As NOPD nears compliance with reform pact, some in Black community chafe (2024)

The New Orleans Police Department has never been closer to clearing federal oversight in the dozen years since it leaped into an era of reform, spurred by a damning U.S. Justice Department review.

The prospect of reduced monitoring, on the way to ending oversight, came into focus this week. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who has tracked the reforms since their start, heard a positive report on officer bias, then bluntly requested a plan to launch the NOPD into a two-year "sustainment" phase under the 2012 reform pact known as a consent decree.

"We need to begin putting the framework in place," she said Wednesday.

It was her clearest statement that independence is near at hand for a police force that remains under one of the country's most ambitious and longest-running police consent decrees. Mayor LaToya Cantrell in a statement called the NOPD a changed organization.

"The NOPD is ready to demonstrate to the court, and more importantly to our community, that we are ready to sustain the reforms we have achieved and are committed to maintaining," it read.

"Since the Mayor’s tenure, NOPD has gone from compliance in a handful of areas to being compliant in a majority of material consent decree paragraphs."

But at a public forum Thursday night, Black civic and business leaders panned the idea of freeing the NOPD, calling it all too hasty.

"We need to talk about why sustainment is premature," said W.C. Johnson, chair for Community United for Change.

The group has monitored the NOPD's progress since the start, after then-mayor Mitch Landrieu invited the Justice Department to review an NOPD still reeling from the chaos, death and violence that trailed Hurricane Katrina, some on account of police.

"So you don't believe it should be on the table," asked the city's independent police monitor, Stella Cziment, whose office facilitated the meeting at the NOPD Academy.

"Hell, no," responded Toni Jones, chair of New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police.

The contrast in tone, tenor and verbiage — optimism in the courtroom among deputy police chiefs, Morgan and the monitors, while community voices drip with skepticism — suggests a challenge in selling the public on the idea that the NOPD is ready to police itself.

"We want Black people to be acknowledged, because it was Black people who were maimed and murdered, who got the consent decree put in place," said Alicia Plummer, vice president of the New Orleans East Business Association.

"Who is speaking for us?...The police and federal monitors, they're in cahoots together."

She and other attendees questioned the data behindan internal audit of the NOPD's compliance in the area of bias-free policing. The audit was amongthe last major punch list items for the NOPD as it closes in on Morgan's blessing. They said they fear the data was skewed by racial bias.

Some critics also cited exclusion from court proceedings and discussions; a lack of community meetings held by the federal monitors; and a diminished standing for the city's Police Community Advisory Boards.

Some advocates view those boards as wasted potential watchdogs in a post-consent decree era.

"I have been at PCAB meetings. If you talk about something controversial, they stop the meeting," Jones said.

The city appeared close to exiting federal oversight two years ago, before a steep drop-off in commissioned officers prompted the monitors to pump the brakes. Cantrell balked at new demands from the judge and monitors, and relations soured.

That history appeared all-but forgotten Wednesday as Morgan said she would schedule a hearing about the public's role during a transition.

Morgan, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Obama, said it would include a discussion about whether those community boards are effective. The mayor's office said in a statement that she's open to bolstering the boards' standing with NOPD.

In the meantime, Morgan again solicited a detailed plan for sustainment, along with a reader-friendly summary of NOPD’s achievements to date.

"It sounds like the court has directed the monitoring team to summarize the volumes of information we have given them over the years" proving compliance, an NOPD spokesperson said.

Just when Morgan might rule on the sustainment phase remains uncertain. NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick had said her goal was to reach the final phase by year's end. Morgan did not offer a timeline.

Kirkpatrick said she looked forward to second-lining "up and down Poydras Street," the department's new home, when the order comes.

The police chief, who took office last fall, insisted that the department is committed to rooting out and eliminating bias in its officers. She took pains last week to address the precursors to the consent decree, in a city with a sordid history of violence from police.

"My heart's desire is to heal where there have been fractures," Kirkpatrick said. "The best apology is to be where we are today."

Public consent decree reports may be viewed athttp://consentdecreemonitor.com/reports.