New Orleans, DOJ moves to end Police Department consent decree

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans and the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion in federal court Friday to take steps to end longstanding federal oversight of the city’s police department.

The city and the federal government agreed to a reform pact for the New Orleans Police Department, known as a consent decree, in 2013, two years after a Justice Department investigation found evidence of racial bias and misconduct by part of the city police.

The Justice Department found in 2011 that New Orleans police used deadly force without justification, repeatedly made unconstitutional arrests and engaged in racial profiling. Officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths have been “inadequately investigated or not investigated at all,” the Justice Department said.

If U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan of the Eastern District of Louisiana approves the motion, the city and its police department will have two more years under federal oversight to demonstrate that they are complying with the reform measures adopted during the consent decree before it is lifted.

“Today’s filing recognizes the significant progress the City of New Orleans and the New Orleans Police Department have made to ensure constitutional and fair policing,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement.

Morgan said in a statement that he plans to hold a public hearing within the next 45 days to allow community members to weigh in on whether they believe the city and its police department should be allowed to end federal oversight.

Colin Reingold, legal director of the Promise of Justice Initiative, welcomed the citizens’ input.

“The harms committed by the NOPD are not the harms of the past, and the need for police accountability in Louisiana is still as great as ever,” he said in a statement. “The NOPD is a long way from restoring trust in the communities we represent. Federal oversight of NOPD practices, while not a panacea, has been and remains an important check on abuses of power, and the NOPD’s efforts to escape this oversight suggest that the lessons of the consent decree have not led to long-lasting reforms. . The discussion about moving from the consent decree should be had with the community before it is brought to court.”

The city’s independent police monitor, Stella Cziment, said in a statement that the voices of city residents must be “heard, considered and weighed” in determining whether to allow the consent decree process to enter its final stages. But she noted that the consent decree was always intended to be phased out over time.

“The reforms put in place, the officers who embrace those reforms and the community that supported the reforms are not going anywhere,” she said. “Work continues.”

The Office of the Independent Police Monitor is an independent civilian police oversight agency created by voters in a 2008 referendum. It is tasked with holding the police department accountable and making sure they follow their own rules, policies, and laws city, state and federal.

Relations between Morgan and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell have been strained, with the mayor saying the consent decree was a drain on city resources. Complying with federal monitoring has cost the city millions.

The city said it would issue a statement later Friday on the filing.

Morgan said he “applauds the progress” made so far by the New Orleans Police Department. She added that the court will take “swift and decisive action” if the city and police department do not follow through on ongoing reform efforts.

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