CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!

Really? Wow that's quite a get.



Of course, if reports of widespread practice of the Dark Arts among NOPD are to be believed, it only makes sense. On the other hand, there are some aspects to this story which tempt one to want to check the Inspector General's office for evidence of polyjuice potion. Sometimes these people aren't exactly who they say they are.

Besides, everyone knows that each DADA instructor arrives at Hogwarts under suspicious circumstances and this appears to be no exception.

Moody currently works under Odom as his first assistant inspector general for audit and review. He joined the office last summer.

In the e-mail Tuesday, Odom referred media inquiries to Moody and did not respond to requests for comment. Moody could not be reached for comment.

Now I think it's okay to promote from within but several critics have complained that the interim IG's having hand-picked Moody from the beginning made something of a sham of the selection process. (See discussion below this WCBF post) Interim IG Odom's response doesn't do much to refute this notion.

Odom, who is serving as interim inspector general until a new head is named, appeared to address criticism in his office's e-mailed news release, saying he conducted an "intense nationwide search."

He noted that the position was posted online at CareerBuilder.com and that 659 people checked out the application details. The posting was also listed with several law enforcement industry groups, he wrote.

"Intense nationwide search" = 659 people visiting a website. Granted there could be more to Odom's defense than the paper chooses to highlight but that line itself is particularly weak. About that many people visit this website every three days or so... most of them through random googling of the terms "pictures of exploding things". I wonder what the pool of 659 CarrerBuilder trolls looked like.

Anyway Jarvis Deberry sums it up well here.

If committee members thought the process was problematic, one can only imagine what the far-away applicants must have thought.

They must have felt like they'd been used to give the appearance that the selection of Moody was on the up-and-up.

They have reason to be suspicious and reason to be angry. So do the people who call New Orleans home and desire a Police Department they can admire. If they can't trust the recently created inspector general's office to act with integrity and transparency, the future looks grim.

If New Orleans can't be convinced that the police monitor was properly chosen, what possible good could that monitor be?

Here's the kicker. The police monitor (salary $131,468) his assistant (salary $90,567) and their "outreach director" ($73,300) are officially invested with the power to.... occasionally write cordial letters regarding the possibility of errors in NOPD's internal investigative process.

The monitor's office will not directly investigate allegations of misconduct by police officers, but it can recommend the reopening of an internal NOPD investigation it determines was not thorough or fair.

So you can see the seriousness with which we should take the selection of these indirect investigators. I say we reopen the process, throw all the candidates' names into the Goblet of Fire, and see what pops out.