(The Center Square) – The federal oversight agreement that hangs over the New Orleans Police Department is viewed acrimoniously by police officers, the city council and the state’s leaders.
“We cannot continue to go down the same broken path,” Gov. Jeff Landry wrote on Facebook. “It is time for the NOPD to be relieved from this costly and burdensome consent decree.”
Landry and Attorney General Liz Murill have made an official move to end the consent decree and enter into a sustainment period, which was granted by the court.
The two-year sustainment plan “provides adequate assurance that the City and NOPD will sustain the improvements they have made and will complete their unfinished work.”
For those two years, the city will be required to fulfill the remaining consent decrees requirements and ensure the NOPD will maintain the reforms once the decree is terminated.
As of September 2024, the city has spent approximately $61.3 million in compliance with the decree, with around $14.3 million directed toward the Office of Compliance and Data Monitoring, according to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office.
City officials assert that the NOPD has demonstrated consistent progress, fulfilling the decree’s requirements, and argue that the department’s reforms have made it a national model for constitutional policing.
“We believe the NOPD has been in substantial compliance for over two years,” said City Attorney Donesia Turner. “It’s time for the court to recognize this and bring this chapter to a close.”
In 2022, a federal agreement confirmed that 15 out of 17 consent decree categories had been fully met, with just two nearing full compliance. However, a motion to end the decree, filed by the city in August of that year, remained unresolved until this month, when it was denied.
The consent decree is no welcome oversight to many in the city and the NOPD itself.
A survey conducted within the department revealed that 47% of officers believe the Consent Decree makes their jobs more difficult.
One respondent noted, “The NOPD is not the problem! The NOPD is made up of the most dedicated and honest men and women I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Unfortunately, the heinous acts of a very few officers many years ago resulted in the counterintuitive response of a Consent Decree.”
Mayor Latoya Cantrell has also expressed dissatisfaction with the consent decree, saying that it ” handcuffs our officers by making their jobs harder, pestering them with punitive punishment and burying them with paperwork that is an overburden.”
The hearings which are periodically held by the monitor have also caught Cantrell’s rage, who called them a “drain on time, resources, and the ability of the NOPD to perform their jobs.”
The financial burden of compliance is also compounded by staffing shortages.
Some officers worry that reduced manpower could hinder the NOPD’s ability to meet certain provisions of the decree, particularly concerning response times for critical emergency calls.
“If officers cannot consistently respond to calls for service in a timely manner, we cannot meet the fair and impartial service required under the decree,” said one person surveyed by the legislative auditor.
The city’s push to end the consent decree comes alongside a formal letter from the New Orleans City Council, which objects to the Louisiana attorney general’s involvement in the case, raising legal concerns about the city’s charter and the process of selecting outside counsel.
If the motion to terminate the decree succeeds, it could end the costly court-ordered monitoring and bring much-needed relief to the city’s budget. The decree required the establishment of several offices in the NOPD, including the Force Investigation Team, the Crisis Intervention Team, and the Officer Assistance Program.
These departments come with further requirements, like training certifications and third-party oversight.