City okays controversial changes to hiring rules
16th February 2015 · 0 Comments
With violent crime on the rise and the number of police in New Orleans dwindling, the City of New Orleans is doing whatever it can to attract more NOPD recruits and improve public safety.
That includes relaxing the city’s residency rule, providing bonuses for veteran cops who help to recruit new officers and changing the city’s hiring rules and requirements, as it did last week.
“We’re losing more officers as a whole than we’re gaining,” Simon Hargrove of the Black Organization of Police told WWL. “That’s a big problem. And the longer that persists, we’re going to hit a period of time when it is really going to be crippling.”
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison asked the New Orleans Civil Service Commission to throw out a rule that applicants must have 60 hours of college to become police recruits, a requirement implemented by his predecessor, former NOPD Supt. Ronal Serpas.
“We believe this requirement is preventing us from hiring a number of individuals who would make fine police officers,” Harrison said. “Last year alone we rejected over 1,000 applicants without ever speaking with them, largely because they didn’t meet this requirement.”
Efforts to remove the college education requirement did not sit well with police union reps and community leaders. At least one police union leader said the change could have the effect of “dumbing down” the NOPD.
Members of Community United for Change were equally skeptical.
“When you put a gun on somebody, and they have that authority to take a life, you’d better be dead sure that person is the best thinking individual and the best qualified individual,” Randolph Scott, a member of Community United For Change, told WWL.
CSC staff said tests would root out unfit candidates. The three police unions supported the chief, as long as quality did not suffer for quantity.
“We should be concerned about the ability to get a conviction, not just making an arrest. And it is important to articulate your thoughts, to write down clearly and concisely in police reports,” said Claude Schlesinger with the Fraternal Organization of Police.
After listening to all the discussion, Civil Service Commission members voted unanimously to drop the requirement for college courses for police recruits.
Harrison said that change goes into effect immediately, and it sends an important message to the community. “We’re very confident that this is how we are going to be able to grow,” he said.
The CSC also agreed to the police request to hire three civilian experts to help streamline the recruiting process.
Supt. Harrison was also granted permission last week to hire and select an aide that will earn between $76, 109 and $119,031. The civilian “deputy chief of staff” will be hired at the superintendent’s discretion and will assist him in converting his policy “into actionable plans,” according to Nola.com.
Despite objections from government watchdogs, including the Fraternal Order of Police the CSC voted 3-1 to approve the creation of the post.
“CUC is appalled at the thought of the NOPD lowering or doing away with the educational requirements for recruits,” W.C. Johnson, host of the local cable-access show “OurStory,” told The Louisiana Weekly. “It has been proven over the years that uneducated policing is a costly policy for any entity that allows for this in their political subdivisions. Ignorance has always bred malfeasance. If New Orleans is willing to lessen the educational requirements for future police officers, then New Orleans is only a few moments away from returning to the old plantation mentality. We all know what the picture of the Keystone Cops represents, the Crescent City Cops are not far away from that image.”
“Again, my whole thing is, where is the money coming from?” Ramessu Merriamen Ana, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly. “We keep hearing all the time about how broke the city is but the Landrieu administration keeps ‘finding money’ to hire high-priced deputy mayors, assistants and yes-men.
“Couldn’t this money have been better spent hiring police officers or repairing the streets of New Orleans?”
This article originally published in the February 16, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
