http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxB42cjHTGg

I am reviewing a 158 page report on the NOPD. The report was created by the Civil Rights Division of the Federal Justice Department.

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/nopd_report.pdf

It is a rather long read but its findings are clear and direct. Certainly it was written in the normal bureaucraticese; but it is well written nonetheless and it is not that difficult to read between the lines and come to your own conclusions.

What the report reminded me of was the plot in Streets of Blood starring Val Kilmer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_of_Blood

Things are so bad down there that attorneys advertise in order to solicit victims of police brutality in New Orleans. http://www.glennmcgovern.com/PracticeAreas/Police-Brutality.asp

The national average for racial discrimination by police departments is 3 to 1. That is, if you are a black youth you may assume that you are three times more likely to be arrested than a white youth for engaging in the same criminal conduct.

That is bad enough.

The report finds that in NO, that same Black kid is sixteen times more likely to be arrested for the same conduct as a white kid. (X)

And yet, according to Wiki, 51% of all the police officers in New Orleans are Black!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Police_Department

84% of arrests that involved the use of force by the police involved African American suspects.

And, as you might assume, discrimination is rampant against the gay community as well as against immigrant communities. (X,XI,XII)

Of course you could not come to many conclusions with regard to racial discrimination at the NOPDs on your own because THEY DO NOT KEEP VERY GOOD TRACK OF SUCH THINGS!!

You see if you were to conduct an official investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department with regard to issues of race you would find all sorts of data. Like most PDs, complaints are duly logged and filed and cross referenced and proper summaries could be made available with a few strokes on a keyboard.

The investigators in NO had to go through arrest reports one at a time; which meant most of their conclusions were based on random samples although it appears that thousands of records were reviewed by investigators.

The DOJ took a look at several problems in the NOPD that contribute to this dysfunction. (XVI)

Policies

Recruitment

Training

Supervision

Detail Work

Performance Reviews

Complaint Intake

Community Oriented Policing

Officer Assistance and Support

Interrogation Techniques

Community Oversight

I shall discuss a few of these categories in depth and came to some conclusions.

Detail work gives the police officer a chance to make extra cash on the side. The officers end up working for private corporations and end up policing commercial events like football games or rock concerts. This part of the report was difficult for me to understand but it looks like some sort of protection racket is in force down there giving the cops non-reportable income.

In other words, if you are a cop that wants an in on this graft, you have to be willing to play ball.

This racket plays into the general promotional prospects for each police officer.

One little aspect of performance reviews relating to promotion; if there has been no reprimand within the previous 12 months, the candidate is written up as clean. Hahaha I don’t know why that strikes me as funny; must be a dark part of my soul.

I mean if you pummeled a suspect within an inch of his life thirteen months prior to your review and you were actually found to have used excessive force, the incident would have no effect upon your chances for promotion.

As far as interrogations, the NOPD has some problems with documentation, to say the least.  The investigators found that it was very difficult to gauge their interrogation techniques because of lack of video tapes, auditory tapes, and notes concerning the interrogations. Hahahahah

You see you can use rubber hoses, fail to give proper Miranda Warnings, and basically lie, cheat and steal your way to a confession, and only the confession appears on the tapes or in the notes. Hahahah

This is like a bad cop movie. (XX)

Instead of concluding:

Ooooh, it’s Chinatown.

You come to the conclusion that:

It’s New Orleans!

Now to be fair, New Orleans asked that the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ conduct this investigation. I do not wish to be criticized for dissing another Southern Municipality.

Every city has its own version of graft and injustice.

And this report underlines the fact that most New Orleans Police Officers are good men and women.

What I like about the report is that it treats the subject police department in a systematic manner.

Take some time to scan this report.

It is well worth the effort.

I understand that there is more danger in the  urban centers that house the poorer classes and therefore minorities experience more apparent criminal behavior.

But I was reading other articles stressing that the use of drugs by members of our minority communities is not that much higher than in the more affluent communities. I was rather shocked by this. Here is one study:

According to the 2003 NSDUH, 38.2% of White young adults 18 to 25 years of age in the U.S. reported any illicit drug use in the past year, followed by African-American (30.6%) and Hispanic (27.5%) young adults (SAMHSA, 2004a). The same race/ethnicity patterns were observed for the past-year prevalence of marijuana use and marijuana use disorders among individuals 18 to 29 years of age according to data from the 2001–2002 National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; Compton et al., 2004) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377408/

I would assume that there are more check kiting type crimes among the members of affluent communities simply because those folks have more bank accounts.

These types of crimes do not involve guns or assault.

But the 16/1 ratio of arrests involving members of the minority communities is abominable.

Again, New Orleans should receive high marks for calling for this investigation.

And every city, in my opinion should undergo this type of investigation.