In an open letter to Mayor Mitch Landrieu and New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Chief Michael Harrison, the non-profit crime prevention organization known as ‘ProjectNOLA’ slams the city officials for trying to shut down their efforts to stop criminals.

ProjectNOLA’s founder, who started the crime abatement system online, Bryan Lagarde describes in his open letter how the city has been forthright in trying to stir up rumors about the organization’s demise.

Read the full letter here:

Chief Harrison, should you wish to know where the uptown “shotgun” bandit was roughly 30 minutes before he perpetrated the 9-22-15 armed robberies on Milan St., I invite you to personally come see me to retrieve new crime camera footage. In addition to the five videos that I proactively provided detectives (which helped identify the perpetrator and lead to his arrest), these new videos show the subject in a different part of town and will help strengthen the DA’s case.

By the NOPD continuing to crop out the ProjectNOLA watermark from our crime camera footage and city administrators making false claims like “Project NOLA is going bankrupt,” “Project NOLA’s got problems,” and my new favorite… “things turned ugly after the city refused to purchase Project NOLA’s system”, it has become VERY clear that the mayor wishes our program to simply fade away from a lack of support. Considering how many local residents and business owners have joined together to make Project NOLA a reality, and of how many major crimes we have helped solve since bringing our non-profit crime abatement system online in 2011, this is WRONG.

The facts are simple: Project NOLA works very well. Project NOLA continues to expand and protect the public, although without the support and cooperation of the mayor and police chief. Just imagine how much better Project NOLA could help protect the public should the city administration work with us… and not against us.

Violent crime is dramatically on the rise and the NOPD’s attrition/ manpower issue becomes more critical with every passing month. Overall crime in our beloved city will continue to get much worse, before it even begins to get any better. This is NOT the time to push away that what works, and politics should have no place when considering public safety. You are the police chief. You are failing the needs of the people. The city needs you to step up or move aside. I am here to help either way.

– Bryan Lagarde