Dept. of Justice says New Orleans Police Engages in Unconstitutional Conduct Toward Blacks

From [HERE] and [HERE] NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Department of Justice said it has reason to believe that the NOPD has had patterns of unconstitutional conduct and violations of federal law including the use of excessive force, racial profiling and discriminatory policing based on sexual orientation and English proficiency.

A scathing report issued Thursday said the department found that the violations resulted from many problems including several entrenched practices that allowed for those behaviors to take place. The report "did not include consideration of widely reported allegations of officer misconduct related to NOPD’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Nonetheless, our investigation, which covered incidents that occurred within the past two years and assessed practices as they exist currently, revealed a clear pattern of unconstitutional uses of force by NOPD officers."

The New Orleans Police Department too often uses excessive force, conducts illegal stops and arrests, and has a pattern of discriminating on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation.

"For too long, the Department has been largely indifferent to widespread violations of law and policy by its officers," according to the report by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

The report outlined problems with training, recruiting, supervision and interrogation practices.

It said the police department encourages under-investigating violence against women. It also found that officers used significant force against people with mental illness in cases in which it appeared no force was necessary.

"Instances of clearly unjustified force are routinely approved by supervisors and ratified up the chain of command, resulting in no accountability," the report said. "Officers even encourage each other to use force as retaliation."

The findings by the Department of Justice comes after a nearly yearlong investigation into the NOPD.

The DOJ report [HERE] found from 2009 to 2010 (does not include Katrina info) all 27 incidents of NOPD deadly force were against African Americans, and in 2009  the department arrested 500 black and 8 white males under age of 17, which diverges "severely" from national data.

The report states "indeed, the limited arrest data that the Department collects points to racial disparities in arrests of whites and African Americans in virtually all categories, with particularly dramatic disparity for African-American youth under the age of 17. Arrest data provided by NOPD indicates that in 2009, the Department arrested 500 African-American males and eight white males under the age of 17 for serious offenses, which range from homicide to larceny over fifty dollars. During this same period the Department arrested 65 African-American females and one white female in this same age group. Adjusting for population, these figures mean that the ratio of arrest rates for both African-American males to white males, and African-American females to white females, was nearly 16 to 1.

Although a significant disparity in arrest rates for this age group exists nationwide, it is not nearly as extreme as the disparity found in New Orleans. Nationally in 2009, among those agencies reporting data, the arrest ratio of African-American youth to white youth, for the same offenses, was approximately 3 to 1. The level of disparity for youth in New Orleans is so severe and so divergent from nationally reported data that it cannot plausibly be attributed entirely to the underlying rates at which these youth commit crimes, and unquestionably warrants a searching review and a meaningful response from the Department.

NOPD use of force data also shows a troubling racial disparity that warrants a searching inquiry into whether racial bias influences the use of force at NOPD. Of the 27 instances between January 2009 and May 2010 in which NOPD officers intentionally discharged their firearms at people, all 27 of the subjects of this deadly force were African American. In our sample of resisting arrest reports documenting uses of force between January 2009 and May 2010, we found that in 81 of the 96 uses of force we reviewed (84%), the subject of the force was African American."

Among the findings were that there is reasonable cause to believe the NOPD had violated the law in several areas including: Use of excessive force; unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests; and biased policing that included racial and ethnic profiling, discrimination based on sexual orientation, failure to provide services to those with limited English speaking ability and failure to investigate sexual assaults and domestic violence.

The DOJ also found entrenched practices that caused patterns or practices of unconstitutional conduct, including:

1) Failed systems for officer recruitment, promotion and evaluation 2) Inadequate training 3) Inadequate supervision 4) Ineffective systems of complaint intake, investigation 5) Failed "paid detail" system 6) Failure to engage in community oriented policing 7) Inadequate officer assistance and support services 8) Lack of sufficient community oversight.

“This report provides us with an honest assessment that will help us to take a data-driven approach to making our streets safer and reforming the NOPD,” said Landrieu. “The findings are sobering and the challenges ahead are daunting, but we will do what ever it takes to make this right.”