Lessons learned from Danziger
24th October 2011 · 0 Comments
By Michael Radcliff
Contributing Writer
Part IV in a four-part series
Editor’s Note: Delving deeper into the processes which brought about the utter breakdown of the NOPD in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, The Louisiana Weekly assembled a panel of experts in the fields of law enforcement, sociology, criminology and Social justice, to gain insight into the mindset, culture and inner workings of the New Orleans Police Department, its officers and management. The purpose of this article is in no way to further vilify the police department or its officers, but instead to (1.) gain an understanding of a set of problems unique to this institution; (2.) solicit candid discussion of topics heretofore considered taboo; and (3.) offer up expert opinion as to possible solutions which may aid in improving the image, delivery system and overall outcome of the New Orleans Police Department. The panel includes, Mr. Larry Preston Williams, a former NOPD intelligence agent and detective who currently works as a forensic security consultant and criminal incident analyst; sociologist Dr. Kathleen Fitzgerald Ph.D., an author and Professor of Sociology at Loyola University at New Orleans; renown criminologist Dr. John Penney, Ph.D., Th.D., the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences, and both Dean and Professor of the School of Criminal Justice at Southern University at New Orleans; and Mr. Jordan Flaherty, a journalist, community organizer and social commentator.
A Long Time Coming – But When is Change Gonna Come?
“The timing has long been spent that we have to do a better job of sensitizing new recruits and re-training veteran officers to respecting multicultural differences,” insisted Dr. John Penney, “So that all officers are sensitized to a need to protect the dignity of all citizens regardless of race, ethnicity, lifestyle or cultural background. Additionally, it would be interesting to see how many of the officers that were arrested in the Danziger, Glover, Robair and the other post-Katrina incidents actually lived outside of New Orleans. Studies have shown that when police officers have an obligation to the community in which they live and serve, then they’re more apt to do a better job policing.
“Personally,” Penney explained, “I believe that if you live on the fringes of the community that you work, because you feel it’s a ‘bad’ place, or a place ‘not good enough’ to live in – and if it’s a police officer who believes this, then what hope is there for the citizens of that community? It’s a sorrowful state. We need to start at the hiring process; we need to begin determining if the people we’re hiring know what it means to be responsible to our community; we need to know that these people being hired actually care for our city and it’s not simply just another job to them.
“As of late, I have been traveling around the country, looking for solutions to the police leadership issue here at home – and of course this is a leadership issue; and until we solve the leadership issue nothing constructive will happen. We have the ability to effect change. As citizens we need to take a more active role in the shaping of OUR police department in a way in which we want them to serve us, instead of allowing the department to dictate to us – the employer – the way they choose to serve us.”
“I think the problems are systemic,” weighed in Jordan Flaherty. “I think it goes back to the very founding of this institution as a racist institution. Even when you change the leadership it’s incredibly hard to change the mission, to change the system. No matter how much you bring new people in to the process of change, it’s a slow, tedious process. If we don’t realize that we need to change institutions and systems the cycle will just repeat itself.”
“Study after study shows that it does well for a community when you have police who live in that community, who look more like the residents of that community,” Flaherty continued. “But I think it’s a mistake to think that because we have a Black police chief that it’s going to be the end all of the problems of the department. Again it’s systemic changes, or you’re going to keep seeing the same patterns (problems) that we have seen for decades. The institution needs vast changes in hiring, in training, in discipline… all of these different systems need to change.
:Their motto states that their primary objective is ‘to protect and to serve’ — but to protect and to serve who?” Flaherty said. “Is it protecting property and serving property owners or is it protecting some residents from other residents. They, or better yet, WE need to redefine this mission.”
A Brief Moment of Respite
In a PBS Frontline interview on “Law and Disorder” in August 2010, renowned New Orleans civil rights attorney Mary Howell spoke of a time in recent history when effective changes were beginning to take shape in the New Orleans Police Department, the substance of her comments were as relevant then, as they are now. Excerpts from this interview are as follows:
“[The] U.S. attorney at that time (i.e. the early 1990’s), was Eddie Jordan, [who] actually came forward and said this [police corruption] was not a question of bad apples;[but] that the police, [and] the corruption inside the police department was systemic, pervasive and rampant.
“[At that time] We had a reform police chief, Richard Pennington,” Howell continued. “He was brought in from Washington, D.C. He was specifically brought in to clean up the police department. He was the ultimate outsider. … As he was being sworn in, the FBI took him aside — right after he was sworn in, … and told him… ‘to trust no one.’ That ended up standing him in good stead, and it was good advice. Richard Pennington was an interesting guy when he was here. I would say there was a period of time when Richard Pennington was probably the most popular person in this city. He would walk into a restaurant and people would actually stand up and cheer him. He really took a very strong, open and direct stand that he was going to clean up this police department, and he did it.”
“He was free in the sense that he didn’t know any of these police officers. He didn’t know their families; he didn’t know their mothers; he didn’t know their preachers. He didn’t have the old-school ties, the neighborhood ties. He had the backing of the Justice Department, he had the backing of the FBI, [and] the backing of the mayor to do what needed to be done; and he was very straight in doing that from what I could see, looking at it from the outside.”
“By the end of his tenure, which was an eight-year tenure, … it’s anywhere between 60 and 100 police officers who were criminally charged, convicted. There were at least 100 officers, I think, that were fired. He made a number of policy changes. …”
“There was a brief moment of respite from the enormous problems that we had with this police department, because, for the first time in the history of New Orleans, you had a mayor, you had a police chief, you had a U.S. attorney who got it. We were out of denial, and we had a recognition that we had a very, very serious problem with this police department that was generational; it was cultural; it was profound; it was not just a case of one or two bad apples; that it was much deeper than that and was going to take a systematic and dedicated effort to transform it. …”
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Renowned criminologist Dr. John Penney, Ph.D, Th.D., is Chair of the Department of Social Sciences, and both Dean and Professor of the School of Criminal Justice at Southern University at New Orleans. He specializes in areas pertaining to juvenile justice, corrections and criminology.
Mr. Larry Preston Williams is a former NOPD Intelligence agent and detective. He is currently a forensic security Consultant and Criminal Incident analyst. His work and research has been mentioned in several books including, Showdown in Desire: The Black Panthers Take a Stand in New Orleans, No Place for Amateurs, On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities across America and most recently, Black Rage in New Orleans. During his long tenure with the NOPD, he served as the first president of the Black Organization of Police. He has been interviewed for both his work and research by such notable newspapers and news programs as The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Inside Edition, Mr. Jack Ford of MSNBC, the BBC, (British Broadcasting Company), The Yale Daily News, The Reno Gazette Journal, The Times-Picayune, The Baton Rouge Advocate, The San Diego Bee, The Houston Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal – Constitution, Gambit Weekly (of New Orleans) and several foreign news agencies.
Sociologist Dr. Kathleen Fitzgerald, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology, Loyola University New Orleans; she is also the author of Beyond White Ethnicity: Developing a Sociological Under-standing of Native American Identity Reclamation (2007), and is currently working is currently on a race relations textbook for McGraw Hill entitled Taking Account of Race, Racism, and Privilege. She has published in The Sociological Quarterly and several encyclopedia articles. Her current research interest involves analyzing the struggles surrounding the teaching of race, racism and privilege and social inequalities above and beyond race, such as inequalities along the lines of class, gender, and sexual orientation. Her teaching and research interests also include political sociology, particularly social movements and social policy.
Mr. Jordan Flaherty is a journalist, community organizer, and social commentator based in New Orleans. He was the first journalist with a national audience to write about the Jena Six case, and played a significant role in bringing the story to worldwide attention. His post-Katrina writing in ColorLines Magazine shared a journalism award from New America Media for best Katrina-related coverage in the Ethnic press, his reporting has been featured in the New York Times, and audiences around the world have seen the news segments he’s produced for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, GritTV, and Democracy Now. Jordan has appeared as a guest on a wide range of television and radio shows, including CNN Morning, Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Headline News, Grit TV, and both local and nationally syndicated shows on National Public Radio. He has been a regular correspondent or frequent guest on Democracy Now, Radio Nation on Air America, News and Notes, and many other outlets. He is the editor of Left Turn Magazine, a national publication dedicated to covering social movements and his writings have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. His most recent endeavor, the book — FLOODLINES: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, is now standard curriculum for courses at Xavier University at New Orleans, Tulane University and the University of New Orleans.
This article was originally published in the October 24, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper
