Mitch to address Federal oversight of NOPD today

NOLA.com:

Mayor Mitch Landrieu will hold a news conference this afternoon to discuss U.S. Department of Justice involvement with the New Orleans Police Department, a spokesman said.

A news release issued by the mayor's office says the mayor will discuss his request to the Justice Department that the federal government be involved with "instituting transformational reforms" in the NOPD.

In other words, it looks like Mitch has managed to cop a plea deal, if you will, with DOJ to maintain local control of NOPD. Yesterday at The Lens, Eli Ackerman wrote about this Gambit interview with Mitch where he said a little of what we're likely to hear more of today.

“I’ve told the justice department that I’m happy to partner with them. I’m not interested in a hostile take-over. I don’t think that would be in the best interests of the city, and it wouldn’t be in the best interests of the Police Department.”

Landrieu talked instead of a “cooperative relationship” with Justice in which the NOPD agrees to mandate changes and the DOJ provides additional resources.

“[Y]ou can sit around the table and create a document that spells out very clearly who’s supposed to do what… [Y]ou can file a piece of paper in federal court that basically holds all of our feet to the fire, and it requires the citizens of New Orleans to do certain things as well.”

Landrieu’s response seems to indicate he is interested in pursuing a memorandum of understanding or cooperative endeavor agreement with the Department of Justice.

A consent decree is one potential result of civil-rights lawsuit filed by the Justice Department against the NOPD. The consent decree is a court order. Consent decrees can be negotiated, in that the police department can work with the feds on the details, but it would still mean a court-ordered mandate even if the parties don’t go to trial.

Landrieu seems to be saying that he would prefer Justice to hold off on a lawsuit and instead work out a binding memorandum of understanding or cooperative endeavor agreement.

Eli goes on to write about some confusing statements Landrieu makes with regard to terminology but I think the above description of his intentions is accurate.

I'm also pretty sure we still won't have a new police chief for as long as another week. Whoever it is, I hope he likes waffles.

Update: More today from The Lens following up on the Mayor's press conference.