The president of the Police Association of New Orleans says he's fed up.
Captain Michael Glasser says city leaders aren't heeding his and other officers' advice on how to recruit and retain officers. That, he says, is preventing the NOPD from bolstering its declining ranks.
"Nobody seems to want to listen," Glasser told WWL's Tommy Tucker. "The city council doesn't want to listen. Civil service doesn't want to listen. The mayor doesn't want to listen. Nobody wants to listen to it. They just sit there and wring their hands and wonder why we have a problem, and they just won't fix it."
Glasser said fixing the NOPD's staffing problem is simple and that officers know how to fix it. He says city leaders need to change the NOPD's promotional system, install new management in the NOPD's Public Integrity Bureau, and convince a judge to lift the consent decree governing the department.
"Those three things are the primary issues why officers are leaving the department and going elsewhere, and until we change those things, they're not going to stop," Glasser said.
Glasser said of those three items, PIB reform may be the most important.
"In all fairness, they've changed the chief, and I think the new chief (Michelle Woodfork) is trying hard to fix it," Glasser said. "I have seen a few things that are better, but it's not enough, and it's not radical enough. They're doing it slowly and gradually, and that's not cutting it. They need to do a complete overhaul and demonstrate that the PIB is the disciplinary system that (officers) can have confidence in and rely on and not feel like it's going to jeopardize their life and career for the smallest of things, and that it's done fairly."
Glasser says until that happens, New Orleans will continue seeing police officers flock to law enforcement agencies in neighboring parishes.
"When officers become victimized by a bad system, they go back and tell 150 of their closest friends via social media, and they say, 'I'm not waiting for my turn in the barrel. I'll so somewhere where I don't have that kind of risk,'" Glasser said.
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