NOPD gets positive feedback from OIG

16th March 2015   ·   0 Comments

After taking the NOPD to task for downgrading thefts of wallets and/or purses in the French Quarter and Central Business District two years ago, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux acknowledged last week that the embattled police department is now doing a better job of reporting crime in the 8th District.

In a recent letter to NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison. Quatrevaux said that while a 43 percent rise in thefts in the 8th District over the first seven months of 2014 compared to the same period in 2013 might be cause for alarm for some, he was encouraged by the fact that those thefts had not been characterized as “miscellaneous” as “at least 177” of them had been in 2013.

At the time of the misclassification, Ronal Serpas was leading the NOPD as its superintendent. Harrison, a 23-year veteran, was promoted to the post last fall after Serpas announced his retirement.

Harrison inherited a police department that is undermanned and has been under a federally mandated consent decree since August 2013.

The earlier OIG report said that underreporting might have been a more serious issue than the 177 cases that were red-flagged, identifying an addition 249 cases that had been misclassified.

Quatrevaux explained last week why he was encouraged by the NOPD’s reporting of theft in the 8th District..

“It should be made clear that the 42 percent is an increase in reported crime, not actual crime,” Quatrevaux told Harrison in the letter dated March 11.

While the IG is encouraged by the better theft reporting in the 8th District, the NOPD has little time to rest on its laurels. A recent analysis of the NOPD’s crime stats for 2014 revealed that crime rose in New Orleans in every category except murder, which reached a historic 43-year low in 2014.

With a recent rash of homicides in early March, the city’s murder rate is already on pace to rise beyond last year’s total of 150 murders, with a spike predicted to accompany the rise in local temperatures this spring and summer.

Supt. Harrison on Wednesday credited the IG’s report in 2013 for lighting a fire under the department to do a better job of reporting crime.

“We realized after he brought it to our attention that there were crimes being misclassified, and we made sure we came in line with the correct way to classify them,” Harrison explained. “And we’re glad that he did the follow-up and acknowledged that we’re now in line with the correct way to classify them.”

In other police-related news, it was announced last week that state troopers will remain in the Crescent City through the end of 2015, buying the undermanned NOPD some tim extra time to recruit, train and hire additional officers to patrol the streets of New Orleans.

Beginning Thursday, a contingent of 50 to 60 additional Louisiana state troopers were deployed to patrol the French Quarter and surrounding areas.

NOPD and LSP officials announ­ced Wednesday that the bolstered support from state troopers was made possible from a $2.5 million donation from the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“I told you that we would not be gone for long,” LSP Col. Mike Edmonson said Wednesday.

The state troopers were asked to help out in New Orleans after a gun battle on Bourbon Street in late June that left one person dead and nine others wounded. During this past Carnival season, 200 troopers were used along with retired NOPD officers and campus police from Tulane and UNO to keep the city and its visitors safe.

Edmonson said that for the rest of the year the number of state troopers deployed to New Orleans “will changed based on the events, whether it’s French Quarter Fest, whether it’s Jazz Fest, whether it’s any festival in New Orleans.

“You can expect to see the complement of state troopers and public safety officers that this chief and the City of New Orleans needs,” Edmonson added.

As NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison continues to find ways to keep the city safe as the department seeks to bolster its ranks, he welcomed the news last week that the Louisiana State Police had finally ironed out the details of its deployment to New Orleans for the remainder of the year.

“This is a grew day for the City of New Orleans, especially the French Quarter,” Harrison said. “The colonel and the state police have delivered on a promise, and for that I want to say ‘Thank you.’”

The NOPD currently has about 1,100 officers and city leaders have said that the NOPD needs about 1,600 officers to keep the city safe.

For the past few years, the NOPD has been losing officers faster than it could replace them but might finally be making some headway in its recruitment efforts with news that more than 1,000 applicants have contacted the department since the Civil Service Commission agreed in February to do away with the requirement that applicants have completed 60 hours of college credit.

“Our hotel community is delighted to provide complimentary accommodation for our fine state troopers,” CVB president and CEO Stephen Perry said in a statement last week. “It is such a pleasure to see the level of cooperation between Col. Edmonson and Chief Harrison, with the net winners being the city’s largest economy.”

This article originally published in the March 16, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.