Now that almost all of the coronavirus restrictions are being lifted in New Orleans and across Louisiana, and crowds are returning to bars, clubs and event venues - are local law enforcement agencies getting the support they need to keep everyone safe? Former NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas joined Newell on the program Friday morning to discuss.
“I have been very critical of the Cantrell administration over the past several weeks about the lack of transparency as to where we stand from a staffing perspective,” Newell began. “How many people do we actually have available to us? Because we're talking around these issues of strategies and tactics - we keep hearing that we don't have the manpower that we need, but nobody ever tells us how many we are short.”
“Oftentimes the city of New Orleans and other cities will say we have a total complement of 1,100 officers,” Serpas said. “What that will always include is everybody who's out sick, which in a department of New Orleans’ size could be from 50 to 70 people. That also includes the 3-5% that's involved in internal affairs and training. It includes the 5-10% that's included in the detective function. So by the time you get down to who's actually in a car riding around, it's nowhere near 1,100, but the answer makes people think it's bigger than what it is. For some background and context on this real quick, you see it as well as I do - year to date murders are up about 28%, of 60% all of last year. Year to date non-fatal shootings are up over 40% up over 64% all of last year, carjackings up 97% year to date up 126% over last year.”
“So let's just put aside the notion that COVID has something to do with this. We're about 18 months into a double, and in some cases, triple digit increase in incredibly violent crime,” Serpas continued. “The reason that's important is, when you're the Chief, or you're the Sheriff, you've got to confront that with all the officers you have on deck. 1,110 is not enough in New Orleans. I think people often wonder, what is the right number? But people know when it ain't enough, right? You see what I'm saying? We could argue whether we need 16, 17, 18 hundred officers - it doesn't matter. 1,100 is not the number of people riding around in a car.”
“What are your feelings about actually having a more robust, open, transparent conversation, whether this is something that happens at a council meeting or otherwise as to what we actually have available to us?” Newell asked. “I've talked to a number of business leaders and I'm sure you have too. They're always asking me, what do you think the number is? I hear anecdotal stories from commanders in the districts. I don't like to repeat them because I'd much rather the administration say what it is… I view it as conjecture, but the numbers are ugly.”
“What happens when the police chief is not independently elected, that means that he or she has to be part of a mayor's administration. A good friend of mine used to say, when you're the police chief in a city with a mayor, you're on the mayor’s staff, detailed to the police department. So that means some of the messaging around staffing is far bigger than just the number. It’s, are we successfully recruiting? Are we successfully retaining? If you're doing a great job of recruiting and retaining, your numbers are going to keep going up. But if you're not doing a good job at recruiting and retaining, and you have to start answering those questions, sometimes the best answer is no answer. And this isn't unique to this city or this town. It's done like that everywhere, but it's not really the best way to do it. I think for transparency, you know, post on the internet how many people are in a car between 3 to 11 in Algiers, how many people are in a car from 7 to 3 in the Ninth Ward. Let people know those numbers because those are the people that are going to actually help you secure more political support for funding to hire more people.”
“That's my thinking,” Newell agreed. “That was my approach, always. I would never let there be shortages in the patrol division, because I always felt the only way that I could maintain the public's trust was to not have a backlog of calls, to make sure that we were answering those calls, and that not only just one car, but two cars would show up, because that's where that's the most likely police interaction is going to be - us responding to a 911 call.”
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
