NOPD reputation has suffered for many years

Published Jul 30, 2012 at 10:00 am (Updated Jul 30, 2012)

It was over coffee at a north Louisiana diner 34 years ago that a local sheriff's deputy made the observation, "People who are with the police department down there in New Orleans—a lot of them would be in jail if they were up here," says The (Lafayette) Advertiser. Sure, it's an exaggeration, but it shows just how ingrained and widespread the New Orleans Police Department's reputation for scandal was even then. And that was two years before a young officer's murder sparked investigations of abuse as well as deaths that led to indictment of officers known as the "Algiers Seven, 12 years before suspected cop killer Adolph Archie died a messy death in police custody, 16 years before officer Len Davis was exposed as a protector of a cocaine ring who ordered the murder of a woman, and 17 years before Officer Antoinette Frank killed a fellow officer and two others during a restaurant robbery. It was a generation preceding the Danziger Bridge shootings and the discovery of the burned body of Henry Glover amid post-Hurricane Katrina chaos. And those were just the big scandals. Never mind the myriad abuses and incidents of corruption that draw less attention. All of that is why nobody was surprised last year by the U.S. Justice Department report depicting a dysfunctional department replete with race and gender bias, lax enforcement of weak policies, poor training, uneven discipline and excessive use of force. To read more, click here.