There's more than one way to defund the police. Understaffing them, for example - you can do that just through pure negligence.
It wasn't until after Mayor LaToya Cantrell was re-elected to a second term that she discussed police pay raise or any plan to hire more police. And still, she lacks the desire to consume political capital to put those plans into action. Cantrell and much of her constituency are not in favor of aggressive policing, and now, that line of thinking has led to illegal burnout contests and people jumping on top of police cars while onlookers laugh and cheer them on. And still, the mayor does not recognize that these are the downstream implications of her ideology.
Now, I ‘ve come to find out the New Orleans Police Department was aware in advance of the possibility of burnout contests happening. I spoke to New Orleans City Councilman at Large JP Morrell and PANO attorney Eric Hessler about the lawlessness that was allowed over the weekend.
Do you think there needs to be a shock and awe approach to combat the city's surging crime?
JPM: I wouldn't say there needs to be a shock and awe approach. Perhaps there needs to be an open acknowledgement that we have a problem. We're at a point where we need to re-evaluate what we're doing in a substantial way.. what happened this weekend was not only predictable, it was forecasted. People were advertising these events in the week leading up to it.
Do you wish to clarify some things as it relates to what NOPD knew about the burnout contest on Sunday?
EH: I’m not sure if there was an actual plan, but NOPD did notify every district commander on Saturday of burnout contests and updated them throughout the weekend. The commanders of the Special Operations Division and the Traffic Division were also notified.
You know as well as I that actionable intelligence is only of value when you act. You have to admit that this was a failure. NOPD sent one guy in there. This may be the single most demoralizing moment for the NOPD that I can remember in the last decade.
EH: I agree, but this is not a failure of the intelligence unit who gathers the intelligence and pushes it forward. It's a failure on behalf of those higher ups that have the intelligence and fail to act on it…The incompetence does have a trickle down effect and hopefully no officers suffer because of it. I'm very afraid that might happen.
We cannot allow offenders to meander around the law.
JPM: The challenge we have right now is the NOPD balancing between being responsive and being a department that doesn't do anything. The administration is so obsessed with getting out of the consent decree that they go well beyond what's required in it in hopes of not paying for it anymore. They've given up on actually doing law enforcement.
EH: We have a bunch of good police officers who are very well trained. They treat the public very well. They're just not allowed to interact with criminals. I just have to say it that way. They're very discouraged to do so.
