Constable makes offer to assist NOPD
23rd January 2017 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Interdepartmental “loaning” of police officers has become all the rage in New Orleans of late. Last Wednesday, citing the recent shooting of a five-month-old infant in Algiers, Second City Court Constable, Edwin Shorty offered to loan some of his deputy constables to the NOPD’s 4th District in an effort to increase police presence in the area.
The Constable is directing his patrol forces to augment the New Orleans Police Department; however, most of the patrol cops loaned recently have come from sheriffs’ offices around the state—working with Attorney General’s office—going AROUND NOPD in the pursuit of arrests.
Last week, Constable Shorty explained that he was “willing to enter into a cooperative agreement with the City of New Orleans to provide the officers and that his office would cover the cost of the new assignments”. The Constable could not say how many of his deputies would be on loan, but that it would depend on NOPD.
“We’re here to help support their mission and the overall mission of public safety,” Shorty explained. “We would have to meet with NOPD and let them tell us how we can best do that.” At the end of the day Shorty said his officers will follow NOPD’s lead.
Usually tasked with serving subpoenas and performing evictions, all Second City Court deputy constables are Post Certified.
In their new assignment, this law enforcement certification gives them the training and authority to perform many of the same duties as NOPD officers including arrests, searches and seizures. “If additional manpower can create a better presence and help improve public safety, I’m more than ready to make the move.” Shorty said.
Shorty pointed out that the 4th District station operates with limited staff and at a time when Algiers, as with virtually every other New Orleans neighborhood, has experienced an increase in crime across the board. “I think it’s obvious that no area is exempt from criminal activity. We have to be proactive. As constable it’s my responsibility not just to serve notices and manage evictions, but when needed, to partner with other local law enforcement agencies to help fight crime and keep our people safe. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Shorty maintained.
What has received less coverage is that the 2nd City Constable is far from the only regional parochial police chief to lend forces to fight crime in urban Orleans Parish. These Chiefs just won’t put their cops under the oversight of NOPD.
Attorney General Jeff Landry’s recent anti-crime offensive has received some headlines, most notably for its drug arrests, but what has been reported actually is only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg” of the multi-jurisdictional effort afoot in Orleans.
Just under a year ago, the newly elected Attorney General convened a meeting of representatives from the U.S. Justice Department, regional La. Sheriffs’ offices, and prominent local business and civic leaders concerned about skyrocketing crime in New Orleans. Ac-cording to insiders who have spoken to The Weekly confidentially, a plan was hatched to directly target high crime areas in the Crescent City, yet in a patrol fashion generally independent of the NOPD.
Frustration with the slow response rate of the official police force of Orleans led to the decision quite literally at times, go around existing NOPD district commanders.
Subsequently, Attorney General Landry took huge PR hit in the city for not coordinating with NOPD, but the AG noted that he has the state constitutional power to make arrests and empower peace officers. Less noted has been Landry’s willingness to authorize Sheriffs’ Deputies from surrounding Louisiana parishes to patrol high crime areas of Orleans under the direction of the AG’s office.
Reportedly, the reason that NOPD and the Mayor’s office have brought comparatively little attention to the use of suburban units was, according to our confidential source, due to the fact that Orleans Criminal Sheriff had allegedly warned that he would empower officers to patrol other departments if the joint effort was actively resisted by NOPD.
“We were going to make sure there were cops on the street fighting violent crime regardless of what the mayor or NOPD wanted,” our source said, noting this effort might not have been politically feasible without Sheriff Marlin Gusman’s full cooperation.
The Orleans Criminal Sheriff himself has been very mum on the subject, not commenting publicly, that it’s well-known that his relationship with the Landrieu Administration could be described as “strained” at best. Moreover, his office under the Home Rule charter can make arrests. Nola’s unique division of police responsibilities—the Sheriff runs the jail and NOPD serves as the primary patrol force—is an historic relic of reconstruction when one police force was operated by Caucasian pro-Confederate locals and the other by African-American supporting Union occupation troops.
The constitutional concordat that made NOPD the primary peace force did not remove the Criminal Sheriff’s Office ability to patrol or arrest. As late as the tenure of Charles Foti, Sheriff’s Deputies where occasionally sent to patrol the streets.
Moreover, Gusman can deputize anyone he desires (with a post certification) to do the same, even if they work for sheriff or municipal departments in surrounding parishes.
Whether this “augmentation” of local police forces outside the oversight of the NOPD continues grew more likely after a stunning federal report was released on Thursday.
Federal monitors, appointed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan to oversee the NOPD’s court-ordered reforms, determined that just over 30 percent of the applicants accepted for the academy had “risk indicators,” failing lie detector tests, possessing of unstable employment histories, and even criminal arrests.
“The existence of these and other risk indicators in the recruit files, without evidence of meaningful follow-up, suggests to us NOPD may be accepting candidates into the Academy who should not be NOPD officers. Our discussions with and interviews of NOPD personnel give us even greater concern in this regard,” the monitors noted, citing “inherent flaws” in the department’s background check process.
The deteriorating quality has translated into only five police officers joining NOPD ranks in the past year, nowhere near enough to reach the Landrieu Administration’s goal of 1600 cops at the end of 2016.
The Federal Monitors were particularly critical of Deputy Chief of Staff Jonathan Wisbey, head of recruitment and hiring, especially in the wake of a police union complaint filed in November. PANO charged that Wisbey overruled background check investigators to facilitate jobs for marginal police recruit candidates. In the wake of the federal report, Wisbey offered his resignation effective February 3.
This article originally published in the January 23, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
