The New Orleans Mayor's Office has released more details on the selection process for the next New Orleans police chief, but that hasn't ended the questions.
The mayor's office says it will be a matter of weeks before Mayor LaToya Cantrell completes the interviews of the three finalists, while the International Association of Chiefs of Police completes a full background investigation on them, and months before a decision is made, which baffles Metro Crime Commission president Rafael Goyeneche.
"I don't understand why it would take several weeks to interview three finalists," Goyeneche told WWL's Newell Normand. "I don't understand why this confirmation process, selection process should go on for the next several months."
Interim Superintendent Michelle Woodfork's appointment is set to expire in September, although the city council could extend it.
Another question Goyeneche has is why deep-dives into the finalists' backgrounds are happening now, and not when they first applied.
"I would think at the very least, when they presented the six semi-finalists, they would have done a deep background dive with them," he said. "It doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of common sense to me that you're going to put all those resources into identifying the top six and whittling the six down to three, and then do a background dive. You do that on the front side of it, not the back side of it."
The mayor's office says the three finalists are interim chief Michelle Woodfork, former Henderson County, Nevada chief Thedrick Andres Sr., and former Oakland police chief Anne Kirkpatrick.
