Does anybody remember Friedman units?

That thing where you definitely expect conditions to improve "within the next 6 months" or so and then keep pushing that ahead as needed.  Anyway, we might have one of those with the NOPD consent decree now. 

The mood in Morgan's courtroom was relatively convivial Wednesday afternoon at the first public hearing in more than a year on progress with the federal consent decree, and the first for NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick as the city's top cop.

It was a stark contrast to the last series of hearings, where Morgan found the department violated 10 provisions of the consent decree in its internal investigation of Officer Jeffrey Vappie and his work for the mayor. Morgan ultimately declined to hold the city in contempt and accepted a remedial action plan. 

Fulfillment of the plan's 95 actions is among the steps necessary for the department to reach compliance with the consent decree and enter a period of stepped-down monitoring. Of those 95 items, a little under half are done. 

"Our estimated time of completion is June 2024," said Deputy Chief Nicholas Gernon, who along with Kirkpatrick crafted that plan.

We'll check back then, I guess.

Also, here's a somewhat related aside.  On Mardi Gras morning, I got out to take my customary photos of high ranking New Orleans officials leading the Zulu parade on horseback.  Traditionally the mayor does this. But in recent years our current mayor's appearance there has been sporadic. Sometimes there's a councilmember instead. Sometimes it's the Sheriff.  And sometimes, like this year, it's just the police chief. 

Significant in this case, because it is the new Chief, Anne Kirkpatrick. It seemed like a big day for her. Later that night I watched her get interviewed by Errol and Peggy at the Rex ball. This isn't an exact quote below but it does capture the essence. 

 

THEY PUT ME ON A HORSE. I LOVE THE LITTLE HORSE. pic.twitter.com/5xUmStXfyN

— skooks (@skooks) February 14, 2024

Basically, she sounded like this whole gig is just a big fun cruise she's booked. Which might not be too far from the truth but we'll get back to that. 

Anyway, walking about 20 feet ahead of her was former interim Chief (and runner-up to Kirpatrick for the job) Michelle Woodfork.  We all noticed because a woman ran out of the crowd to greet her shouting, "That's MY chief! That's my chief right there!"  

And maybe she's got the right idea. Since we're in a world now where there are multiple police forces reporting to multiple District Attorneys applying multiple standards of justice and policing according to political whim, maybe we should all just pick whatever chief we prefer.

Get this off my desk

Every politician's dream everywhere is to hold the trappings of office; the social recognition, the little privileges, the bankable resume, the power to grant petty patronage favors for kickbacks, etc. without having to solve real problems.  If you are one of these office holders, anything serious, anything that requires you to fight with anyone powerful or, god forbid, actually believe in anything, is a big No Thank You.  You want to get that shit off your desk as quickly as possible. 

So, for example, you may have run for District Attorney in order to be congratulated as a "reformer." But when it comes time to do the job of dismantling the massively unjust carceral machine you promised to oppose, well, that's not really why we're here is it? No, indeed not.  We want that off our desk.   We don't even mind handing the keys to office back over to the very same people we replaced if it means we don't have to deal with it anymore. 

On Monday, shortly after this story was first published, Williams’ office released a CEA between his office and the AG, signed at the end of November. The agreement gives the AG’s office full authority to handle any state police cases in New Orleans from start to finish — from investigation, initiation of charges, trial, and even post-conviction matters. 

It also gives the Louisiana State Police’s Force Investigation Unit authority to handle any investigations related to law enforcement uses of force when they arise from arrests or investigations by state police. Any criminal matters related to those incidents would be prosecuted by the AG’s office. 

(The four page agreement released Monday afternoon, however, was missing one page. The Lens has requested it.)

The announcement comes at a time when conservatives across the country are targeting other local progressive prosecutors, hoping to strip them of power. 

Republican lawmakers in other states have passed bills allowing state attorneys general to step in to prosecute certain crimes refused by local DA’s. Other bills sought to impeach local prosecutors or suspend them from office. Landry seems inclined to take Louisiana in a similar direction. On his campaign website he bemoaned “woke” district attorneys playing a dangerous game of “catch and release” — a clear reference to Williams. 

When viewed against national dynamics, the new New Orleans partnership seems to provide a unique counterpoint. Though the state would not usually have the authority to enter the Orleans courthouse and try cases, Williams has invited prosecutors from within an office run by Donald Trump-backed Liz Murrill, to handle cases instigated by the state police, an agency under federal investigation for racial profiling and excessive force by troopers.

“None of this would be possible without the permission of Jason Williams,” said Rafael Goyeneche, director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

People think this is weird but Jason knows what he's doing.  Sure, it's an insult to the people of New Orleans that the reformed justice system they overwhelming voted for has been replaced by a right wing coup from outside of the jurisdiction.  But, you see, by welcoming the coup himself, Jason still gets to call himself the District Attorney. And that's really all that matters here.

"Hot commodity"

 Your District Attorney is doing a little forcible real estate flipping. 

The structure is one of three surviving buildings from the Storyville district, according to a 2022 City Planning Commission report. It once housed seminal jazz clubs Frank Early Saloon and My Place Saloon.

In 2019, the location at 1210-1216 Bienville Street was cited for demolition by neglect by the Historic District Landmarks Commission. The case remains open and the $3,075 fine unpaid, according to public records.

Williams described the historic property as a "hot commodity," though its future is murky. Williams said he'd like to see it house fresh produce for sale to the neighborhood. David Abbenante, president of HRI Management, developer of the abutting, mixed-income Bienville Basin Community apartments, said the impact of the market's closure is just beginning.

Civil asset forfeiture is a controversial practice that has been banned in four states. Louisiana's laws are among the ripest for abuse in the nation, according to the libertarian Institute for Justice, which gave the state a D+ grade.

Williams, throughout his career in politics, has been rolling in contributions from developers.  Here's a brief taste from the 2020 Antigravity voter guide, for example. 

Williams has received money from charter school supporter Leslie Jacobs, a point of concern if ending the school-to-prison pipeline truly is a goal, as Williams states. (For a more thorough look at how and why charter schools directly serve the school-to-prison pipeline, revisit our introduction to the school board races in our previous guide.) Williams has also received money from notorious real estate developers Pres Kabacoff and the Motwanis. “Development” and policing go hand in hand, and New Orleans is no stranger to the trend.

Congratulations

Congrats to the various landlords and contractors and politicians responsible for the deadly collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site in 2019. You're all free to go. 

NEW ORLEANS — A state grand jury voted against indicting anyone for causing the catastrophic Hard Rock Hotel collapse four years ago, essentially ending a two-year criminal investigation by Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams with nothing to show for it.

Thursday’s grand jury meeting was held in secret, but Angela Magrette, whose brother Anthony was killed in the catastrophe, told WWL-TV she was informed of the decision not to press criminal charges. The grand jury meeting was the last one before a deadline to file criminal charges. Next Thursday, Oct. 12, is the fourth anniversary of the catastrophe and state law gives prosecutors four years to file gross negligence charges.

Congratulations, also, to Jason Williams and his excellent decision making.  

Williams chose to have a grand jury hear testimony on the matter and vote whether to bring charges, rather than simply filing them. The grand jury returned “not a true bill,” meaning at least nine grand jurors heard unrefuted testimony and didn’t think there was enough evidence to hold someone criminally liable for the collapse.

Tick Tock (again)

Jason Williams' office is running out of time to bring indictments in the Hard Rock hotel collapse. It's been hard to know which party in particular has been dragging their feet the most these past few years.  Right now, Williams says the problem is OSHA. 

NEW ORLEANS — The federal workplace safety agency, OSHA, is refusing to cooperate with a grand jury probe of the deadly 2019 Hard Rock Hotel collapse until it resolves a long-delayed civil dispute with the building’s lead engineer, a target of that criminal investigation.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams subpoenaed OSHA’s Hard Rock investigation file more than two years ago

Williams said the federal agency’s refusal to produce the records as ordered by a judge now seriously hampers the criminal negligence case his prosecutors are presenting to the grand jury, with just two weeks left for it to return an indictment before a four-year deadline.

Williams said the lack of cooperation from OSHA is forcing him and his prosecutors to “fight with one hand tied behind our backs” as they present their case to the grand jury.

“It’s akin to enabling or covering up criminal activity because the clock is ticking. We only have a few more days before the clock runs out on this,” Williams said in an exclusive interview with WWL-TV. “If you had told me this would happen, I would tell you that you're a liar.”

Is it really that hard to believe, though? To some of us, it feels like the only possible thing.

Age of cruelty

Picking up a thought we left off on a few weeks ago, about the closing off of political possibilities evidenced by the permanent intransigence of the anti-vax phenomenon, it's time to get back to our regularly scheduled pessimism. Today we consider the same reasons we will have to live forever with anti-vax mania can explain why we will also live under an increasingly cruel criminal legal system.

Our working thesis here is that Americans do not engage politically with any expectation that public policy can open up a better future. Indeed, most Americans don't believe a better future even exists.  And so no one expects the state can or should improve our ever worsening social conditions.  Instead, everyone who expends any energy at all on public affairs just wants to make sure someone besides themselves has to suffer the most.  Which is precisely what laws like this are designed to accomplish.

Lanieux, who had been arrested for aggravated flight from an officer, was prosecuted under Louisiana’s controversial habitual offender law, sometimes known as a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. The statute allows district attorneys to significantly enhance sentences, often by decades, for people with previous felony convictions. 

The goal is to protect the public from unrepentant, violent criminals, but critics contend prosecutors have abused the law by targeting Black men. Louisiana’s population is 33% Black, but 79% of those convicted in the state as habitual offenders are Black, according to a report last year from the Public Welfare Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

Lanieux, who is Black, didn’t fit the profile of a violent repeat offender. He had been convicted for two drug possession felonies in the late 1990s, for which he received probation. But those, combined with the flight charge, were enough for prosecutors to apply the habitual offender statute.

“I ain’t never thought a two-year sentence would turn into life,” said Lanieux, who sat for 10 Zoom interviews with Verite News and ProPublica over six months from the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel. “They just throw you away for any little thing.”

No, the goal of habitual offender laws in not "to protect the public" from anything. The goal is to terrorize powerless people with an unmerciful, unjust and overwhelming police apparatus. Which, as you can see, is the exact purpose to which it has been applied.  As is the case with anti-vax, this is just mainstream politics at work now.  

The Verite article quoted above explains that despite a sustained, evidence-based criminal justice reform effort in the late 2010s, the ascendant reactionary movement is inevitably and swiftly wiping out any hope of progress. 

That’s when Louisiana’s attorney general, Jeff Landry, who is considered the front-runner in this fall’s gubernatorial election, stepped in, filing a legal challenge to the law. 

It is seen as part of a growing backlash across the country against prosecutors who have pushed for an end to mass incarceration. Former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Landry, vowed to go after “Marxist” district attorneys who he said have allowed U.S. cities to be turned into “hellholes.” Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis echoed his political rival, boasting in August of his efforts to remove local prosecutors he accused of failing to uphold the law. 

Landry, a former police officer and sheriff’s deputy and an Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, has blasted the 2017 reforms as a “disaster.” 

“We have incompetent mayors, and these woke district attorneys want to play a dangerous game of catch and release with criminals,” Landry said last year. “As governor we are just not going to put up with that.”

Quick note about bit where your next Governor is identified as an "Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm."  I have no idea why that information is relevant here. But as long as the reporter/editors decided to throw it in, they should have at least put it in the correct context. 

During the campaign, Landry caught criticism for claiming to be a veteran of Operation Desert Storm. It was technically true, but it had the effect of leaving many, including some in the media, with the mistaken impression that he had served overseas. In fact, he was stationed in Ft. Hood, Texas, reportedly working as a driver for a general.

Landry refused to acknowledge the obvious rhetorical puffery. “The only reason I didn’t go (to the Persian Gulf) is because the war ended so quickly,” he said. “I certainly never tried not to go.” 

Anyway, back to this matter of all politics being about finding someone to punish now. To illustrate this, let's take a look at what the "Marxist" District Attorney New Orleans elected under the mistaken impression he would change things here in the "hellhole"  is up to now. 

Upset with what he argues are low bails set in magistrate court, Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams threatened to pull his prosecutors from first appearances if its commissioners don’t take accountability for decisions about jailing people suspected of crimes.

In a Tuesday letter to Criminal District Court Chief Judge Robin Pittman, Williams wrote that the court’s magistrate judge and its four commissioners often delve well below the bail recommendations of his prosecutors.

“I have strongly considered instructing my [prosecutors] to no longer appear at first appearance dockets,” Williams wrote, suggesting a move made by his predecessor, Leon Cannizzaro, to abandon those proceedings.

The guy who ran on a promise of ending cash bail says the bail is not high enough! Does Jeff Landry know about this?  Do you think he would like Jason better if he did? Hard to say, but just to be safe he's all charged up to throw some more kids into the dungeon. 

Williams’ call for higher bail amounts comes even as the city's jail population has swelled to its highest levels in at least four years — even as murders and other reported violent crimes, except for rape, have declined, according to publicly available data.

On Thursday, more than 1,220 people remained in custody at the Orleans Justice Center — a number last seen in August 2019. The jail population has increased by more than 20% this year, the data shows.

Despite Jason Williams's enthusiasm for high bail and mass incarceration, the leading candidates for Governor* continue to hammer away at his Marxist hellhole.  So far I've watched three gubernatorial debates this election season. During these, the Times-Picayune's newly endorsed Stephen Waguespack repeatedly called for harsher measures in New Orleans. Waguespack says he wants more surveillance and more arrests. During the LSU debate, he said that the French Quarter is "out of control" and endorsed Billy Nungesser's proposal to turn it into a state park. Jeff Landry's intentions toward the city are similarly aggressive. He recently told Tucker Carlson that “The place is being run like a third world-country," adding that as Governor he would use the most extreme measures available to "bend it to his will." 

Which raises the question, how much more cruel and punitive do Wags and Landry want our burgeoning police state to become? Because if conditions at the Parish Prison are any indication, things are pretty bad right now. 

Four jail supervisors walked out during their shifts inside the Orleans Justice Center on Friday following multiple fires, at least one stabbing and a feces-throwing incident in the lockup, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has confirmed.

The deputies returned to their posts later that day after speaking with sheriff's office brass.

OPSO spokesperson Casey McGee said low staffing, coupled with a swelling jail population, have created an environment conducive to fights, disciplinary infractions by incarcerated people and uses of force.

Uh oh the Sheriff's office is understaffed. I think we know what comes next.  Actually, it's already happened. Recall that earlier this year, Sheriff Hutson asked voters to approve an additional $13 million in property taxes to help her run these torture chambers. They said no but, clearly, it doesn't end there.

This is a classic scenario.  The more people they cram into the jail, the more staff the Sheriff needs to hire, the more money the Sheriff can demand.  It's the vicious cycle people were told they were electing this Sheriff and this DA to end. But here they are. Definitely not ending it. Instead they are each caving to political pressure to run the other direction.  No doubt the result of this fall's election will push them even further. 

Today, The Lens points out that the jail population is approaching a "cap" imposed by City Council in 2019.  What happens if it runs over?  Nobody knows. But given that our politics only favors more and harsher punishment for the least powerful, our guess is, probably nothing.

*FWIW the Democrat on these stages, Shawn Wilson responded "yes" to one of those rapid fire yes/no questions asking whether the State Police, in light of the fatal beating of Ronald Greene, have a racism problem.  A few moments later, however, Wilson ducked back in to apologize for that answer which he would like to change to "it's complicated." 

Follow the money all the way through

 From The Lens on Thursday. 

The New Orleans City Council on Thursday unanimously approved $4.6 million in education grant funding for three NOLA Public Schools programs designed to work with the city’s most vulnerable students. 

The funding — which was in question over the past year under the previous council — will support the Travis Hill School at the city’s juvenile detention center; the Center for Resilience, which serves students with severe behavioral health needs; and the district’s student support office, which addresses truancy.

The Harrah’s Fund education grants — money paid to the city by the casino as part of a lease agreement — had historically been given directly to the school district. But a new lease signed by the casino in 2020 broadened the council’s ability to award the grants, and last year, the city council expressed an interest in shifting the funding to early childhood education. 

The previous council had approved a plan to involve the Mayor's Office in the process for distributing these grants. The new council has reversed that decision. Really though, it might not have altered its eventual destination too greatly. This WWNO story explains the mayor's interest likely stems from an effort to prioritize early childhood education. Which could have meant the Harrah's grants would be destined for daycare non-profits instead of these other non-profits with incarcerated and special needs clients.  But there are other contingencies in the works that might convince them to share. 

For example, city council has already placed an Early Childhood Education (ECE) millage proposal on the ballot next month that could alleviate some of the need. According to campaign materials produced by millage proponents, the new tax would provide approximately $21 million which they say could fund just over 1000 ECE "seats" which is the term the private service providers in this area use for the number of children enrolled in pre-school.  It turns out, though, that the actual need for "seats" in New Orleans is estimated between 6,000 and 8000 so, really, this millage would only be a starting point.  However one provision of the stalled "Build Back Better" social infrastructure bill that may still make it through in some form is a near $400 billion allocation for early child care that would make a significant difference against the need for "seats" as well. 

All of this is to say that the ECE outlook isn't necessarily so dire that it demands immediate rediriection of the $4.6 million in Harrah's grants from one set of private non-profits to another. Which is one reason current beneficiaries of those grants, like the Center for Resilience, likely still had a good chance to retain their status even if the mayor's office were to get involved. 

Liz Marcell Williams, the CEO of the Center for Resilience, said the vote reflects the “original intent” of the funding, which she described as being aimed at prioritizing truancy and mental health services in the city’s unique all-charter school district. 

“A school district alone isn’t equipped to address these needs and this is the council really reaffirming it understands that,” she said. 

“I think it’s a really clear stance that the council is fully in support of our city’s most vulnerable youth and in our current climate when we’re having so many conversations about crime, juvenile crime, that there are prevention programs aimed at helping these students,” she said.

The Center for Resilience, which Williams runs, served 15 students when it opened under the state-run Recovery School District in 2015. In 2018, it shifted to a non-profit model contracting with the Orleans Parish School Board. Williams said the program now has a capacity of 50 students. 

“This affirms [the council] understand there are existing programs that are designed to minimize kids’ involvement in crime by addressing truancy, making sure kids who may make risky decisions are supported with mental health services and that kids who do become system involved are getting support.”

Or to put it another way

City Council OKs $4.6 Mil for DAs wife and 2 other carceral programs https://t.co/tF9BXwVJQE

— KD♐︎ (@ineedja_kadeeja) February 3, 2022

Weird that neither the Lens story nor the previously published WWNO report mention that part.  Anyway, Jason Williams's wife's non-profit, originally awarded Harrah's grant funds while Williams was a councilmember, will continue to receive funds from the Harrah's grant. Also, probably, the city will be able to help more children receive daycare services through other private non-profits funded by the new millage Jason Williams helped put on the ballot during his last term on the council.  It's one of those win-wins you like to hear about.

Surveillance state

In what is probably the final bit of fallout from Leon Cannizzaro's "fake subpoena" scandal, Jason Williams's office has entered into a settlement with plaintiffs in the civil rights lawsuit that came out of the scandal.  We don't need to re-hash the details of all of that here too much.  The Lens article runs us through the paces of summarizing it anyway. But anybody reading this already knows about Cannizzaro's use of fraudulent subpoenas and abuse of material witness warrants to compel testimony from crime victims.  The upshot here is Williams, who was elected DA based in large part on his promise not to do that stuff anymore, has agreed to 42 months of "monitoring" to ensure that he doesn't.  The joke is this now means we've hit a golden trifecta of criminal justice consent decree type arrangements in Orleans Parish now. 

The New Orleans Police Department and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office are also under court-appointed monitorships, and have been since federal consent decrees were first approved for the agencies in 2013.

The agreement with the DA’s office is different from those other agreements, however. For instance, the U.S. Department of Justice is a party to both the police and Sheriff’s Office consent decrees, as a plaintiff. Williams’ agreement is only between his office, the individual plaintiffs and their attorneys. 

In addition, the monitoring periods for both the police and the Sheriff’s Office are indefinite. Both keep monitors in place until, and for a period after, the agencies reach substantial compliance with their consent decrees.

The DA’s office, however, will only be under a monitor’s supervision for 42 months. And since both sides have agreed on Schwartzmann, there will not be a lengthy, politically fraught search for a monitor in this case.

The Schwartzmann referenced in that quote is civil rights attorney Katie Schwartzmann who has been named to head the "monitoring" effort.  This article doesn't go into the details of her position, though. We don't know from this how much she is paid or what the total cost of the monitoring will be. One assumes whatever it is comes out of the DA's budget and that it is in addition to the amounts paid out here according to the terms of the settlement. 

In consideration of the remaining plaintiffs, Williams’ office will pay $120,000 to the ACLU Foundation, in two $60,000 installments over the next year. The allocation of that money will be determined by the plaintiffs and their attorneys. And the office must create a new procedure for victims and witnesses to file grievances over their treatment by DA’s office employees.

Anyway maybe they will tell us more about who gets paid and for what.  Recent experience tells us that's at least as important as whether or not the monitoring program actually accomplishes its stated purpose. 

The end of the criminal legal reform era

 Just how big an industry is the tax farming business now? 

Across the United States, court debt has ballooned as states have turned to court costs, fines, and fees as revenue streams. A recent report by watchdog group Fines and Fees Justice Center found that court debt in the U.S. now totals at least a staggering $27.6 billion. That figure is a low estimate, the group noted in the report, because it relied on incomplete data collected from only 25 states.

To handle the collection of that debt, states and municipalities — as well as the Internal Revenue Service — are increasingly turning to private firms, which in some states can add up to 40 percent surcharges onto the fees. In aggregate, that can translate into billions of dollars of payouts for the debt collectors.

Those of us old enough to remember the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri will recall the central role that municipal fines and fees played in the system of predatory racism against which the people there rose up.  And here we are a thousand years, and several cycles of murderous police actions and uprisings later and still very little has fundamentally changed. 

In New Orleans, one could argue there has been some progress. But what's happened has been slow and slight. A 2020 law re-directs court fee  revenues away from control of the judges who impose them but does not abolish them altogether.  The City Council appeared to at least try and defy that law when it resolved to return the fees collected but I don't think we've been updated on how that's worked out.  As of this April, a series of lawsuits have resulted in a system whereby Orleans Criminal Court judges promise a kinder, gentler bail regime. 

A joint order from the judges in February formalized new bail rules that paved the way for the settlement. The agreement comes after drawn out wrangling over how judges in New Orleans can impose bail or fines and fees on thousands of defendants each year, the vast majority of them poor.

Under the new order, defendants must have an attorney when their bail is set. The judges also promise to inquire into defendants' ability to pay, to consider alternatives to cash bail and to explain their reasoning when they do keep defendants behind bars.

We'll see how that goes.  Last week, the City Attorney announced a mass dismissal of some 385,000 cases of municipal violations which should reduce the likelihood you will be ensnared by an attachment from some unpaid traffic fine from 10 years ago. That's all good news. But it's minimal compared to what is needed here and in every city where billions of dollars worth of bounties are still hanging over the heads of highly vulnerable people. 

Meanwhile the time for further progress is running short.  Local media is already daily beating the drums of crime wave panic and the tide is beginning to turn toward reaction. (In fact, here is WDSU specifically blaming lax collection of court fees.) Our newly elected "reformist" DA is already breaking his promise not to try children as adults. Major candidates jumping into the marquee race in this fall's municipal elections are already taking up demagogic "tough on crime" rhetoric in their initial messaging.  All of this is only going to get worse as that election approaches.  Afterwards, this group of politicians will go back to work with a new mandate to "get tough" and new rules that will allow them to do just that.  

Mr. Biden emphasized that state and local officials in areas experiencing surges in gun violence can use $350 billion in Covid-19 relief funding to hire more law-enforcement personnel, even if it raises the total number beyond its pre-pandemic level.

The window of opportunity to make real and lasting change is always so short. And when it shuts it can stay that way for a long time. Business as usual, on the other hand can last... well that's why they call it business as usual.

"Beyond punishment"

Jason Williams was sworn in as DA today. We are, as always, prepared to be disappointed in how he actually plans to translate his rhetoric into practice.  But he does know the rhetoric well. 

Williams says he will end the use of Louisiana’s stringent habitual offender laws, never transfer juveniles to adult court and become much pickier about charging cases for prosecution. Underscoring his new approach, his large transition team includes many liberal policy advocates and former colleagues in the defense bar.

"Being more selective about prosecutions will allow us to focus on the crimes that matter most to all of us. We’ve got to go beyond punishment and invest in our community," Williams said in his inauguration speech.

Again, we'll see if those words carry any sort of commitment. We already expect the increase in crime commensurate with worsening economic conditions during the pandemic will lead to new political pressures on every politician to "get tough." That's especially likely to be worse during a municipal election year. 

Speaking of which, the timing of Jason's resignation from City Council means there will not be an additional election just to fill his seat. 

Monday also brought some clarity regarding Williams’ now vacant at-large seat on the City Council. Tyronne Walker, Williams former campaign manager and transition director, said that his resignation of the seat was effective Monday at 11 a.m., meaning his seat will be filled by an appointment by members of the City Council. If he had decided to resign any earlier, there would have been more than a year left in his term. Under city law, that means the seat would have been required to be filled by a special election.

On Monday morning about an hour before the ceremony began, Walker told The Lens that Williams had not recommended an interim candidate for the council to consider. Council President Helena Moreno on Monday announced the opening of applications for the post.

So.. you know.. if you're looking for a job...

#Takeemdown

The cameras are already such a tremendous insult to everyone's dignity and general expectation of a reasonable amount of (if not quite privacy)peaceful  anonymity on the streets of their city. But add to that the lying and, it's long past time for them to go. 

New documents obtained by the ACLU of Louisiana through a public records request are shedding more light on how the New Orleans Police Department utilizes facial recognition software — a practice that the NOPD had denied using for years until admitting it last month.

As The Lens reported, the city has justified its previous denials on the basis that it didn’t actually own facial recognition software. Nonetheless, the NOPD has been using facial recognition since at least 2018 by tapping its intelligence partnerships with federal and state agencies, including the FBI and Louisiana State Police.

“After years of assurances from city officials that facial recognition was not used in New Orleans, the ACLU of Louisiana has obtained nearly 50 pages of email requests from New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) to the Louisiana State Police (LSP) Fusion Center asking LSP to use facial recognition on various photos and video stills,” said a Monday press release from the ACLU of Louisiana.

City Council had been considering a ban on facial recognition. But then they learned it was already in use.  Now the ban's sponsor... who was never really serious about it in the first place... has been elected DA. So, likely, nothing will happen. What should happen is the cameras should all come down.  But no one is even going to consider that. 

Reformer's dance

Here is reform candidate for District Atttorney Jason Williams during the city budget hearings this month rejecting calls to defund police. 

City Council members were generally complimentary of the department, and did not signal that there would be any major changes to the proposed budget. 

City Council President Jason Williams — who is also running for Orleans Parish District Attorney, casting himself as a progressive criminal justice reformer —  addressed the calls to defund the police at one point, but he questioned whether or not there were ways to change public perception of police, rather than exploring the idea of cutting the department’s budget further. 

“Given the changing of culture, people crying out for defund the police, people protesting the departments — whether or not there has been a particular egregious situation in their communities or not — across the board there has certainly been a different perception of police officers and law enforcement,” Williams said. “What are we doing now, or what can the council do to start addressing that perceived lack of trust or actual lack of trust, to redefine the NOPD?”

Here is reform candidate Jason Williams suggesting that we put more cops in the schools, while also suggesting that everyone's "older brothers and siblings" are all in jail, maybe?

Williams suggested focusing recruitment efforts toward people who might not normally think to go into law enforcement, and outreach programs in elementary schools to change young people’s perception of the police.

“I would encourage you to figure out a way to get in front of elementary school kids before they have older brothers and siblings helping to frame their narrative about what police mean, and what police do in their community,” Williams said.

Here also is reform candidate Jason Williams helping us get a lid on NOPD's use of intrusive and unconstitutional surveillance technology by.... helping NOPD write a policy that lets them use intrusive and unconstitutional surveillance technology.  

Jones told The Lens that the NOPD only used facial recognition for “violent cases,” but that “documentation of frequency of use of Facial Recognition is not currently available.” Asked whether there was any written policy or procedure regarding the technology, Jones responded by saying that NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson “is currently working with Councilman [Jason] Williams on a policy as to when facial recognition tools should be used.”

Everyone agrees. Of the two candidates remaining for District Attorney, Jason is definitely the more inclined to speak out on behalf of reforming the criminal punishment system. So, you know, as the saying goes, with reformers like these, who needs anti-reformers?  

Well, it turns out, a lot of people think we do. 

Cannizzaro hasn’t endorsed in the race to replace him, but Williams made him a centerpiece of his attacks on Landrum on Thursday, calling her a “surrogate” chosen when the current DA realized he couldn’t win re-election. Cannizzaro did not qualify for the race.

Williams also sought to use against Landrum her stack of endorsements, a list that includes five of Williams’ six colleagues on the council and the BOLD political organization. “You shouldn't have to go through (Councilman) Jay Banks or the BOLD political organization to get to the next DA,” Williams said.

Landrum said Williams had sought the same endorsements she won, and she rejected the idea that Cannizzaro would have any hold over her.

Landrum has wrapped them all up, basically.  It's been something to see.  Not too long ago, Jason Williams, coming off of two overwhelming victories in citywide council races, seemed like he was on a fast track to unseating Cannizzaro, or possibly becoming the next mayor. But now it looks like the whole establishment is lining up against him. The only significant voice we're still waiting to hear from, in fact, is third place primary finisher Arthur Hunter's.  What does Arthur want? Well it sounds like he wants to watch the candidates dance between both sides of the reform question. 

Just out of the money was former Judge Arthur Hunter, with 28%. He has yet to endorse, but in a statement Friday he called on the contenders to prove they would “focus on violent crime while restoring public trust in the DA’s office.”

But dancing is what the so-called "reform" candidate Jason Williams has been doing all year. And look where that has gotten him. I wonder if he will recognize that.

Normalcy in our time, normalcy in our town

Did we talk about the Democratic convention on here yet?  It's been such a weird year in so many ways. Too often I find myself falling behind the noise before I can write enough of it down.  That's not good. Keeping good notes on this website has been such a useful tool for me in just holding it together over the years, I am afraid if I let it go for too long I might dissociate completely from reality.  Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.... 

Oh wait. Here it is. Just a quick summary because I was probably in a hurry. 

But one theme the Democrats pushed relentlessly was Joe Biden's capacity for "empathy."  In Zoom video after dimly lit Zoom video, speakers testified about the times Joe personally had reached out to someone to let them know how well he understood their trauma, how much he cared about and validated their pain.  Almost nothing was said about what he planned to do about any of it.  In fact, one may have come away from the convention with the impression that nothing can be done.  It's a strange thing to offer to voters but it does seem to be in line with the Democratic brand. 

They're basically saying, yeah we know, your life sucks right now. Look at Joe. He's out there feeling your pain. He understands. Meanwhile the policy program is full of little ways to make it easier for you to get used to and cope with the shittiness. We're not out to change the shitty conditions. We're here to valorize your experience of suffering through them.

The hallmarks of this ideology of free market fatalism are visible throughout the mainstream of the Democratic Party.  For example, the same tone was easily detectable in Mayor Cantrell's "State of the City" address delivered just around the time of the convention this year.

“We are all well-versed in the unwavering focus, the hope, and the strength it takes to rebuild from what can seem like disaster,” she said. “I’m here to deliver a message of hope and point the way forward to our future beyond this pandemic.”

The city is now five months past the initial outbreak, which trailed a range of side effects including rampant unemployment and evictions and a city budget now estimated to be more than $100 million in the red. Frequently harkening back to the 1853 yellow fever pandemic, which claimed 8,000 lives, and other, more recent tragedies, Cantrell framed the city and its people as among the most capable of rising to the challenge the current crisis presents.

“We are no strangers to trauma and disruption, you know better than me,” Cantrell said, noting next week will be the 15-year anniversary of the levee failures and flooding set off by Hurricane Katrina.

Again, the message is, our lives are marked by trauma but the mayor knows it and wants us to have "hope."  What, specifically, should we hope for? Well, it's murky.  She says we shouldn't have to worry about making rent.  But her policy response is embedded in trickle-down economics and charitable fundraising projects administered by private non-profits.  And, above all else, great pains are taken to ensure we do not saddle our landlords with worries of their own.

Acknowledging a tripling in the eviction rate, Cantrell touted various rental assistance programs — including a fundraising effort by the nonprofit set up for her transition into office — and said she is fighting for federal assistance.

“The time of a pandemic is not the time for our people to lay awake at night wondering how to make next month’s rent,” Cantrell said. “It is also not the time for landlords to face missing mortgage payments or losing investments they spent a lifetime to build.”

The Dem convention and Cantrell's speech took place a week prior to the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's arrival in New Orleans. That week, a New York Times feature called attention to the long term effects of that disaster and what everyone should know by now are the harmful consequences of the unjust and ineffectual "recovery" policies implemented in its wake.  Sorry to pull such a long quote here.

Pre-Katrina, there was already a considerable shortage of affordable housing in New Orleans. The situation has only become worse, as many of the affordable units the city had were never rebuilt after the storm and the urban core became whiter and wealthier.

New Orleans now has roughly 33,000 fewer affordable housing units than it needs, according to HousingNOLA, a local research and advocacy group. There are opportunities in every corner of the city to fix this, argued Andreanecia Morris, the executive director of HousingNOLA, when we met in her office in Mid-City on South Carrollton Avenue.

Most New Orleanians are renters. Pre-Katrina, the market rate for a one-bedroom apartment was around $578 monthly. It has roughly doubled since then, meaning a full-time worker must now earn about $18 per hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

Real wages, however, have stalled, and many of the places that employ New Orleanians remain closed. Tens of thousands of workers in the city’s beloved music, drinks, food and tourism businesses — who were the most likely to lose their livelihoods both after the storm and now during the pandemic — make a minimum wage of $7.25.

In some other cities, Ms. Morris explained, unaffordable rent “is the result of a housing stock shortage, but in New Orleans we have a vacancy rate of about 20 percent!” In total, there are about 37,700 vacant units. I could feel it biking and driving through the curvilinear streets that weave from the river to the lake, passing by elegant, unfilled properties on otherwise vibrant blocks, then by neatly rebuilt houses sitting lonely in areas frozen in 2007: three empty lots for every six homes you see.

Residents like Terence Blanchard, the Grammy Award-winning trumpeter, who resides in a thriving midcentury neighborhood along Bayou St. John, live this dichotomy. “People talk about the recovery,” he told me as we stood on his dock overlooking the water and City Park. “But if you go to my mom’s house in Pontchartrain Park, there was no real recovery.”

The federal housing vouchers mostly known by the shorthand “Section 8” — which subsidize rent payments above 30 percent of participants’ income — fully cover “fair market rate rent,” which in New Orleans is calculated as $1,034 to $1,496 for a one-bedroom apartment. That means even in increasingly upscale, higher-ground areas of town there is little stopping developers and landlords with vacant properties from lowering rents by a few hundred dollars and still being able to generate revenue.

For Ms. Morris, the continued holdout by many landlords that want “a certain kind of family,” or Airbnb customers, has grown to “psychotic” levels of classism and racism. “At a certain point,” she said, “the math has to let you at least manage your prejudices.”

Whenever the post-2005 destruction and gentrification of New Orleans is discussed, I am obliged to point out again that none of it was an accident.  Since, literally days after Katrina landed, we were already trying to warn that this was going to happen and it would happen as a result of deliberate policy choices made by people who wield political power in New Orleans. Then it happened. It happened every day. Sometimes in very big ways and other times as part of a general creep. But the whole time, we were saying out loud to anyone who would listen, this is happening, the money power, the real estate, tourism and business owners were gutting the city.

And it didn't matter. They did what they wanted. Because that's what always happens. They have the power. We have nothing. You can see it, you can say it, you can object all you want. But they do whatever they want and you don't matter.  Even now, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a depression, there is no such thing as housing justice. Because they can afford to be "psychotic" in their stubbornness and no one with any political power will stop them.

Even at the lowest point of crisis, political leaders emphasize the concerns of landlords holding them equal to or greater than the housing stressed poor. Today, a week after a Category 2 hurricane ripped through and knocked out everyone's power we're still struggling with worries over whether or not the polling locations can operate.  Guess what was back up and running immediately, though.

Public transportation is down, power is out for 90% of the city, but eviction court is open. We have monitors headed in to watch how the judges handle evictions after a category 2 hurricane, during a pandemic.

— Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative (@JanePlaceCLT) October 29, 2020

The thing about New Orleans politics people most misunderstand is how fundamentally conservative it is. The governing ideology in all the major power centers is pro-police, pro-landlord, anti-labor. It's rare to find any observer, let alone someone from out of town, describe it this way, though. Which is why this New Yorker piece by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is refreshing. Taylor is writing primarily about the superficial racial politics of the Biden-Harris campaign but within that argument we find this passage.

There is little consideration of how a municipal administrator’s class standing may complicate solidarities with those it is simply assumed they will represent. This is especially true for Black elected officials, many of whom come from working-class origins but whose class standing shifts when they move into political office. In May, 2018, LaToya Cantrell became the first Black woman to be elected as mayor of New Orleans. Cantrell, who first moved to New Orleans in 1990, in order to attend Xavier, a historically Black university, was deeply involved in community organizing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and served on the city council for six years before ascending to the position of mayor. Despite this background of community engagement, Cantrell has stood on the sidelines during a strike by a small group of Black sanitation workers, over demands for hazard pay and P.P.E. during the pandemic. Sanitation work is outsourced in New Orleans, allowing contracting companies to pay workers less than the city’s living-wage ordinance allows. In this case, when the sanitation workers decided to strike, one of the subcontractors procured a contract for prison laborers, who worked for even less than the striking workers. Even as these “essential workers” have called upon the mayor to help them secure P.P.E. and better pay, Cantrell has refused to intervene directly, saying that these issues are between the contractor and the workers. There is no inherent solidarity along the lines of race, and, when class conflict is introduced into the calculation, it is even more fraught.

This is a city where only a person who promises not to take from the rich and give to the poor and "all that kind of crap" can be mayor.  Policy can only be formulated through a distinctly neoliberal lens. Every problem can only be met with some sort of "business incentive" public-private partnership, or other such trickle down scheme to benefit the ruling classes.

Meanwhile, even within the (very small and insular) world of progressive activism you can't get agreement on basic principles like, for example, housing as a human right or that teachers deserve unions.  And, in any case, the decisions that matter get made at a 10,000 foot remove from any of that through deals between political careerists, tourism bosses, and real estate interests. The public side of the political process, such as it is, is just nonsensical theater.

Which brings us to today's elections.  If you've voted early, or if you've wandered into a polling location this afternoon, you may have noticed that there are a lot of things going on with your ballot besides just that dismal Presidential election.  What even is all that stuff?  Well, if you really want to know the details you should stop here and go read the excellent and extremely thorough Antigravity and DSA voter guides.  But if you want the short version, stay here and I will tell you. 

Basically three things are happening. A slate of reformist candidates mostly associated with the public defender's office is trying to win a bunch of judicial seats.  A few somewhat progressive minded challengers are trying to wrest one or two school board seats away from incumbent charter school privatizers with national corporate backing. And, all of this is happening in the context of various power brokering institutions trying to consolidate their positions as electoral and patronage gatekeepers ahead of next year's municipal elections. 

The linchpin in the insider tug of war is the DA's race where Mayor Cantrell's alliance with BOLD, which did very well in the legislative races last year, is backing Keva Landrum. You can read a little bit about the dynamics of the race in this Advocate story about the fundraising. Landrum has positioned herself as the more conservative "law and order" candidate compared to Jason Williams and Arthur Hunter who she has criticized as "backed by third party special interests." Each of their platforms is invested in reforming the criminal legal system more aggressively than she would like.

As I type this right now, the polls are open for another twenty minutes. But my strong suspicion is the establishment candidates will win most of these judicial and school board races and Landrum will run first in the DA race.  Overall the theme of the night is conservative establishment results at home to match the general "return to normalcy" nationwide as Joe Biden becomes the next President.

Maybe that is disappointing.  But disappointment has pretty much been baked into this since March. Here is what I told the kids yesterday on a parallel internet. We know that the Biden Presidency only represents the replacement of one kind of conservatism with another. We know that, regardless of the election result, we are no nearer to overcoming the massive obstacles to human happiness posed by poverty, racism, disease, empire, and climate catastrophe. And we know these are all deeply embedded consequences of systemic capitalist exploitation and that the work of rooting them out has not even begun. 

But, if only for the sake of your own mental well being and that of your neighbors, please do not deny yourself the chance to revel in the pure and absolute joy of seeing Donald Trump ejected from the White House. Fuck that guy. He's almost gone. It's okay to enjoy that.

Time for healing

I am going to have to go watch this forum now for clarity but it does sound a lot like what Keva is saying here is that the "relationship between the DA's office and the community" needs to be "healed" specifically because Jason has criticized Cannizzaro so much. 

But Landrum said she was the only candidate with experience running an office like the DA’s. She also said that as a judge she was prevented in many cases from speaking her mind, but nonetheless pushed changes like bail reform from the bench.

Without mentioning Cannizzaro by name, she said she would heal the relationship between the DA’s office and the community. She called Williams a grandstander whose “divisive” tactics reminded her of President Donald Trump and took a swipe at him over his St. Charles Avenue house.

“Mr. Williams wants you to believe that he is going to stand for the poor people of our city, when in fact he has made himself a millionaire off the backs of the people of New Orleans,” she said. “I don’t live in a mansion on a hill. He does.”

Which would imply that Leon's contributions to this "relationship," his use of the habitual offender laws to win absurdly harsh sentences, his use of "fake subpoenas" to intimidate witnesses, and his general "tough-on-crime" verbosity which only got worse as his tenure in office progressed... none of that is as detrimental as Jason Williams's public criticism of these practices.  Worse, she seems to say that hearing him make these criticisms reminded her of Trump?  

That can't be right.  I mean, for one thing, Keva has been openly critical of Cannizzaro herself. At least she was when she thought she would be running against him. 

While Landrum and Cannizzaro both worked under longtime DA Harry Connick Sr. at different times, she ventured into public criticism of Cannizzaro’s policies at a forum last year.

Landrum accused Cannizzaro of resisting her court’s efforts to offer pretrial services to defendants and reduce the jail population. She also said Louisiana’s habitual offender law — which Cannizzaro once made more use of than any DA in the state to ratchet up sentences for defendants with prior convictions — does little to reduce crime rates.

Maybe it has something to do with what house you live in when you make these comments?  In any event, the time for all of that is over now.  Have to move on so the healing can begin.

Try zero circumstances

There is no justification for any city to ever authorize its police to deploy internationally banned chemical weapons against its citizens.  None.  You can play around with the language like this all day but you're never going to arrive at a just solution until your law says just don't do that. 

The ordinance is designed to prevent the police from using chemical irritants in all but the “absolute most dire circumstances,” according to Banks. However, the current version of the proposal allows police to use tear gas and other “riot control” chemicals to prevent crimes of violence.

Williams said that in response to concerns that the legislation might give too much leeway, he hopes to amend the ordinance so that the only exception is in situations involving an “imminent” threat of loss of life or bodily injury. He also intends to amend the ordinance at a full City Council vote to require police to issue a warning before using gas.

Writing those bullshit qualifiers into the ordinance guarantees that 1) the cops will definitely use tear gas on more people and 2) Williams and Banks will yell at anyone who  complains that they've fixed the problem already. 

Court is closed

Looks like Jason will have to carry the weight of his tax fraud indictment all the way through the campaign. 

The federal courthouse in New Orleans will hold no jury trials until next year, under an order issued Thursday that seems to make certain that City Council President Jason Williams will not face trial on tax-fraud charges before voters weigh in on his bid to become Orleans Parish district attorney.

The order from U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown, the court’s chief judge, suspends all civil and criminal jury trials in the Eastern District of Louisiana until at least Jan. 1.

Too lazy to look it up right now but I can only assume the municipal courts are following a similar order.  I was actually supposed to start jury duty somewhere back in "Phase 1" but that wasn't possible then and I have to assume it still isn't since no one has called me. 

Eviction court is open though... no idea how that happened.

It's Friday, are we tuned?

Are we staying that way?

In his last two campaigns for DA, Cannizzaro filed to run on the first day of qualifying, according to records from the Louisiana Secretary of State. Reached by phone, Billy Schultz, who has worked as a political consultant for Cannizzaro, said he didn’t have any information about the DA’s plans.

“Stay tuned,” he said, “that’s all I can tell ya.”

If Leon really is bowing out, that could open up the dynamics of the DA race quite a bit.  Candidates will now have to build their cases as to what sort of "reform" they might stand for beyond just putting Not-Leon in the office. This article finds each of the announced candidates going out of their way to brag a little bit about their willingness to put people in jail, though. So we're not especially optimistic.  But, hey, stay tuned. 

Update:  Kind of an anti-climax here. 

In a statement posted on his office's website, he said “I have proudly devoted the past 42 years of my life to the cause of making New Orleans a safer place to live, work, raise families and visit. But after long discussions with my wife and family, it became apparent that my interest in serving another term has waned, outweighed by a desire to spend more time with my family, especially my nine grandchildren born since I first took office. This was not an easy decision, but it is the one with which I’m most at peace."

People had all sorts of wild theories going about Leon getting a federal appointment or running for some other office. But no, he's gonna spend more time with the fam.   That's what we had to stay tuned for?

They are pleased to do it

Metro Service has been using a prison labor broker in order to help it bust up a wildcat strike staged by garbage hoppers it had already outsourced to a day labor staffing agency.  According to their spokesperson, they are "pleased" to be able to do this.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration said that under its contract, Metro Service Group is supposed to pay employees at least $10.25 an hour. In a statement on Monday, the company acknowledged that it signed a contract to pay the inmate laborers $9.25 an hour. The company said the inmates' pay, which has yet to be invoiced, would be "amended" to meet the minimum.

"We'd like to add that, while hoppers went on strike and while we were unable to secure a regular stream of private sector workers to fill their spots during their strike, we are pleased to be able to provide work-release-approved inmates with meaningful work at a good wage so that they can more easily transition back into society," said a company spokesman.

This is, and I'm very sorry, a total load of garbage from Metro.  This isn't about helping anybody "transition back into society." It is about exploiting a perverse for-profit incarceration system where firms like Metro collect discounted labor from people like Hootie Lockhart who then collect fees from the prisoners themselves.

The work-release inmates were set to receive $9.25 an hour, according to Lock5 manager Hootie Lockhart. He said he usually tries to secure more pay, but the economic crisis has made it hard to find well-paying jobs.

The inmates stand to keep much less than that at the end of the day, moreover. In an arrangement outlined in state law, Lock5 takes up to 64 percent of inmate pay to cover its own expenses, Lockhart said.

This is what Metro is "pleased" to be able to do.  Maybe episodes like this provide us with a moment to examine the morality of these practices and whether the city should be paying for them.

Or maybe not.

A Cantrell spokesman voiced no objections to the use of work-release inmates — noting that the city uses them during Carnival season — but New Orleans City Councilman Jason Williams said he was disappointed.

He also said he was "deeply concerned" about the original workers' situation.

Jason is running for DA. While it's good to hear he's concerned about the striking workers, we might like to also hear him comment on the exploitation of victims of the criminal punishment system as well.

The police state also won the pandemic

Not only has the disastrous month of April 2020 shifted the dynamics of wealth and power even further to the extreme advantage of the nation's oligarchs, it has also provided new and exciting excuses for the rapid expansion of the police state.  In New Orleans, for example, we've spent the pandemic rolling out new unconstitutional(and unsafe for virus prevention) checkpoint practices while also finding new excuses to throw money at unscrupulous surveillance contractors.

On March 15, the city entered into an agreement with Israeli tech firm Carbyne, which asks users dialing 911 in crisis to agree to be surveilled without regulations or limits. A month later, NOPD began instituting police checkpoints across the city, despite public outcry that eventually ended the checkpoints.

City Council members agree that this lack of process and transparency needs to change. After halting the installation of over 100 new cameras that would have fed into the city’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) recently, Councilmember Jason Williams admitted, “It’s important that we be extremely concerned about the unintentional impacts that can come from a well meaning initiative.” He said the city needs comprehensive limits and regulations on surveillance tools before they are allowed to proliferate further.

It's nice of Jason to say he is "extremely concerned."  But he does want to be D.A.  I  wonder how concerned he will be as the city's top prosecutor.  I imagine his laughable assertion that a project to place security cameras up the butt of every New Orleanian was at any time a "well meaning initiative" can give us some insight into that. 

When did you decide this?

Jason Williams has decided that maybe we shouldn't turn downtown New Orleans into a great big police panopticon after all.

New Orleans City Councilman Jason Williams announced at a Wednesday meeting that he is pumping the brakes on a contract that would add 146 new public video cameras with audio capability until the council can craft and pass a comprehensive ordinance to regulate the use of surveillance technologies in New Orleans.

“It’s important that we be extremely concerned about the unintentional impacts that can come from a well meaning initiative,” he said. “The technology is moving so much faster than government and our regulations.”

It is important that we be extremely concerned about this.  Many of us have been extremely concerned for a very long time, in fact. When did Jason come aboard? 

Williams said that the election of President Donald Trump and the progression of surveillance around the world have changed his views.

“When we had those initial conversations, the President of the United States was Barack Obama,” he said during the meeting. “After that election and the awareness of the footage retrieval and data retrieval that might have been used in a way that the previous administration wouldn’t have used them. Changes in immigration policy have led to concerns for several council members.”

Hmmm... that's not great. Maybe consider that the power to violate everyone's expectation of privacy shouldn't exist regardless of who might use it for whatever.  It's an odd little quirk of government, I know, but the person holding any particular office does change, on occasion.   Jason knows this, right? I'm sure he must.  I mean...

Williams launched his official campaign for Orleans Parish District Attorney last week, setting himself up as a progressive District Attorney candidate focused on criminal justice reform. That election happens later this year.

Last week, Williams began the process of  "setting himself up as a progressive" DA candidate. This week he suddenly thinks surveillance isn't as great as he once thought.  Surely this is pure coincidence as well.