With the city of New Orleans on the verge of entering the next phase of the federal consent decree overseeing the police department, Mayor LaToya Cantrell may have set the process back.
In a recent round of promotions at NOPD, people being promoted to sergeant and lieutenant went through, but promotions of captains and majors got held up.
New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick told the Times-Picayune that was the mayor's doing. The publication reports two of the people on that list were people involved in the internal investigation of former police officer and mayoral bodyguard Jeffrey Vappie.
"The reason that the list was paused was that the mayor didn't like who the people were on the captains and majors list," said New Orleans Metro Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche.
Goyeneche says this is getting scrutiny from the federal monitor.
"Meddling by the mayor could potentially jeopardize the police department's being moved into the substantial compliance portion of the consent decree," he said. "One of the final hurdles that has to be cleared in the eyes of the judge before she places the police department into the substantial compliance provisions of the consent decree is bias-free promotions."
He says not only could this delay that process, it will likely bring about costly litigation filed by the Police Association of New Orleans.
