LA Weekly: Over-policed: Does New Orleans have too many law enforcement agencies?

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

Editor’s Note: This story is the second installment in a two-part story.

As often fatal shootings of unarmed Black people by law enforcement continue across the country, the question of defunding police departments continues to be asked. In New Orleans, that question is complicated by the number of law enforcement agencies servicing the city.

For one, the city retains a shroud over the New Orleans Police Department thanks to a series of scandals, incidents of abuse and murder, and a subsequent federal investigation and imposition in 2013 of a comprehensive consent decree aimed at reforming the NOPD.

The result of years of abuse of power, corruption and questionable public interactions is deep mistrust and even fear towards police on the part of many communities in the city, especially people of color and lower-income residents.

Along those lines, the presence of so many different police forces in one area gives rogue or disgraced police officers ways to continue a career in law enforcement despite being fired by one other law enforcement entity, providing proverbial “bad apples” with chance after chance to interact properly with the public. 

A 2017 investigation by The Washington Post found that dozens of officers who were either fired or forced to resign from the NOPD easily found new jobs with local campus police departments, the levee police force or various sheriff’s agencies.

Such incidents might further erode the public’s perception of law enforcement in general, especially as movements to defund or abolish police agencies continue to build and citizen sentiment becomes more cynical and more distrusting of the officers charged with keeping the peace.

Situations like the one uncovered by The Washington Post might cause members of the public, especially people of color, to believe that cops aren’t out to protect the public, but to protect themselves.

“At a time of increased scrutiny of police nationwide, the ease with which fired or forced-out New Orleans officers found work at new departments underscores the broader challenge that law enforcement faces to rid itself of bad apples,’” the 2017 Post article stated.

The article added that “[p]olice officials and law enforcement experts say that smaller police agencies may have less capacity to vet potential hires and that the departments are more willing to take chances on officers with troubled backgrounds because of the national shortage of officers.”

Measures aimed at consolidating police operations and simplifying the local law enforcement network have been made in recent years. In 2015, the state legislature created the Law Enforcement Management District of Orleans Parish in an effort to promote inter-agency cooperation and symbiosis.

The district is run by a board consisting of voting members from the mayor’s office, the City Council, the local courts system, the state legislature and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office. The board also includes a slew of commanding officers from other police agencies, like university police, the levee district police and the harbor police.

The purpose of the police management district is outlined on the City of New Orleans Web site:

“The Law Enforcement Management District of Orleans Parish facilitates the development and implementation of cooperative endeavor agreements and memorandums of understanding between or among the various agencies having law enforcement jurisdiction in Orleans Parish to provide police protection. The Law Enforcement Management District of Orleans Parish also provides greater communication and coordination between the various neighborhood improvement districts and crime prevention and security districts and with the various agencies having law enforcement jurisdiction to provide police protection in Orleans Parish. In addition, the board will perform any other function deemed appropriate for achieving cooperative police security services.”

Around the time of the adoption of the state law creating the management district, the city issued a statement to the media defending the NOPD, its efficacy and efficiency against a background of increased inter-agency cooperation.

“Currently, Louisiana State Police troopers are assigned to assist NOPD in the French Quarter area, but are always available to assist in investigations and enforcement across the city,” the city statement read. “And there are agreements in place with HANO, Tulane University, Levee Board and Harbor Police to assist NOPD every day with proactive patrolling and responding to calls for service in areas around their developments or campus.

“We continue to look to expand the success of these patrols and look forward to working with the Orleans Parish Law Enforcement Management District to assist in fighting crime. These agreements allow the agencies to share information and assist in any way to make arrests, to solve and to prevent crimes and to keep our campus community safe.”

The passage of the management district legislation was championed by then-State Sen. J.P. Morrell, a Democrat from New Orleans. In a November 2015 commentary in the New Orleans Advocate, Morrell expressed optimism in the potential of the management district and the overall effort toward police streamlining.

“Certainly this is a complicated proposition, but if there is a possibility that we can create greater coordination and cooperation of these agencies, working with the NOPD, to provide any relief, it’s an option we must explore,” he stated. “For too long we’ve constantly heard that things ‘can’t be done’ or ‘that’s the way it is.’ When it comes to taking back control of our city, it’s time for solutions now.”

But it’s now nearly five years later, and the overall national debate about police reform has significantly accelerated with the growing surge of the Black Lives Matter movement and the increasing public pressure on law enforcement agencies to enact reform, accountability and operational downsizing.

If any localized branch of the movement to defund police gains steam in New Orleans, advocates pressing for institutional efficiency and large-scale decreases in funding for local cops will be faced with a situation that isn’t so simple or clear, experts say.

Aside from all the logistical complexities on paper, any large-scale consolidation or cooperation of police agencies must overcome sustained “organizational ego” within different existing police forces that can clash with other agencies over territory, jurisdiction or just pride, said Peter Scharf, an adjunct professor at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans and a respected researcher of corrections, criminal justice and policing.

“There are a bunch of rivalries that have historical roots,” Scharf said. According to Scharf, in some ways, the city’s police structure can devolve into a system of cliques, causing friction and grudges between entities.

“Police departments internally can have big trouble cooperating with different departments,” Scharf said. “Getting the [police] cliques to cooperate can be harder than in different government agencies.”

Some of those rivalries stem from how different law enforcement units often need to compete for funding and financial government support. “Everyone is at one big table,” Scharf said.

Scharf said that the ongoing economic recession continues to stretch the limits of governmental budgets and place severe fiscal challenges on police agencies, just like with other facets of government. That could either improve or impede inter-agency sharing, depending on several factors.

“These are not flush times,” he said. “Given the scarcity of resources, how do we cooperate [in policing]? It may be an argument for cooperation, or it may not.”

Ronal Serpas, a Professor of Practice in the Loyola University-New Orleans Department of Criminology and Justice and former New Orleans Chief of Police, echoed those thoughts and stressed that, ultimately, it’s governmental and legislative bodies that control the purse strings and, therefore, allow law enforcement entities to function on any given level.

“It’s the legislative bodies that create the budgets,” Serpas said. “Where do you put the money? That’s under the operation of [the] government.”

Thus, police agencies find themselves competing against each other for attention and funding.

“If your department needs funding, you go to your city council,” Serpas said. That’s what everyone else does.”

Police agencies must do the hard work of putting together detailed budget proposals and operational planning to present to the funding governmental bodies if they want to have a shot at securing increased financial resources, Serpas said.

“But you need to recognize that there’s someone else coming right after you asking for the same money,” he added.

For example, Serpas said that’s the playbook that was employed by several local universities when they went to Baton Rouge to appeal for the creation of their own police departments.

But now, Scharf said, heightened public activism and the nation’s roiling political picture have coupled with the harsh economic realities facing police and society.

“The challenges are now even greater,” he said. “These are scary times.”

Both Scharf and Serpas said that police agencies aren’t just tasked with enforcing laws, they’re also involved in the responses to large-scale emergency situations that tax all phases of emergency and first response agencies and force them to operate smoothly and quickly. Such crises as natural disasters – both Serpas and Scharf pointed to Hurricane Katrina as a significant example of a local emergency situation – and tragedies like mass shootings require the employment of existing cooperative agreements between different police agencies, and agreements between police entities and fire departments, ambulance services and federal disaster relief.

Ideally, it’s during large-scale emergencies that each police agency’s specific and unique duties, responsibilities and aptitudes are best used in cooperation with each other. But such events can likewise highlight the inability of various agencies to cooperate and function together. The existence of numerous police agencies are either justified and legitimized during a crisis – or they’re exposed as inefficient and possibly unnecessary.

Framing such complexities against the current “defund the police” movement further highlights the challenges implicit in any effort to decrease the size of law enforcement agencies, both in terms of financial allocations and number of existing police agencies.

Serpas said, once again, each city or town is different in terms of potential defunding. He said that a successful defunding effort must be well planned and sincerely designed to make policing more responsive to the community. It can’t simply be punishment or vengeance on the part of the public for the sins of some police. “The defunding argument is just really not well defined,” Serpas said. “In some parts of the country, it makes sense. In other parts of the country, it just sounds like retribution.”

Beyond that, Serpas said, “The question has to be, if we defund the police, then what?” For example, Serpas said, some communities and agencies have been shifting first responder responsibilities in cases of mental health crises from law enforcement to fire departments, social service agencies and other entities better equipped to interact with residents in crisis and defuse the situation without violence or bloodshed.

Or police departments could develop their own mental health crisis squads that are specifically trained to approach potentially dangerous mental health situations with the goal of treating and helping the troubled individual, instead of punishing or simply controlling the person. That modified method of response – treatment instead of punishment – can continue through the court system and result in fewer people with mental illnesses stuck in prison instead of getting the help they need.

Serpas said that such organizational and procedural changes and consideration can improve the public’s perception of the police by reflecting a level of care and personal investment by officers within the community. He said that by understanding that many citizens are enduring significant suffering in their lives – especially in terms of health conditions – that often lead to violence and crime, police can better fulfill their stated purpose.

Overall, the question of striving toward a simplification and improved efficacy of law enforcement through defunding and consolidation is a complicated one that rests on numerous factors.

“It can be done,” Scharf said. “But politically to go for the jugular and just get rid of the police isn’t the best way to go. We need to get [police departments] to cooperate. We need to make it a good idea for them, not just for us.”

This article originally published in the September 7, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.