New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police gathers public comment ahead of NOPD federal court hearing

New Orleans, LA – On Saturday, October 19, about 25 people turned out to a public meeting hosted by New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police (NOCOP). The meeting primarily served as a teach-in and comment drive to involve residents in fighting back against the New Orleans Police Department’s (NOPD) attempt to exit the oversight of a federal consent decree.

The first part of the meeting informed attendees on what is at stake. If a federal judge rules to allow the consent decree to move into sustainment, this would mean the beginning of the end of federal oversight. After two years of a “sustainment period” the consent decree would end, leaving NOPD to oversee itself.

As it stands today, the NOPD is still not in compliance with constitutional policing standards required by the consent decree. The most glaring issues are NOPD’s racist and biased policing; stop, search and arrests; and use of force rates. According to data from the New Orleans Independent Police Monitor, NOPD use of force rates against Black people are higher now than they were in 2013, when the consent decree was implemented.

Speakers from the immigrant rights organization Union Migrante gave personal testimony of NOPD collaboration with ICE, and police failing to communicate with or serve immigrants . “We are very vulnerable because we’re immigrants…we want to have police who will actually protect us. We’re very afraid of actually going to the police. We want to feel safe in the city,” said a speaker from Union Migrante. “We have to keep fighting against the police because we need justice.”

The meeting also exposed a glaring conflict of interest in the consent decree monitoring process: Federal Deputy Monitor David Douglass, who oversees the federal audits of NOPD, professionally employs former NOPD top officials in his nonprofit called Effective Law Enforcement for All.

“Consent decrees are a really big business,” said Eyes on Surveillance speaker Marvin Arnold. Due to his work in New Orleans, Deputy Monitor Douglass recently won a contract worth up to $1.5 million annually to monitor the Minneapolis Police Department’s consent decree. If Douglass helps move the NOPD to sustainment despite the department’s failure to meet federal guidelines, he will gain a professional boon of “success” worth millions of dollars to his own enrichment and his own nonprofit’s business.

At the end of the meeting, participants participated in a comment drive, sending public comment to the court and pushing for the NOPD to remain under the consent decree until issues of racist policing and conflicts of interest are resolved. The public has until November 8 to send comments via email to the clerk of court, at clerk@laed.uscourts.gov.

The next opportunity to attend a public meeting hosted by NOCOP and partnering organizations will be Thursday, October 24 at 6 p.m. at Parish Hall, 2533 Columbus Street.

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