Warren Woodfork, first Black NOPD superintendent, passes away at 85

14th March 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer

Warren Woodfork Sr., the first Black superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, passed away on March 9. He was 85.

The NOPD announced Woodfork’s death on Twitter. “#NOPDNews would like to extend sincere condolences and prayers to the family of former Superintendent Warren Woodfork who passed today,” the department tweeted.

Woodfork was born in 1936 and grew up in a New Orleans housing project. He was a postal clerk when he applied to join the NOPD. He once told Time magazine that he originally had no desire to be a policeman. But as Woodfork told The Times-Picayune in June 1985, a friend told Woodfork he had taken the police examination and bet Woodfork could not pass it.

“So I took the test, passed it and have loved it ever since,” Woodfork told The Times-Picayune in June 1985.

After that fateful test, Woodfork would serve 28 years in the department, starting out as a patrolman. He would also work in intelligence as a supervisor. Retired NOPD officer Larry Williams, who worked with Woodfork in vice and intelligence, spoke admiringly of his former colleague.

“He was a great police officer. He knew the streets,” Williams said.

Williams recalled a case in the early 1970s where they were investigating two brothers in the Ku Klux Klan of criminal activities. Woodfork was able to convince the Klansmen’s sister to provide evidence against them.

“Woody was great at convincing people regardless of their political beliefs or skin color that it was in the public interest to help us,” Williams said.

Woodfork initially gained media attention when he became the first commander of the controversial Felony Action Squad, which existed from 1972 to 1982 and was described by The Times-Picayune in 1978 as “hand-picked volunteers in an effort to curb street crimes – armed robbery, murder, rape, burglary, and purse snatching. The squad members had orders to ‘shoot to kill.’”

Woodfork made history as the NOPD’s first Black superintendent after being hired by Mayor Ernest “Dutch” Morial in 1985. He would serve in that position until 1991.

“It’s a good department and I think I can make it a better one,” Woodfork said in a July 1985 article published in The Times-Picayune.

While Woodfork was aware of the historical significance of his hire, he did not emphasize it. “I’m not their Black police chief. I’m their police chief,” Woodfork told Time.

The July 1985 Times-Picayune article listed a number of changes Woodfork made in his first six months in the position, which included adding 31 detectives to the criminal investigation bureau, increasing foot patrols, and having accident investigations handled by a central traffic division to free patrol officers for crime calls.

In the article, Woodfork told The Times-Picayune he felt policing had become “too impersonal.”

“I want to create an atmosphere where we can disrupt the opportunity for certain people who commit crimes and the citizens feel confident because we are there, they have met us and they have the confidence to call and tell us about suspicious activity,” Woodfork told The Times-Picayune.

Many of the challenges Woodfork faced on the job still exist today.

“First of all, finances are always a problem,” Woodfork told The Times-Picayune in June 1985. “And we’re short-handed right now with about 1,340 commissioned officers, compared to the 1,500 we had in 1978.”

Woodfork also had a varied academic background. He studied fine arts at Xavier University, sociology at the University of New Orleans, and criminal justice at Tulane. He also spent seven years in the Air Force.

In December 1990, Woodfork announced he would retire as superintendent in April 1991. In an article in The Times-Picayune, Woodfork said he retired for personal reasons and not because of outside pressure.

“I’m not going because I’m fed up or frustrated like a lot of people seem to think,” Woodfork said.

Woodfork showed a sense of humor as he left the position when he gave his successor, Arnesta Taylor, a pack of antacid tablets as a welcoming gift, according to a July 1992 article in The Times-Picayune.

Former New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, who Woodfork worked under from 1986-1991, praised the former superintendent to WGNO news.

“I thought he was a great chief…hardworking, very concerned about what was happening in the city. Understood the department and had all the respect of the men and women. Dealt with the early impacts of the crack cocaine epidemic,” Barthelemy said.

Woodfork was preceded in death by his wife Marie, who passed away in 2016 and one of his three children, Warren Jr., who passed away in 2017. He is survived by his sons Richard and Patrick, as well as his brother, Richard.

This article originally published in the March 14, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.