NEW ORLEANS– New Orleans Police Department, plagued by corruption for decadesinsists More than a decade of federal oversight is finally coming to an endamid lingering memories of a 1994 murder on the orders of a corrupt cop and an attempted cover-up in the 2005: murder of unarmed civilians.
Critics of the department are expected to voice their opposition to lifting court-ordered federal oversight at a hearing Tuesday in federal court, likely raising concerns before a federal judge about racial disparities in the use of violence by the police. poor handling of sexual crimes and poor community involvement.
The extent to which federal oversight has meaningfully changed the NOPD is especially relevant because a cadre of senior former NOPD officers and one of the attorneys overseeing the city’s consent decree are now responsible for managing a reform plan on state level for the Minneapolis Police Department in the region. wake of The murder of George Floyd.
In 2011, the Ministry of Justice conducted an investigation evidence found of racial bias, misconduct and a culture of impunity in the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). Two years later, the city of New Orleans started working on it described as “the nation’s most comprehensive” federal oversight plan — a reform pact known as a consent decree — to restore the city’s police force.
NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said in an interview that the department has achieved these goals: “We built that system.” If the federal judge agrees to the city and Justice Department’s motion to terminate the consent decree filed in September, the NOPD will remain under federal supervision for an additional two years.
Nearly everyone is willing to acknowledge that today’s NOPD is in many ways a transformed department. But a series of prominent community activists and watchdogs say the NOPD still isn’t ready to give up federal oversight.
Stella Cziment, head of the Office of the Independent Police Monitor, a civilian-run city agency, said that while the NOPD has made significant progress in improving its internal policies and leadership, it has focused more on meeting federal benchmarks and not enough as a whole. to work with community members to reimagine the department.
“I think the danger of the consent decree is that we lose sight of who the real audience of these police reforms should be,” Cziment said. “And ultimately, it is the community that will be served by the NOPD that needs to feel included by the NOPD, heard by the NOPD. And I cannot say today that that has been achieved.”
In recent years, the NOPD and the city of New Orleans have struggled allegations of payroll frauda high-profile indictment for corruption involving the mayor’s bodyguard and a backlog of unresolved rape cases, among other issues raised by watchdogs.
Despite these ongoing problems, Rafael Goyeneche, president of a local anti-corruption nonprofit, the Metropolitan Crime Commission, said federal oversight of the NOPD and its more than 900 members should be viewed as a “success story” — especially in light of the efforts of the department. history.
“Unfortunately, there will probably never be a day in a department of this size where some officers break the rules, and some officers don’t cross the line,” Goyeneche said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean the entire department is corrupt or mismanaged.”
Federal observers have said the consent decree should be seen as the floor, not the ceiling, for policing in New Orleans.
Jonathan Aronie, the lead federal monitor, has praised the NOPD for improving its policies, training and auditing. The department now produces accurate data that allows auditors — and the public — to better monitor police practices and strengthen accountability, he said.
“As we look at the collection of all this data, we no longer see a practice pattern of unconstitutional behavior,” Aronie said at a public meeting on Oct. 28.
For many residents of a city that is just over 50% black, distrust of the NOPD runs deep, and the department’s data continues to show troubling disparities. Nearly 90% of all cases of police use of force last year were against black people, the city’s Office of the Independent Police Monitor reported.
More than a decade ago, the Justice Department investigation revealed similar rates of racial disparities in the use of force against Black people, as well as disproportionate arrest rates, calling for “a thorough investigation and meaningful response” from the NOPD.
“If we have not achieved the goal, why would we eliminate a structure that protects the civil rights of New Orleans citizens?” Rachel Taber, organizer of local immigrant rights group Unión Migrante, said.
Confronted by community activists at a recent public meeting with data pointing to these racial disparities, Aronie said federal oversight focused on improving police policies and structures given “the difficulties of resolving bias in the same way as it exists in almost every institution in the US’.
“I would like to live in a city where these real-world disparities are reflected in the statistics before the NOPD leaves oversight,” said Zunyana Crier, an activist with the group New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police.
The NOPD chief said in an interview that the department takes the data on racial disparities “extremely seriously” and continues to investigate the reasons for it.
“When we see differences, we ask the question: is there a bias behind the inequality? Not all differences equal bias,” Kirkpatrick said.
Federal oversight ordered biennial surveys of New Orleanians’ experiences with and perceptions of the NOPD, but an updated survey has not been released since 2019 due to COVID-19-related public health concerns according to federal monitors, making it difficult to fully assess how residents give their opinions. police department.
The city of New Orleans has also fallen short in fully implementing plans for community advisory councils, intended to give residents in various neighborhoods the opportunity to provide feedback directly to the NOPD. That program had largely been left to “wither and die,” NOPD Deputy Superintendent Nicholas Gernon acknowledged at a recent public meeting, though he said the city planned to fix the problem.
WC Johnson, a longtime community activist who opposes ending the consent decree, said he and others have grown cynical over the years about the NOPD’s willingness to work with residents: “If you’re not taken seriously , if you are not involved, why waste time?”
Groups responsible for policing have also raised concerns about the lack of accessibility of the Spanish and Vietnamese languages in the months-long period of public comment — given the two groups’ large presence in the city — after the city filed a motion to abolish federal oversight.
And they have said at public meetings that they believe some on the federal monitoring team and the NOPD have significant incentives to portray their decade-long work in New Orleans in a positive light.
At a sparsely attended public meeting on October 29, a member of the federal monitoring team, Ashley Burns, openly criticized her colleague, Deputy Monitor David Douglass, along the same lines. Douglass, an attorney whose nonprofit Effective Law Enforcement for All won a contract this year to oversee the state-mandated Minneapolis police reform plan, has hired a string of former NOPD personnel into his organization.
“I agree with the community, I think it’s a big, big, big conflict of interest among a lot of other ethical and integrity issues,” Burns told Douglass at the meeting. “You don’t care about Minneapolis or the people of New Orleans.”
Douglass has denied any conflict of interest and defended the NOPD’s evolution in a brief interview: “Many of the practices here serve as a model for the nation and for other departments.”
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Associated Press reporter Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this report.
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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on social platform X: @jack_brook96