now he had to get the kids.

"And he saw me in the hallway and he say, 'You wanna be in the band?' I was like, 'Yeah, be in a band, who you is?' And he said, 'I'm the new band director,'" remembers Devon, one of the more than 70 kids who gave up their lunch hours and stayed after school to be part of Dinerral's band.

"You know how you want to talk to somebody but you don’t to talk to your parents, you could go talk to Mr. Shavers," remembers another one of Shavers' students, Rufus.

"Dinerral touched so many people," says Dinerral’s sister Nakita. "That was his purpose in life, to try to reach, you know, these kids."

Dinerral, at only 25, had a lot going on. He had a six-year-old son, DJ. And he had recently married and added two stepchildren to his family.