Key NOPD commander transferred amid internal probe of his contact with recruits
3rd July 2017 · 0 Comments
Lt. Carlton Lewis, the NOPD commander who heads the department’s Recruitment and Applicant Investigation Division, was recently reassigned to regular field duties in the NOPD’s Fifth District in the midst of an internal investigation of the Recruitment and Applicant Investigation Division for alleged improper contact with applicants, WWL News reported last week.
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison confirmed that he made the transfer amid an ongoing probe by the Public Integrity Division.
“I had to make an executive decision about a matter that was brought to my attention,” Harrison told WWL. “We acted immediately.”
Multiple sources told WWL that Lewis, a 30-year veteran, is under investigation for improper contacts with female applicants.
Lewis’ attorney, Theodore Alpaugh, told WWL that his client did not do anything wrong and he looks forward to defending him.
Alpaugh noted that the original complaint against Lewis came from a male officer, not applicants or recruits.
“We don’t believe he did anything wrong,” he told WWL. “We don’t think he has any culpability and we believe he will be cleared.”
The NOPD’s Recruitment and Applicant Investigation Division is the first stop for people who want to become New Orleans police officers. On the city’s website, Lewis is still listed as commander of the division, but records show he was transferred on May 14.
The transfer comes as the city is desperately trying to attract enough recruits to boost an understaffed department that has dwindled from 1,550 officers in 2010 to fewer than 1,160 today.
Capt. Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, said he didn’t have much information on the investigation into Lewis.
In other NOPD-related news a local criminologist told FOX 8 News last week that he believes the French Quarter is no longer safe, and that a recent attack caught on video has moved crime in the popular tourist area to a crucial tipping point.
Those remarks were made as the Louisiana State Police promises to keep troopers in the Quarter after a change in the agency’s administration.
For more than three years, state troopers have provided an extra layer of security in the French Quarter due to NOPD’s manpower shortage. The LSP was joined by retired NOPD officers, Orleans and St. John the Baptist sheriff’s deputies and Tulane and UNO campus police in bolstering the ranks of local law enforcement during major events like Mardi Gras. the Sugar Bowl and the Bayou Classic in recent years.
After a meeting Wednesday between NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison and newly appointed Louisiana State Police Col. Kevin Reeves, those patrols will continue for the foreseeable future.
“We did talk about a long-term relationship, partnership and how the State Police could partner with the NOPD to provide safety and create new initiatives, whether it is in the French Quarter or anywhere else in the city where we can be partners to increase visibility, increase deterrence and try to apprehend some of these violent offenders that are committing crimes,” Harrison said.
The recent spike of violent crimes in the Quarter has become a major source of fear and anxiety for residents and tourists alike, especially after four men brutally attacked two tourists from Boston on Bienville Street Saturday night, June 24
“If you can’t protect 208 Bien-ville Street, what can you protect?” LSU criminologist Dr. Peter Scharf told FOX 8. “That’s what the average guy in the street is saying.”
Scharf said that tourists and convention organizers have taken notice of the violent crime that keeps happening in the French Quarter. And if the trend continues and the city’s murder rate increases, Scharf believes the tourism industry will decline.
“The country now is again gaining awareness of what the violent crime realities are here and the risks of something happening to them,” he said. “I think you’re close to a tipping point the wrong way.”
And in the case of keeping troopers in the city, Scharf says it pulls resources away from other areas around the state. With a state budget crisis and law enforcement agencies cutting back, moving troopers to New Orleans fills a void — but it can also create one.
“In some ways you can argue that Lafourche Parish benefits from the Quarter because of the tax base,” Scharf said. “They don’t want to lose a State Trooper for a patrol in the Quarter.”
This article originally published in the July 3, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
