It’s a wild ride between the beginning and end of Carnival season around New Orleans. It can be a blur of time filled with fun, frivolity, beads, booze, king cakes, and plenty of other treats. It’s also a busy time for law enforcement as crowds pour into the Crescent City with resources stretched thin.
NOPD officers expect to deal with big crowds and long hours every Mardi Gras season and most are apparently used to the grind. Former NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas emphasizes that it’s part of the DNA built into local officers. "It's basically a level of tolerance, patience, and confidence. If you're surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people and you're afraid, that's not going to work well," explained Serpas. He believes the uniquely friendly relationship between locals and the NOPD officers they see along the routes year after years allows a level of comfort for everyone involved. "When people know each other, a little familiarity goes a long way," the former NOPD Chief went on to note.
Asked how officers deal with the transition back to their usual work schedules, Serpas says, "It's really amazing. Almost like flipping a switch. You generally set the whole department up into two twelve hour shifts, allowing other officers to do parade route duties." He says a great deal of NOPD officers have worked parade routes before, allowing them to be familiar with both the routines and the people along those routes. That allows for a friendly cooperation unique to the city of New Orleans, according to the former NOPD Chief.
"Basically, you just go back to Monday morning at 7am, answering calls for service and your normal routines," he went on to say. The familiarity with the process is also a major reason the NOPD is so uniquely equipped for both the duties of Mardi Gras and the transition back to normal in such a short time according to Serpas. "The New Orleans Police Department does the most amazing thing in the world that no one else can do as successfully with the crowd controls and all those other elements," he went on to say. Making the difficult look easy is something he lauds NOPD officers for doing every Mardi Gras season.