NOPD accused of hiring improprieties
12th December 2016 · 0 Comments
A high-ranking executive of the severely undermanned New Orleans Police Department has been accused by a police union leader of approving NOPD applicants whose applications had been rejected by contractors whose responsibility it was to vet potential police recruits. Nola.com reported that the complaint filed by NOPD Capt. Michael Glasser alleges that the contractors were told that they would soon be jobless because of their refusal to cooperate with the department’s top brass. Glasser, who heads the Police Association of New Orleans filed the complaint on Nov. 30.
The complaint accuses NOPD Deputy Chief of Staff Jonathan Wisbey of colluding with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu of seeking to wield more control of the NOPD, which has been under a federally mandated consent decree since August 2013.
“We have two problems,” Glasser told Nola.com last week. “People that for one reason or another were deemed not acceptable candidates and were being overridden by the deputy chief of staff, and (contractors) were being punished for not agreeing to do it by not having their contracts renewed.”
NOPD spokesman Tyler Gamble told Nola.com that the NOPD consent-decree monitors assigned to oversee the implementation of the 492-point consent decree will look into the complaint.
Ursula Price, deputy monitor for the Independent Police Monitor’s Office, told Nola.com that the list of allegations against Deputy Chief of Staff Wisbey includes violations of “professionalism,” “honesty,” “truthfulness,” “false reports,” “acting and partially interfering with investigations” and “adherence to law.”
According to Nola.com, Wisbey was hired as deputy chief of staff last summer after creating the position while serving as the Landrieu administration’s “service and innovation manager.” His official duties include approving recruit applications, a challenging task as the NOPD’s available manpower continues to dwindle and the department loses officers to retirement, termination and defections faster than it can train and hire them.
Capt. Glasser told Nola.com last week that Deputy Chief of Staff Wisbey is “willing to fill the bushel with bad apples, so long as he fills the bushel.”
One of those reputed bad apples was a 21-year-old recruit named Jacob Dye who was arrested two months ago on a burglary for allegedly breaking into a Mandeville salon. In February, recruit Gerald Elwood III, 28, was arrested and charged with drunken driving after authorities say he allegedly tried to drive around a multi-vehicle traffic wreck on Interstate 10.
“We have some good recruits,” Glasser told Nola.com. “But I’m concerned there might be some we shouldn’t have as well.”
Gamble defended the NOPD’s recruitment and hiring process as “efficient and robust,” pointing out that only three percent of applicants are hired.
Glasser questioned the appropriateness of hiring Wisbey in the first place, accusing the Landrieu administration of placing Wisbey in that position so that the mayor could effectively gain more control of the embattled police department.
NOPD spokesman Tyler Gamble worked as a spokesman for the Landrieu administration before accepting a similar post with the NOPD.
In other NOPD news, NOPD officials said recently that the severely unmanned department has vastly improved its officer response times, an area for which the embattled department has received harsh criticism over the past few years, progress in officer response times, an area that drew strong criticism.
The department said the amount of time it takes an NOPD officer to respond to an emergency has dropped in every police district in the city over the past year.
According to a department news release, Supt. Michael Harrison made reducing police response times a top priority late last year.
New data from the NOPD shows a department-wide average of just under 11 minutes compared to more than 16 minutes in 2015.
In the 7th District, the average has been cut in half from 31 minutes last year to 14 minutes in 2016.
Some of the improvement can be chalked up to more officers on the street. The department has also worked create ways for some non-violent property crime reports to be handled by phone.
This article originally published in the December 12, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
