NOPD caught possibly violating consent decree
27th August 2012 · 0 Comments
Groups eagerly await judge’s decision
Wednesday, August 29, marks the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the Great Flood of 2005, which devastated the entire Gulf Coast region and covered 80 percent of New Orleans with toxic floodwaters. But with a federal judge preparing to make a critical decision regarding the reformation of the New Orleans Police Department and a number of entities seeking to play an active role in that process, August 29, 2012 will also mark a day that either gives residents a reason to hope for a much-improved police department or a harbinger of more dark days ahead.
After the proposed NOPD consent decree was unveiled last month, four groups — the Fraternal Order of Police, Police Association of New Orleans, Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson and Community United for Change — filed court papers seeking to intervene and weigh in on various components of the consent decree that need to be changed, added or deleted altogether.
CUC’s recommended changes included the addition of a citizen oversight panel, the use of audio and video recording equipment by all officers so that their interaction with civilians can be monitored and an extension of the proposed four-year time span to implement reforms.
For more than a year, CUC has expressed its disappointed that the Department of Justice has opted to just focus on a handful of recent, post-Katrina cases like the Danziger Bridge and Henry Glover cases and the pre-Katrina killing of Raymond Robair in Tremé while ignoring many cases of excessive NOPD force and brutality that date back several decades. CUC has also criticized the Landrieu administration’s efforts to take credit for bringing the U.S. Department of Justice to New Orleans to probe the NOPD when it was the family of Danziger Bridge shooting victim Lance Madison that made several trips to Washington, D.C. and implored DOJ officials to looking into the deadly eastern N.O. incident.
CUC also pointed out that the local criminal justice system dropped all charges against the so-called “Danziger 7” police officers and U.S. Attorney Jim Letten ignored the case for several years until President Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and Madison family members met with Attorney General Eric Holder.
Former Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan indicted the “Danziger 7” on murder and attempted murder charges, only to have those charges later dismissed by Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Raymond Bigelow.
Both the Justice Department and Landrieu administration have voiced their opposition to allowing these groups to intervene, arguing that giving these groups the opportunity to weigh in on the consent decree would only serve to slow down the process of implementing reforms at the NOPD.
In its court papers, CUC addressed the differing opinions offered by the DOJ and Landrieu administration on one hand and the four groups seeking to intervene on the other.
“CUC asks to intervene because the remedies suggested in the proposed consent decree are too little and too weak and not at all likely to force the major transformation needed to make the NOPD a constitutional policing department which respects the rights of all persons,” the group contends “The DOJ and the City of New Orleans obviously do not agree with the fundamental changes proposed by the CUC. But the interest of the public at large is very important to the creation of a just and lasting decree on such a critical matter.”
While the four groups that initially filed court papers seeking to intervene in the NOPD consent decree have their own rationale for doing so, all essentially agree that rather than focus on a speedy process of reforming the NOPD the priority should be ensuring that meaningful and long-lasting changes are identified and given a chance to take root in the department.
FOP attorney Chester Theodore Alpaugh told U.S. District Court Judge Susan Morgan that his clients have been trying unsuccessfully for two years to provide the Justice Department with input during the investigation and consent decree negotiations. “People who are most knowledgeable about the police department are the police officers themselves,” he said Monday.
John Williams, an attorney for Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson told Judge Morgan Monday that the NOPD consent decree in its current form undermines the authority and power of his client’s office. The proposed decree “ultimately makes the office meaningless,” Williams argued.
While commending the DOJ for its diagnosis of the systemic problems associated with the NOPD, CUC attorney Bill Quigley argued that the consent decree doesn’t go far enough or deep enough to root out the troubled police department’s problems. “We think the remedy is weak and destined to fail,” Quigley said.
“People who have studied the New Orleans Police Department say that the problems have been there for decades and decades and decades, and I think it may take 10 to 20 years honestly to turn it around because that’s the average life of a police officer,” CUC attorney Bill Quigley said in a recent interview with The Louisiana Weekly. “You have hundreds of officers who have been on the force for a long time and they’re going to have to be retrained and repurposed. Then a whole new generation of officers is going to have to come in, hopefully with the benefit of new, much-improved training, supervision and leadership.
“It didn’t take us 10 years to get like this and it’s not going to take us 10 years to undo it,” Quigley added.
“I’m sure the Court and the Justice Department are hopeful that there can be dramatic, permanent change that will happen in a very short amount of time, but look where the city is seven years after Katrina,” Quigley said. “We certainly have made a lot of improvements but we have a long way to go, and why would we expect that a true, fundamental restructuring of the police department would take any less time than that?
On Monday, Judge Morgan invited New Orleans groups and individuals to file a letter or brief on the proposed consent decree and set an Aug. 24 deadline for filing these briefs or letters with the federal court clerk’s office.
As the NOPD awaits Judge Morgan’s decision this week regarding the consent decree, the department finds itself facing another scandal.
FOX 8 News reported Thursday that the NOPD’s 5th District has come under fire for violating the constitutional rights of New Orleans residents by making unwarranted stops of bicyclists and overstepping the law to increase the number of field interview cards officers fill out daily.
On August 2, NOPD Lt. Carol Aldridge sent an email to members of her platoon in the 5th District. In the email, which FOX 8 obtained, Aldridge writes, “This is an order — 1 bike, 2 businesses, 1 walking beat EACH TOUR OF DUTY! did you forget that this was a platoon directive? if you cannot accomplish this, you will be writing a 105 every day to explain why you saw no bicycles violating the law, why you had no time to do 2 business checks, and why you did no walking beat the previous day.”
Local ACLU President Marjorie Esman told FOX 8 News that she takes serious issue with officers being forced to pull over at least one bicyclist a day.
“This presumes that you will see somebody violating the law and it reverses the standard. And what this says is we’re going to assume you have a requirement to stop somebody and find somebody breaking the law, and if you don’t you have to justify yourself,” Esman explained.
In the email, Aldridge also questions why more officers aren’t filling out field interview cards. She writes, “I find it hard to believe that out of 13 officers on this platoon, only two are entering fic’s!! is this TRUE??”
As part of the recently unveiled consent decree with the Justice Department, the NOPD agreed that officers can only pull someone over, and fill out a field interview card on them, if there is reasonable suspicion.
Aldridge ends her email saying, “I will, beginning next week, look at each officer’s stats for the previous week. I will begin by riding with the officer who has the lowest stats-at least four hours each shift-to observe what the officer is and is not doing. if you do not want me in your car with you, observing every move you make, then you need to make sure you are not the officer with the lowest stats!”
“There have been some recent crimes in the 5th District committed by people on bikes,” the NOPD said in a statement to FOX 8 News Thursday. “It soon became apparent to that district’s supervisors that officers were discussing subsequent bicyclist stops they had made on police radio, but not documenting some of those stops. Officers are encouraged to document every stop they make so that they and the citizens they talk to have a record of what transpired. Additionally, as with any job, supervisors are expected to monitor their employees and address situations where it is clear that employees could be doing more.”
Danatus King, president of the New Orleans branch of the NAACP, told FOX 8 News Thursday, “If the force is putting out emails like this right now, directly in opposition to what’s contained in that consent decree, then that’s telling us that consent decree is not worth the paper it’s written on.”
This article originally published in the August 27, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
