Is New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell doing everything in her power to put her thumb on the scale and keep members of the NOPD who investigated her from getting promotions they should be in line for?
That was the consensus of the room Friday when WWL’s Newell Normand interviewed Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.
Goyeneche said that the NOPD undertook an expensive evaluation to determine a ranking of those in line for promotion to captain or major within the department. It was the first time the NOPD had undertaken the costly – the final price tag for the evaluation was around $130,000 – but necessary procedure since 1990.
The evaluation method was not only signed off on by federal watchdogs as part of the NOPD’s consent decree but by Cantrell herself but the promotion process was halted by the mayor once the rankings of the candidates were announced.
Cantrell’s reasoning for halting the process was a perceived “bias” in the rankings after seeing who topped the list, but Goyeneche said the process followed the procedure Cantrell helped to create to the letter.
“I believe this appears to be another example of retaliation,” Goyeneche said. “The mayor has no problem with the process. The mayor has a problem with the results and the results of the process that she created in 2021 and a pleased. That was approved by the federal monitors. And they've been making promotions from, you know, since 2021 with no problems.”
You can hear more breakdown of the process and Normand’s own stern rebuke of Cantrell by clicking the link above.