New Orleans moves to end federal oversight of police

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans officials asked a federal judge Tuesday to end judicial oversight of their police department under a deal brokered with the U.S. Department of Justice over the scandal-plagued department.

the consent decree was approved by a federal judge in January 2013. It was the result of a 2011 Justice Department decision research Invited by then-Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who took office in 2010.

The city’s motion was filed Tuesday, a day before US District Judge Susie Morgan scheduled a hearing on the status of the settlement. The hearing was set after Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Police Chief Shaun Ferguson publicly called for the pact to be terminated, now describing it as an unnecessary bureaucratic burden on a department that is short-handed amid rising crime. violent in the era of the pandemic.

“Any systemic violation of federal law was remedied years ago,” according to the city’s filing Tuesday. In an accompanying memorandum, the city’s attorneys argue that even if the court finds that the city has not achieved full compliance with all elements of the order, “it is undeniable that NOPD has substantially and materially satisfied the constitutional objectives of the Order in good condition”. faith, and eliminated systemic violations of federal law identified by the 2011 Justice Department investigation.”

Bill Quigley, a civil rights attorney and advocate for police reform, was skeptical of the city’s arguments.

“The city says we are fully compliant, or if we are not, we are mostly compliant, or if we are not, it is not that important,” Quigley wrote in an email. “This is life, death and liberty at stake here. Our community cannot afford to have a ‘sort of’ constitutional policing.”

Police accountability experts have praised New Orleans’ progress under the agreement, one of nearly two dozen such consent decrees in cities. Around the country. Morgan herself praised the city’s progress at a hearing earlier this year. She tempered her praise with an acknowledgment of ongoing problems, including the department’s slowdown with understaffing in recruiting and allegations of wrongdoing by officers working private assignments. But the department has shown transparency in dealing with those setbacks, she Morgan said.

Still, Morgan stopped short of rescinding the deal.

The motion to end the consent decree comes as shooting deaths and carjackings have surged in the last two years while the department has shrunk to fewer than 1,000 people, down from more than 1,300 a year ago. some years. Cantrell has said the bureaucratic demands imposed by the decree are adding to the force’s dwindling workload.

Still, some are skeptical that the consent decree is the main problem.

Rafael Goyeneche, head of the local police watchdog organization the Metropolitan Crime Commission, said statistics and reports on police activities will still be needed to ensure the policy and practice reforms imposed by the deal are upheld.

“My position is, if you want to decrease the burden on officers, don’t let the police force go down from 1,300 officers to 900 officers,” Goyeneche said in a recent interview.

“The City says it’s expensive to comply with the consent decree,” Quigley said. “The community deserves constitutional policing no matter the cost.”

Police Capt. Michael Glasser, head of the New Orleans Police Association, a police union, said the detail and redundancy of reporting required by the consent decree is a factor in low morale and a workload that it only gets worse as the strength decreases.

Still, Glasser said, other factors are more concerning to base officers, including an overzealous “public integrity office,” the police internal affairs agency that PANO has accused, at times, of using false information against criminals. officers. A slow promotion process is also a bigger concern, Glasser said.

“The consent decree is number three,” he said. “The last thing is to pay.”

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