Apparently
just some idea he came up with on his own.
There are indications — in booking records and on the Sheriff’s
Office website — that Gusman decided, at least for a time, to call the
lockup the “Ortique Justice Center,” an apparent reference to Revius
Ortique Jr., the New Orleans civil rights giant who served as the first
black justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court.
If that’s the case, it’s news to the Ortique family.
“I don’t know anything about this,” Ortique’s widow, Miriam, said by phone Tuesday.
One of Ortique’s grandchildren said he also had heard nothing from the sheriff and declined to comment.
On Tuesday afternoon, after The New Orleans Advocate’s most recent
inquiries, the Sheriff’s Office removed one of the references to
“Ortique Justice Center” that accompanied an online listing of attorney visitation hours, replacing it with “Orleans Justice Center.” However, the sheriff’s online booking records still listed inmates as being housed at “OJC Ortique Justice Center.”
When was he planning to notify the family of this honor? What do you think could have caused him to be maybe a little shy about saying something?
Naming a jail after Ortique could prove a dicier proposition,
though, particularly in a city with a history of civil rights abuses
behind bars and a notoriously high incarceration rate.
Update: Here's
a Gambit item from September where Gusman hints at the naming deliberations.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman is preparing to move
prisoners into the new jail facility this week, but one thing's still
missing — a formal name for the 1,400-bed facility. That's by design,
Gusman says: "We'll be naming it soon, probably at a small ceremony."
The name, he says, will pay tribute to a "deceased, prominent New
Orleanian."
"Small ceremony" for the name. Bigger ceremony for the old jail, also pending.
Gusman says when the last of the buildings is closed and all the
prisoners have been transferred, he plans to have a jazz funeral for the
old OPP. "It deserves it," he said
Oh dear. Maybe he'll re-think that one too, eventually.
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