Should the NOPD be defunded?
15th June 2020 · 0 Comments
Republicans’ hair is on fire at the very notion of the prospect of defunding police departments. Protesters worldwide who are protesting the murder of George Floyd are calling for the defunding of the nation’s 18,000 police departments.
Responding to the call for defunding, the Minneapolis City Council last Sunday announced plans to disband its police department and invest in community-based public safety programs.
Meanwhile, Democrats’ have offered up the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which bans chokeholds, calls for a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, provisions to make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court and funding for practice and pattern investigations, among other requirements.
And, to no one’s surprise, the Republicans are opposed to a ban on chokehold and limiting qualified immunity and seemingly resistant to most of the 134-page House reform bill.
What is certainly galling is that the commonsense police reform bill should have been enacted a long time ago. We in the Black community have always known why white cops have been killing us indiscriminately: straight up racism, no chaser.
Police killed 1,098 people in 2019, nationwide. From 2013-2019, the New Orleans Police Department killed 13 people and police killed 148 persons, statewide. Needless to say, the majority of those killed were Black.
The never-ending cycle of cops killing unarmed Blacks will never stop until cops are held accountable and treated like any other murderers: tried and convicted. Statistics show that accountability is non-existent: 99 percent of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime.
When asked about defunding police departments, NUL President Marc Morial said he thinks it’s merely a slogan but that there is a need to rethink American policing and create a system that focuses on community-orienting policing and investments in urban communities.
New Orleans has had its share of “bad apples” on the NOPD. The Algiers Seven, the Danziger Bridge cops, the senseless murder of Justin Sipp, Henry Glover, and others have led Black New Orleanians to beware of interactions with NOPD officers, even as the department remains under a federal consent decree and its actions are watched by Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson. The NOPD has a force of use policy and a community policing plan.
And while the NOPD tweeted that it had adopted “SIX of the eight elements called for by the “8CantWait” campaign” and “We embrace the need for reform, and we agree these changes can’t wait,” two months ago police were still out on the streets arresting people for minor crimes in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
The excessive arrests prompted Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette J. Johnson to issue a letter asking all cities in the state to slow down the arrests and to do a risk assessment and release low-risk people.
Then you had the confrontation last week on the Crescent City Connection between protesters and police.
Shades of Hurricane Katrina.
Why weren’t protesters allowed to cross over into Algiers? The NOPD tear-gassed protesters and shot them with rubber bullets. If COVID-19 is spread by coughing; then that tear-gas turned the protest into a super-spreader event. And look up people injured by rubber bullets on the Internet and see how disfiguring those projectiles can be.
So much for protecting and serving. What does that really mean? That police protect and serve themselves?
Jason Williams, chair of the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee, agrees that there is a need for systemic reforms to decrease police violence against people of color.
He’s proposing the creation of a community advisory committee, composed of people with experience in helping marginalized groups and advocating for reforms that can eliminate institutional racism. The committee would also examine the allocation of City resources across the criminal justice system and recommend investments and policy priorities that better serve the community.
That’s one approach but we think a few simple basic things can help solve the problem with systemic racism on the police department:
• Ban chokeholds and strangleholds;
• Set-up a Complaint Hotline: Allow cops to anonymously report on racist acts by fellow police officers;
• Create an independent Citizens’ Investigation Team to collect data on citizens’ complaints about racist cops;
• Reallocate Money – Divert some funds to agencies dealing with mental health, homelessness, and domestic violence and juvenile delinquency;
• Reinstitute the Residency Rule – If you don’t live here, you have no ownership in the city you serve;
• Clean House – Fire cops with track records of racist behavior;
• Check Cops’ Mental Health Status – Screen police and recruits for implicit bias, racist beliefs, and anti-Black sentiments;
• Charge and prosecute cops for criminal behavior; immediately;
• Abolish qualified immunity and rules that allow cops to stay on the job, get paid leave, or have 30 days before they can be investigated for criminal acts;
• Beef up proactive patrols and proactive investigations. In other words, stop crimes before they happen;
• Contract negotiations for salaries, benefits, etc., with police unions must be tied to expected conduct and consequences for violators;
• Stop racial profiling and refrain from stopping people for minor infractions; like a busted taillight, expired brake tag, or selling loose cigarettes or CDs;
• Conduct anti-racism training monthly.
We don’t believe that the NOPD should be defunded, in the literal sense of the word, but we do think some of the monies allocated to the NOPD could be better served by attacking the root causes of criminal behavior in our city, poverty, mental illness, homelessness, unemployment, etc.
We also think the NOPD must do a better job at being proactive rather than violently reactive, period. And just showing up long after a crime has been committed isn’t our idea of protecting and serving.
Consider this: How often have you seen the police patrolling the streets of your neighborhood?
NOPD Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson would do well to follow the police reform measures announced by Minnesota Police Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, who immediately withdrew from contract negotiations with the Minneapolis Police Federation, in favor of bringing in advisers to conduct a review of how that contract can be restructured.
Those advisers will look at use of force and the discipline process, including grievances and arbitration. “There is nothing more debilitating to a chief” than when a fired officer is allowed back onto the force by an arbitrator, Arradondo said. He is also Implementing new systems to monitor officer performance data so that early warning signs of misconduct can be identified, and early strategies can be employed to intervene.
Arradondo knows of which he speaks. When he was a patrolman he sued the department for racial discrimination against himself and other black cops on the force.
And while no one can change a person’s heart or mind, polices, rules, and regulation…and termination are valuable tools in the police reform playbook.
Game on.
This article originally published in the June 15, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
