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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Serpas speaks

Tomorrow Loyola University will host an all day symposium on violent crime in New Orleans. The schedule is available at this link where it is indicated that NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas will participate in the opening session. 

Perhaps he will address the latest (in a long string) of reports of  bullying abuses by his department  addressed at City Council yesterday.

One 21-year-old wrote of being stopped by an officer who told her she looked too young to be out at night. The officer told her to put her hands on the hood of his car, then he banged her with the car twice. She ran, her leg bleeding, and hid in the back of a truck, she wrote. A second officer found her there, threw her onto the ground and pressed his knee into her face, then booked her into Orleans Parish Prison, she wrote.

Or maybe he'll be able to clarify his comment this week at a community outreach event where he suggested poor public perception of NOPD derives not so much from incidents like those described above but from the press' failure to provide him with better PR.

"Our media has failed us. They've taken our greatest freedom -- freedom of speech -- & turned it into a for-profit business."

For profit, even!

Of course someone could always just ask him how much longer until the DWI checkpoints finally bring the murder rate down.

By the way, I know it's close to Halloween when the kids like to pick up a few daiquiris and take in a wholesome, not at all trailer-trashy, evening at the House of Shock.  But  if you're traveling through East Jefferson tomorrow night on your way there, you might want to leave the good meth at home.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office has announced a DWI checkpoint for motorists at an undisclosed location on the East Bank of Jefferson Parish Friday night. The checkpoint is scheduled for 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., according to Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the department.

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