Plan to free up NOPD manpower moves forward
18th September 2017 · 0 Comments
Although it is not yet a done deal, a plan conceived by the Landrieu administration to utilize off-duty and reserve police officers working for a private company to respond to minor traffic incidents in an effort to free up on-duty NOPD patrol officers to tackle more serious crimes moved forward last Tuesday.
In an effort to aid the undermanned NOPD in its ongoing efforts to improve public safety while responding to at least some of the 14,000 traffic incidents each year, the Landrieu administration issued a request for proposals earlier this year.
On Tuesday, a selection committee comprised of NOPD officials and members of the Landrieu administration selected On Scene Services, a New Orleans-based firm, over two others seeking the contract.
“We’re talking about alleviating the need to respond for this type of call,” NOPD Deputy Chief of Staff Eric Melancon said.
The New Orleans Advocate reported that not everyone is on-board with the new plan. Some NOPD officials have expressed doubt about whether the utilization of a private firm to tackle minor traffic incidents would save the department time and resources.
Among those who expressed skepticism about the new plan’s viability was NOPD Lt. Anthony Micheu IV, head of the department’s traffic unit, who questioned whether or not the plan could be implemented and whether it would actually be able to accomplish what it aims to do.
“The more that I read this, the more questions it raises about what we are really going to have to be responsible for,” Micheu told The New Orleans Advocate last week.
Melancon said that the firm would have to prove that it could deliver on its promise of freeing up on-duty officers’ time before a contract would be signed.
Nevertheless, the selection of On Scene Services will allow the Landrieu administration to begin negotiations with the firm over a finalized contract, which could potentially be in place by the middle of 2018 if the City and the firm can reach an agreement.
Since New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu was elected in 2010, the NOPD has lost more than 400 officers to retirement, defections, prosecution and termination.
The City of New Orleans has employed a number of strategies to aid the undermanned NOPD including making changes to Civil Service Commission rules that require new police recruits to have at least 60 hours of college credit, relaxing the residency rule that requires cops, firefighters and EMS workers to live in Orleans Parish and the creation of a Civilian Force to handle minor incidents in the French Quarter to free up NOPD officers to tackle serious crimes. The Civilian Force has since been abandoned.
The New Orleans Office of the Inspector General and the Metropolitan Crime Commission have both suggested that the NOPD hire civilian workers to handle office duties and free up more officers to patrol the streets of New Orleans. The NOPD subsequently agreed to do so but there has been an ongoing debate about the extent to which that strategy has been implemented.
Others, like New Orleans businessman Sidney Torres, have created a private security force to police the French Quarter.
Despite those efforts, the NOPD continues to struggle with response times to calls for assistance from the public, prompting the latest proposal to free up on-duty officers’ time.
Prior to the latest proposal, the New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance in 2015, which was only implemented this past spring, that imposes fines for repeated false burglar alarms and ultimately allows the NOPD to ignore them entirely.
The City has also pondered allowing civilians to call in reports on incidents that didn’t require an officer to investigate them.
The City also proposed allowing civilians to investigate minor incidents that would normally require officers to remain on the scene from 30 to 90 minutes.
Those changes failed to gain traction in the state legislature, largely because insurance companies wanted commissioned officers to investigate all traffic incidents.
The other two private firms that submitted proposals that the Landrieu administration considered before selecting On Scene Services were Ready Responders and MVA Resources.
Ready Responders wanted to use certified officers while MVA Resources would not have required police training for its employees.
Micheu told The New Orleans Advocate that utilizing a private firm to handle minor traffic incidents would only complicate matters since on-duty officers would still have to sign off on the reports and it would take Traffic Division officers longer to look over the work of someone hired by a private firm than it would take them to investigate the incidents themselves.
“My guys are going to be duplicating the work of an individual that’s getting paid,” Micheu said.
Micheu also wondered how a private firm’s employees would handle heated traffic disputes without proper resources for their safety and whether they could efficiently get to accident scenes without the sirens and flashing lights officers use to clear traffic.
“Having these questions is very useful to the process and making sure they know there are clear expectations on the part of the City and on the part of the NOPD,” Melancon said.
“This frees us up tremendously and it makes us more efficient,” NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison told WWL News. “We can focus on things that are more important like violent crime, response to violent crime, getting to people faster who need our help, response times, community engagement, all types of other initiatives that are important to us that sometimes we just don’t have enough time to get to on a daily basis.”
This article originally published in the September 18, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
