Council approves a 5% pay raise for NOPD
1st December 2014 · 0 Comments
Despite a recommendation by the city’s Civil Service Commission that the NOPD get a 10 percent pay raise — the first installment of a 20 percent pay raise spread out over three years— the New Orleans City Council on Nov. 20 instead voted to approve the five percent pay raise recommended by the Landrieu administration, FOX 8 News reported.
“Five percent is not enough — we know it’s not enough,” at-Large Councilmember Jason Williams said. “We just don’t have the resources right now.”
While New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had argued that NOPD officers deserve 20 percent pay raises but the city can’t afford them right now, police union representatives from the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Association of New Orleans had argued that the City of New Orleans and the NOPD could not afford to not give current and future officers pay raises if CNO and NOPD officials are serious about ending the “blue hemorrhaging” of officers and attracting new quality recruits.
Although the NOPD is budgeted to hire 150 police officers this year and in 2015, it has been unable to meet those goals. The embattled police department, which has been in the midst of a federally mandated consent decree since August 2013, is losing police officers faster than it can replace them.
In an effort to offset the NOPD’s inability to attract larger numbers of qualified applicants, the New Orleans City Council voted 6-1 in the spring to relax the City of New Orleans’ residency rule, which requires NOPD, NOFD and EMS applicants to live in Orleans Parish.
In other NOPD-related news, it looks as though the City of New Orleans may be on the verge of being targeted with a mayor lawsuit in the wake of the scandal involving the NOPD’s Special Victims Section.
In a story that aired on FOX 8 News, an alleged rape victim, along with high-profile attorney Gloria Allred, claims the NOPD botched her case. They made the claim Friday at a news conference outside the Sixth District station.
“On Mardi Gras night, I was raped in my hotel by a security guard while my husband was out of the room. I reported it to the hotel and to the police,” said the woman, who is not being identified by name.
The woman, a mother and homemaker, and her husband, a doctor, are from Texas. They say after the alleged rape, the woman went to the hospital and a rape kit was performed.
“There was blood in the room and I had bruises all over. I felt traumatized,” she said.
“I spoke with the physicians at the hospital. I was in the room during all the exams. All of the signs we were seeing were signs of forcible assault or rape,” the victim’s husband said.
The couple said that after leaving New Orleans, they called Detective Vernon Haynes, who was handling the case — only to find out that the case had been closed.
“He did say that they were able to identify the alleged rapist through DNA. The detective told our client’s husband that he spoke to the accused individual and because he said it was consensual, that was the end of it,” said Allred.
Haynes is one of five detectives from the NOPD’s Special Victims Section who were recently accused of failing to follow up on 86 percent of 1,290 calls reporting sexual assault in New Orleans between 2011 and 2013. who just a week ago became the focus of a scathing Inspector General’s report. The New Orleans Inspector General report revealed how hundreds of sexual assault cases were mishandled, with little or no follow-up investigation.
“There was no regard for the rights or feelings of victims,” Allred said.
“The process that you’re seeing today is just the beginning of a long process of reopening hundreds of sexual assault kits by members of the sex crimes special task force,” said Commander Paul Noel.
The NOPD has already taken steps to control the damage, placing the Commander of the Second District — Noel — in charge of the Special Victims Section. Noel is also leading a task force that’s re-investigating 271 cases.
All five detectives who were involved are now assigned to desk duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
Allred said her client will not remain silent, and the case deserves to be reopened.
“Just delayed is justice denied. Our client has been denied justice, but it is not too late for justice to prevail,” she said.
The Inspector General’s report looked at more than 1,280 cases between 2011 until 2013. This alleged rape happened in March of this year, so it was not included in the report. The NOPD, though, told FOX 8 News that it would reopen the case.
Meanwhile, it was recently reported that armed robberies are up in New Orleans with the city experiencing at least 658 so far in 2014. The hardest-hit area of the city is reportedly eastern New Orleans, where about 110 of those armed robberies took place. Authorities said that most of the robberies across the city took place between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.
This article originally published in the December 1, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
