NOPD seizes control of off-duty detail system
6th July 2015 · 0 Comments
The NOPD has transferred control of its off-duty detail system, taking that task away from three officers who had been giving themselves 60 percent of the jobs, WWL News reported last week.
The changes comes nearly six months after a joint WWL-TV/New Orleans Advocate investigation examined six months of data and showed the three officers in the Special Events Section – Sgt. Walter Powers Jr., Sgt. Sabrina Richardson and Officer Christopher Avist – were assigning most of the work to themselves, often claiming more pay than the other officers on those extra-pay assignments.
Ironically, the detail system abuses took place more than a year after implementation of a federally mandated, 492-point NOPD consent decree began. The decree, which began in August 2013, was the result of a scathing 2011 U.S. Department of Justice report that found widespread abuse and corruption in the NOPD and called the department’s off-dutydetail system the NOPD’s “aorta of corruption.”
The WWL/New Orleans Advocate analysis determined that between May and September 2014, Powers, Richardson or Avist worked on 60 percent of the details assigned through their Special Events Office. The investigative report also noted that Powers, who is president of the Fraternal Order of Police, worked on one of every four details, made more than $20,000 in six months doing it and even made $850 in extra pay by giving himself six different details in a single day.
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison reacted swiftly to the investigative report, banning Powers, Richardson and Avist from working any more details for special events – such as weddings, second-line parades, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest.
But last week’s changes take the assigning powers completely out of that office and give them to the Compliance Bureau, which will use a computer program to select officers from a list and offer jobs to those who have worked the fewest hours to date, NOPD spokesman Tyler Gamble said.
“The system can track how many hours in details those officers are working, so they go first to the people who work the least,” Gamble told WWL.
The change also allows Powers, Richardson and Avist to work special event details once again, by adding their names to the Compliance Bureau list. Those three will still coordinate and organize deployment plans for the special events, as they have done all along.
Donovan Livaccari, attorney for the union led by Powers, has defended the way the three officers distributed the special event assignments, noting that the districts and the motorcycle unit often selected which officers would work those details.
Livaccari and others said the special event details have operated smoothly because the three officers in that office know how to coordinate them and know which cops can do the jobs right.
But similar arguments were made in defense of the way NOPD officers doled out stationary detail assignments, which make up about 90 percent of the detail work and, as mentioned earlier, were cited by the Department of Justice as the “aorta of corruption.”
That led to the creation of the Office of Police Secondary Employment in City Hall, to take the power to hand out extra work assignments away from the officers themselves. But so far, OPSE has not had the 24-hour staff or expertise to also handle the special event details.
Gamble said the motorcycle unit detail coordination should move over to OPSE in the next few weeks. And eventually, all of the special event detail assignments will go through that office, as well, he said.
Some grassroots community leaders and civil rights groups have said that the ongoing abuse of the detail system demonstrates and the exclusion of the community from the consent-decree implementation process, demonstrate the City of New Orleans and the NOPD’s unwillingness to comply with the goals and mandated changes spelled out by the DOJ in the NOPD consent decree. They have asked U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan to either force NOPD consent-decree federal monitor Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton to use the power and authority it has been given to ensure that the mandated changes are implemented or replace Sheppard Mullin altogether.
In other NOPD-related news, some NOPD officers have expressed concern about the NOPD’s use of force policy in the wake of the recent murder of NOPD Officer Daryle Holloway. Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson was expected to make recommendations last week about the amount of force police officers are allowed to use with suspects.
The day after Ofc. Holloway was shot to death in his patrol unit, his accused killer, Travis Boys, was picked up and carried into central lockup.
Boys made a court appearance last week and Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said he would seek the death penalty in the case.
Police Association of New Orleans attorney Eric Hessler told FOX 8 News last week, “They’re gonna have to write a use of force report on the fact that they used physical force to carry him into the jail.”
Hessler told FOX 8 that the report on how officers used physical force to bring Boys into custody is part of the new protocol thanks to the NOPD consent decree.
FOX 8 News reported that a day after Holloway’s June 27 funeral, the NOPD was still searching for answers as to how Boys could’ve gotten a gun into Holloway’s squad car. Hessler says some officers have been hesitant about the level of force they use with suspects. “The Department of Justice is making complaints against these officers when the suspect didn’t make complaints.”
Boys, 33, was reportedly picked up on an aggravated assault charge on the morning of June 20. Police said he was frisked, but no guns were found. The question of how thorough that frisk was remains unanswered. “I do believe that the scrutiny, the oversight and the pressures that have been brought upon them by recent events across the country is having a dampening effect I guess I’d call it, on their aggressiveness,” Hessler explained.
FOX 8 legal analyst Joe Raspanti said last week that he has heard of people making up complaints against cops, especially during an arrest and frisk. “People are going to allege anything and everything that the police do,” he said.
However, Raspanti said the DOJ is working with the NOPD for a reason. “I think we’re already going to see major changes in the NOPD because of the consent decree,” he said.
Changes meant to protect officers, and the public.
Travis Boys is being held at Orleans Parish Prison on a first degree murder charge.
“We have to be very careful that what happened to Officer Holloway is not used to justify the use of excessive, deadly police force against innocent and unarmed civilians, especially Black people,” Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly. “We need to make it clear to the Department of Justice, City of New Orleans and the NOPD that the actions of a violent individual cannot and should not be used to justify unconstitutional policing in the wake of this tragic shooting.”
This article originally published in the July 6, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
