In the aftermath of the failure of the recall effort, and obviously because of the number of investigations that Mayor Latoya Cantrell is facing, she issued a public statement about federal consent decree public meetings that is absolutely incredulous. See if you agree with me; here’s her statement:
"The dedicated women and men of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) have worked diligently for ten years to satisfy the constitutional policing requirements of the Federal Consent Decree. This dramatic progress, repeatedly acknowledged by the Federal Monitors and the Court, is a significant part of the reason why last August I asked the Department of Justice to transition the Consent Decree into a less burdensome model. That plan was rejected. NOPD spends enormous amounts of human and financial resources on collecting and publicly reporting on its efforts to demonstrate continued and sustained improvements in constitutional policing. The Court has conducted many public events where NOPD personnel are tasked to prepare extensive presentations on various topics of interest and then present that information before the press. The City and NOPD have objected to these meetings because they are not part of the Consent Decree process agreed to by the City of New Orleans. These meetings require the attendance and attention of a range of public safety personnel who must depart from their daily duties to prepare for a court presentation on live television. Despite our objections, these public events continue to be held and continue to represent a drain on the time, resources, and ability of the NOPD to perform their job duties.
To compound matters, these public meetings have frequently veered into territory and subject matters that are not part of the consent decree or NOPD’s constitutional policing.
"Therefore, in the interest of supporting the efforts of Superintendent Woodfork to further strengthen the integrity of the command structure at NOPD, and to focus the City’s attention on public safety, I am not authorizing any City employee to speak on the City’s behalf in these public meetings without my express permission. To be clear, this action will not slow down any part of the NOPD’s efforts to demonstrate compliance with the consent decree and does not represent any change in that continuing effort. To the contrary, the time saved will free resources to maintain focus on that very effort. Given the NOPD’s top priority of protecting the public, it is in our best interest to allow our officers and supervisors to continue to perform their law enforcement duties to the satisfaction of the Federal Monitors and more importantly, to the people of the City of New Orleans, without distraction while we work to build depth in the NOPD ranks."
Does anyone out there believe the Mayor’s stated intentions for one moment? This is not about transparency, but rather the lack thereof. This is all about control. This is about creating an environment where she will not have to face accountability, when legitimate questions are brought up in a public purview about constitutional policing of this organization and the matter in which the NOPD conducts itself…especially in light of internal investigations being conducted by PIB, of which this Mayor is very much the subject.
Does anyone out there believe in coincidences? I don’t. This is the classic example of a narcissistic leader wanting to take complete control of everyone’s mouths. And what the mayor of the City of New Orleans has done is muzzle her employees to make sure that the federal monitors can’t ask appropriate and pertinent questions of the leadership of the NOPD and respond in a public forum. Why? Because there are downstream applications for the Mayor… bad ones.
And, unfortunately for her, Mayor Cantrell’s employees are compelled to tell the truth to federal monitors. She can’t tell her employees to lie, but she CAN muzzle them. And that’s exactly what she’s doing.
The characterization of this letter is really very similar to the manner in which she approached and characterized the investigation of Jeffrey Vappie. You remember Jeffrey Vappie, don’t you? The officer who disappears into the Pontalba apartments with Mayor Cantrell for hours and days on end, traveling internationally in first class, booking only one hotel room…that Jeffrey Vappie? Yeah, you remember! She can’t tell folks to lie, but if she muzzles them and does not allow them to speak publicly, where they are compelled to answer truthfully to questions from the federal monitors, she accomplishes the same.
So, Mayor Cantrell has referred to the investigation into her security detail, conducted by PIB, as a “witch-hunt.” This is a very sophisticated way of saying that U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan and her team of Federal monitors are conducting a “witch-hunt.” Is anybody out there fooled by this move? I’m not. I hope you’re not. And I hope Judge Morgan is not. In fact, the simple solution to this is for Judge Morgan to simply move these public meetings into a session of open court, where there are sanctions for not answering questions. And those sanctions would be contempt of court. I can tell you that if I was the judge, I would not allow this Mayor, “the BOSS,” to make a mockery of the investigation into Vappie and her security detail and to ignore what has been uncovered. And, obviously, this all about the Federal monitor (Jonathan Aronie) going public and saying that he had a role in disrupting the attempt to reinstate Jeffrey Vappie to the Mayor’s security team.
Does anyone believe that these two instances are not connected?
