Serpas Signal

 Very comforting

Last week, Gov. Jeff Landry formally requested that the president send 1,000 troops to Louisiana.

NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick also confirmed the Guard is coming — but it’s still unclear when.

“In our society, visible presence of security is oftentimes very comforting to people,” Serpas said.

As chief of police, Serpas's main innovation was setting up random and constitutionally questionable traffic checkpoints every other week.  We were all very much comforted by that. Although it seems rather quaint in hindsight. Today there are cameras and microphones everywhere you go. Your "private messages" can prompt police to show up at your house. And, of course, masked goons are kidnapping people off the street every day.  By Serpas's count, this should be the most comfortable time in history. 

Almost harvest time

We are in the stage of the business cycle where the ruling class can either (A) take the massive piles of capital that have accumulated at the top and reinvest it in humans and infrastructure that supports humans. OR  (B) they can light a big fire, loot what they can, and have cops punch anyone who objects. 

We almost always get option B. We are getting option B. The reason it feels this intense is because the money pile is exceptionally high this time and it looks about ripe for harvesting. 

The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year. And some analysts believe that estimate doesn’t fully capture the AI spend, so the real share could be even higher.  

AI companies have accounted for 80 per cent of the gains in US stocks so far in 2025. That is helping to fund and drive US growth, as the AI-driven stock market draws in money from all over the world, and feeds a boom in consumer spending by the rich.

Since the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population own 85 per cent of US stocks, they enjoy the largest wealth effect when they go up. Little wonder then that the latest data shows America’s consumer economy rests largely on spending by the wealthy. The top 10 per cent of earners account for half of consumer spending, the highest share on record since the data begins.

Nobody promoting a police panopticon deserves to hold public office in your city

I really wish people would stop talking so much about what Trump does every day and focus on the things their local elected leaders do that make it possible for the worst of Trump's policies to reach into your city and neighborhood. Trump lives very far away from you. Yes he wants to send militarized cops here to harass, assault, and deport you.  But also it is your city councilmembers who are explicitly inviting him to do this.  

After the New Orleans Police Department’s informal arrangement with Project NOLA was uncovered by The Washington Post in May, the city has moved to officially authorize the use of live facial recognition analysis.

The city council is currently scheduled to vote next Thursday on an ordinance that would make New Orleans the nation’s first city with a formal program that uses facial recognition to surveil people in real time, according to the Post. The proposal would expand on the council’s 2022 vote authorizing police to use facial recognition technology, but only as a last resort and only to investigate crimes after the fact.

City officials insist that their new ordinance has clear protections for civil liberties. In particular, they stress, the ordinance explicitly states that data gleaned from these cameras cannot be used for immigration enforcement.

But local advocates for immigrants’ rights insist that those protections are not strong enough to withstand state or federal pressure on the city to hand over information. They warn that New Orleans’ Democratic leadership might be setting itself up to hand ICE a powerful new tool.

Eugene Green insists that it is possible to put "guardrails" up against ICE intruding on the local surveillance dragnet. This is obviously untrue and he is obviously lying about that. Or else he simply doesn't know anything about how the federal government under Donald Trump behaves with respect to legal "guardrails" or the rule of law in general.  Maybe Green really is that ignorant of present day politics?  Probably not, though. More likely he simply agrees with draconian police state policies and wants to see them implemented.  No one with this agenda should be allowed to represent you on any governing body at any time. Especially not now. Because ultimately, it's these local offices where the actual crimes against you and your freedom are enabled and executed. 

He fell down and hit his head

 I'm sure it was just like this. 

Hammond Police said they pulled over a vehicle on the evening of Feb. 10 near Magazine and Apple Street that was registered to someone with an outstanding felony warrant. 

McCaskey and a passenger jumped out of the car, and officers chased them, police said. 

“The officer says he believes that he was reaching towards his waistband, at which point he tased the subject. Upon tasing the subject, it was Bobby McCaskey," Bergeron said, "Mr. McCaskey hit the ground. Upon hitting the ground, he hit his head.”

I do not like it when, upon hitting the ground, I hit my head. It's happened a few times. It hasn't happened to be while being tased, but I suppose it's probably similar.  It's not nice.  Of course, I don't think I've experienced any of these symptoms.

McCaskey's family said he's had to have multiple surgeries, including facial reconstruction. Plus, the family said he swallowed his partial teeth plate and is spitting up teeth. 

“From the MRI reports, it showed that he had multiple strokes, and his C-Spine was crushed," Hunter said. 

The family doesn't know exactly what happened before they found him in the hospital the night of February 10th, but they believe police used excessive force. 

“The phone call we got was that he was dead," Hunter said. 

The normal things that happen when you fall down and hit your head. 

Someone should probably do something

Seems bad

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a report Thursday evening finding that Louisiana State Police employs practices that violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the use of excessive force, often unjustifiably using Tasers and escalating minor incidents with people who do not pose a threat.

The Justice Department began its investigation of State Police in 2022 after revelations about the 2019 death of Black motorist Ronald Greene at the hands of Monroe-area troopers who beat and Tased him after a high-speed chase into Union Parish.

“We also found that troopers use excessive force to immediately control encounters, often within the first few moments of encountering a person and without giving the person a warning or an opportunity to comply,” the report said. “Additionally, LSP uses excessive force on people who run from troopers, even when that person is only suspected of a misdemeanor.”

The findings were released two days after federal prosecutors said they would not bring charges in the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, ending a lengthy probe into the white state troopers who stunned, punched and dragged Greene on a roadside following a high-speed chase outside Monroe, Louisiana.

 Hopefully the DOJ has some plan to rectify these abuses? Right?

The Justice Department also examined whether state police engage in “racially discriminatory policing” but made no findings “at this time” as to whether that contributed to the misconduct.

The report recommends — but does not mandate — a long list of remedial measures, while also crediting the agency with making ”much-needed reforms after video of Mr. Greene’s death became public.”

Oh well. Best of luck, everybody 

Democrats: "guess we're gonna have to get more fascist"

 We tried going "anti-woke" and we're all out of ideas.

In the last four years, mainstream Democrats have: nominated a former prosecutor for president; elected an ex-NYPD officer to run New York City; campaigned on deporting more people; funneled money and weapons to regimes committing war crimes; overseen the beatings and arrests of people demanding police reform; sent more police officers to wallop students protesting for Palestinian rights; ratcheted up the War on Drugs; worked with major corporate retailers to arrest more shoplifters; filed racketeering and conspiracy charges against police-reform protesters in Atlanta; made it easier to arrest New Yorkers and Californians with mental illness; defended the use of solitary confinement; supported a landmark Supreme Court case to let cops arrest unhoused people; tried to imprison one of the world’s most famous rappers; promised to build Donald Trump’s border wall; ran endless ads about Trump’s criminal record; and applauded as the president chanted “Fund the Police!” during his most-watched yearly address. 

And yet, after an election last week in which voters all but screamed that the Democratic Party is moving in the wrong direction, centrist and conservative pundits have drawn the opposite conclusion: The Democrats are, somehow, still too soft on crime.

I wonder if they'll try going even further right this time.  What have they got to lose?

Selling the public

Judge Morgan is making noises like she's finally ready to release NOPD from the consent decree. 

The prospect of reduced monitoring, on the way to ending oversight, came into focus this week. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who has tracked the reforms since their start, heard a positive report on officer bias, then bluntly requested a plan to launch the NOPD into a two-year "sustainment" phase under the 2012 reform pact known as a consent decree.

"We need to begin putting the framework in place," she said Wednesday.

I don't know enough about their "officer bias" metrics to speak with much authority. Having said that, it's clearly all bullshit that can mean whatever they want it to mean whenever they want it to mean that.  Anyway if NOPD says they're doing a better job, there are reasons to remain skeptical.  

For example, we know the consent decree places limits on high speed chases that pose an unreasonable danger to life and property such as this one that killed two teens in 2019. And yet just this week we saw officers racing through Uptown in pursuit of suspects. And in a separate incident only a few days later, an NOPD officer crashed into a utility pole on St. Charles Avenue knocking out power for approximately 1000 residents. In what way is this progress?

We can look also at the several law enforcement agencies currently operating in New Orleans outside of the federal mandates. This week the 5th Circuit is hearing a case about two private patrol officers who held a teenager at gunpoint after he asked them for help looking for his lost dog. And, of course, many concerns remain about the newly installed State Troop NOLA.

U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who oversees reforms to the New Orleans Police Department under a consent decree, has expressed concern over the new troop’s role in the city and LSP’s transparency about it, though she has no direct say over how troopers operate within city limits.

Landry insisted Tuesday that officials had consulted with the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI regarding its activities and that troopers in New Orleans have acted “in the most professional manner.”

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been investigating the LSP to assess whether it uses excessive force or engages in racially discriminatory policing in the wake of the 2019 death of Ronald Greene.

All of which leads us to ask: if we have clear examples of police with no oversight behaving badly in New Orleans right now, why would we want to operate NOPD with no restrictions as well? The only answer we can come up with is politics. Morgan is a federal judge and certainly doesn't have to jump whenever the local electeds say jump. But, after a while, even the least credible bullying, like the Governor calling for her impeachment, starts to get the point across. Likely there is additional pressure from all business and political leaders in all corners wanting to get this all wrapped up now that the "Summer of Superbowl" is here.

The way the T-P writes it, you'd think the whole thing is just one big marketing challenge, anyway.

The contrast in tone, tenor and verbiage — optimism in the courtroom among deputy police chiefs, Morgan and the monitors, while community voices drip with skepticism — suggests a challenge in selling the public on the idea that the NOPD is ready to police itself.

"We want Black people to be acknowledged, because it was Black people who were maimed and murdered, who got the consent decree put in place," said Alicia Plummer, vice president of the New Orleans East Business Association.

"Who is speaking for us?...The police and federal monitors, they're in cahoots together."

Is NOPD "ready to police itself?" Not anywhere near as important as, "can we sell the public on the idea?"

"Government approved protest"

 The best kind of protest, as everyone knows.

House Bill 127, sponsored by Rep. Mike Bayham, R-Chalmette, received final House concurrence in a 83-15 vote. The measure is now pending approval from Gov. Jeff Landry, who has called for harsh punishments against protestors. 

The proposal expands a state criminal statute that outlaws obstruction of a highway, road, railway, airport runway or navigable waterway by adding a conspiracy component.

Under current law, the crime is considered a misdemeanor punishable with a $250 fine, six months in prison or both. It applies to anyone who physically performs an act, such as protesting or placing an obstacle on a street, that makes it harder for vehicles to pass.

Bayham’s bill increases the fine to $750 for the misdemeanor act of obstructing a road. It adds a new provision to specifically go after protest organizers by applying the statute to anyone who conspires or assists others in a demonstration that blocks or slows down traffic. 

There was no debate ahead of final passage for the bill on the House floor Tuesday.

In a previous floor debate, Bayham said his bill would still allow people to lawfully assemble for a government-approved protest, and he added it would protect public safety by preventing protests from slowing down emergency vehicles.

I dunno. All this seems bad to me.  Can't really say what to do about it. All the options appear to have become illegal. 

The larger context of all of this is we're entering a period of greater austerity. This will be on a level not recently experienced by the middle class American kids who were raised to think they had some sort of stake in the greater societal project and therefore a credible say in how it is directed. But the line separating the circle of people who matter from the larger number of people who do not is being drawn in tighter than it has been in a long while.  You can't ask this many previously comfortable people to go quietly into that. The only way to enforce it is through stepping up the capacity for state surveillance and state violence.   

Didn't happen overnight, I know. For a while, it was possible to paper over the erosion of the social infrastructure by buying off strategically significant segments of the population with pretty stories and hollow treats. But we're getting the part where there's enough pain deliberately dealt out to enough people that we have to change the strategy from carrots to sticks. And so that's where we are.

Seems bad

Another one of those things where there isn't much to say. They're basically making every form of organized political dissent a major felony.  Once you open the box that allows you to start categorizing types of organizing as "terrorism," this is inevitably where you wind up. So it's not like no one could see it coming a mile away. It's just that this is where we are now.

House Bill 205, which adds rioting to crimes that can result in racketeering charges, also passed the Senate last week, with one significant amendment.

Originally, the bill, by Rep. Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell, added 10 crimes to that list, but an amendment by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, added seven more crimes to that tally, bringing the total to 17.

If the law passes, those who riot, vandalize historic buildings, block highways and or commit other offenses, and those who organize events where such crimes occur, could face up to 50 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The crimes would have to take place on more than one occasion to be covered under the statute.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, argue the bill would allow police to roundup protesters — including those who were not complicit in any crimes that occurred during an event — and to charge them as they would organized criminals.

Seems bad. Not sure what anyone is gonna do about it. Especially since it's the supposedly liberal party that's pushing the envelope on repression at the moment.

Some of these are so easy, it's stupid

All one has to do is refer to any point in the past when Mayor Cantrell's administration acted to expand the intrusive police surveillance apparatus deployed against New Orleans residents during her term in office.

At the request of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, the New Orleans City Council introduced an ordinance on Thursday to severely roll back local restrictions on law enforcement surveillance that were put in place only 14 months ago.

The proposed ordinance, if passed, would largely reverse the council’s blanket bans on the use facial recognition and characteristic tracking software, which is similar to facial recognition but for identifying race, gender, outfits, vehicles, walking gait and other attributes. One provision also appears to walk back the city’s ban on predictive policing and cell-site simulators — which intercept and spy on cell phone calls — to locate people suspected of certain serious crimes. 

That provision could, for the first time, give the city explicit permission to use a whole host of surveillance technology in certain circumstances, including voice recognition, x-ray vans, “through the wall radar,” social media monitoring software, “tools used to gain unauthorized access to a computer,” and more.

And then follow that up with her reaction to having those kinds of tools turned back on her.  

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell filed for a temporary protective order Friday against a woman she says has stalked her for two years by taking photos and videos of her, according to Orleans Parish Civil District Court records. 

Cantrell accuses the woman, Anne Breaud, of "aggressively" taking photos and videos of her on multiple occasions, including on April 7 as she dined on a restaurant balcony.

Breaud's actions over the last two years, she wrote, "have placed me and my family in greater risk of being harmed, jeopardizing my safety especially at places I frequent."

Breaud declined to comment Friday night, and the mayor's office could not be immediately reached.

Okay maybe it's not that easy.  It is stupid but some things need clarification. The photographs she's referring to in the second story connect to a tabloid saga regarding the mayor's personal life that I don't have any interest in discussing.  The local TV stations have enjoyed it very much because it is salacious in nature which gets a lot of attention while also having zero relevant news or political content which means they don't have to think too hard about anything while presenting it. 

If the reporters did want to talk about this with any sort of seriousness, these stories would focus less on the sensationalist aspects and more on the implications of who gets to point cameras at who and to what purpose. Because as it stands currently, the cops and the mayors have so many cameras poking into our daily lives that there's scarcely a step one takes without feeling like some sort of suspect. And yet the moment we might ask the slightest question about the work our public officials are doing, or the moment we point a camera at the police, well now there's the line that can't be crossed.

Someone should stop the crime that is in progress

 I'd call the police but it looks like they are in on it.

The NOPD has lobbied for new space for years, and Kirkpatrick has made it a top priority since taking over the department in October. Initial lease terms were agreed to in January, but some council members said they had been blindsided when it was unveiled to them in March.

Now a revised lease, up for council consideration in a special meeting on Wednesday, would add significantly more space at a higher cost per square foot. The latest draft adds a third floor to the space at 1615 Poydras Street and increases the total square footage from about 45,000 to 69,000.

The lease rate increases from an average of $170 to $180 per square foot over a decade.

If the New Orleans Police Department occupies the space at 1615 Poydras for all 10 years, the city will pay a total of $12.4 million, an increase from $7.7 million under the initial deal for the smaller space earlier this year. 

Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration did not immediately respond to questions on Tuesday as to why it wants to add more space and agreed to pay a higher rate.

Good luck getting an answer out of them. Maybe it will be on the next podcast. Otherwise maybe FOIA some emails. You know, while that is still legal. 

Anyway... previously on Flip This Office Tower we learned the city had been in talks over this lease for at least six months before Frank Stewart sold the building.  Not sure where this sudden escalator clause came in.  We keep hearing that downtown office space is a soft market. What happened?

Seems bad

Comedy is finally legal again at the Louisiana Legislature. Every stupid joke of an idea they've had batted away in the past is back. And they're having the greatest time of their lives up there. 

Nearly 10 months after Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed a controversial bill that would create a 25-foot buffer around law enforcement officers, a Louisiana House committee greenlit a similar piece of legislation Tuesday (March 26), effectively reviving the proposal. 

House Bill 173 by Rep. Bryan Fontenot, R-Thibodaux, states that “no person shall knowingly or intentionally approach within twenty-five feet of a peace officer who is lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties after the peace officer has ordered the person to stop approaching or to retreat.”

Anyone found in violation of the law can be fined up to $500 or imprisoned up to 60 days.

Cops can arrest you for just being around now.  

Put these alongside the anti-labor intolerable acts that started moving through committee today, and you can see the kind of world we're headed for over the next few years. 

Rats gotta eat

First of all we'd like to thank NOPD Chief Anne Kirkpatrick for choosing to drop this Weed Rats meme on us just after Mardi Gras.  It means that everyone who might have had to scramble for ideas a few weeks ago will now have a full year to really sit with the image and decide whether or not it is truly the costume for them. 

Heavy mold and deteriorating elevators, HVAC units and plumbing are some of the issues that have been plaguing New Orleans Police Department headquarters.

But those aren't the only problems at aging police facilities around the criminal justice complex near Tulane Avenue and South Broad Street. Don't forget the vermin, NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told the City Council's Criminal Justice Committee on Monday.

"The rats are eating our marijuana," Kirkpatrick said. "They're all high."

The great thing about the weed rats is everybody immediately loves them. But also nobody actually believes they are a thing. I mean, sure, there are rats at police headquarters. That's easy enough to believe. But, if anything is being stolen from the evidence room there, it's far more likely the culprits are in uniform.*  Even more dubious is Kirkpatrick's claim that the rats are "high." Rats can and do get high. We learn that from this study where rats were observed with increased appetite and laziness after exposure to cannabis vapor.  The key bit, however, is the vapor. Could the rats get high from just eating the raw plants?  I don't think it works like that. 

Anyway, why is this colorful fantasy being brought to our attention now?  Well, you see, NOPD wants a new headquarters. Actually, that's not entirely accurate.  They aren't necessarily asking for a new building. We just know they want to move out of the one they have. 

A plan to relocate New Orleans Police Department headquarters into two floors of a downtown office tower is a large piece of a wider vision to leave behind the city’s crumbling justice complex in Mid-City, said chief administrative officer Gilbert Montaño on Wednesday.

About 400 police department staffers are slated to relocate with the pending move to the 17th and 18th floors of 1615 Poydras Street, called the DXC building, he said. The draft 10-year lease, which awaits City Council approval, calls for a May 1 move-in date.

The plan is to abandon the current HQ located in the (geographic) center of the city with its proximity to the criminal courthouse and central lockup and move, instead, into an office tower downtown with limited public access and practically no parking. Oh and also now the city doesn't control the building and is paying rent to a private landlord for at least 10 years. This is short sighted, minor league city type stuff. The police aren't even "allowed" to do police business in the police office. 

Lahasky said the lease will not allow NOPD to conduct interrogations or make arrests within the office building.

“Our agreement with NOPD is that the offices will be utilized as administrative offices, and that certain uses such as interrogations and lineups and things that outsiders perceive as maybe not the kind of uses you’d like to see in an office building” won't be allowed, he said. “Those particular uses are to be held off-site.”

Nothing about this makes any sense in terms of public service.  It does make sense if you come at it from the point of view that the city government exists solely to facilitate real estate deals that benefit the succession plans of fading oligarchs like Frank Stewart.  Which is precisely the sort of thing you might think if you are Gilbert Montaño. 

Negotiations began in earnest about six months ago, Montaño said, when the building was still owned by businessman and philanthropist Frank Stewart. The Monroe businessmen who bought it at the end of last year, brothers Eddie and Joseph Hakim, also own Orleans Tower, the former Amoco Building a few blocks away. The city leases space in that building for the Department of Safety and Permits, Civil District Court clerk and Civil Service Commission, among others. 

Frank Stewart, for those who need a refresher, is a billionaire investor whose fortune derives from his family's funeral home business.  The "philanthropist" descriptor he gets in articles like the one above is an inevitable result of owning lots of things (downtown office towers, for example) and making use of as many tax write-offs as possible.  In recent years, his "charity" work garnering the most attention was his leadership of the Monumental Task Force's attempts to maintain the city's Confederate statues. In 2017, he took out a full page ad in the newspaper denouncing Mitch Landrieu's efforts to have them removed.  Mitch was on his way out of office and working on his national profile at the time.  Because of this, he could afford to ignore Stewart's provincial concerns.  The same could not be said for Stewart's ambitious local ally in the monumental "lost cause," Councilwoman and soon to be Mayor LaToya Cantrell.

On Dec. 17, 2015, the day the City Council voted to remove the monuments, Cantrell, then a council member, gave a speech that must have been music to the ears of the pro-monument crowd, chastising then-Mayor Mitch Landrieu for bringing the issue to light. Amazingly, within the same hour she joined the majority of the council in voting for removal.

In early 2018, within a few months of being elected mayor, Cantrell empowered a secretive working group of Confederate monument supporters to decide the future location of the warehoused monuments. One of her spokesmen stated, “She believes that the future of the former monuments belongs in the hands of those who care about them.”

It’s highly likely that the only reason the mayor didn’t go through with the group’s relocation plan, moving them to another prominent location, was the exposure she received in an article by Kevin Litten published in The Times-Picayune. The article exposed Cantrell’s willingness to placate the side of the argument endorsed by some of the most moneyed and powerful people in the city — the side she voted against as a City Council member.

None of that was surprising. Both mayors (and a number of other state and local politicians) have done plenty of favors for Stewart over the years. In 2017, the same year the monuments controversy came to a head, they all helped swing the deal that gave Stewart's building its "DXC" moniker. That $120 million deal committed the city and the state to a package of subsidies and incentives including an agreement to rebate the payroll of software company DXC in exchange for its promise to occupy ten floors of Stewart's tower. The company and the politicians promised as many as 2,000 new "tech" jobs.

Of course, there were those of us who, just days after the announcement, observed that DXC appeared to be taking advantage of the state's generous corporate welfare offerings in order to facilitate its own global downsizing and outsourcing scheme to cut jobs and wages. But nobody ever listens to those of us who say such things. Anyway as time went on, it became clear that DXC was never committed to hiring locally. Over the following years, they would repeatedly miss the goals set forth in the original agreement. As of 2022, they had nearly scuttled the entire thing and were looking to sub-lease much of their office space in the tower.

In the meantime, The Cantrell Administration has spent plenty of time and energy trying to figure out ways to plug the hole in Stewart's revenue stream.  At one point they even considered moving City Hall into the building.  Which brings us up to last year when we find an aging Stewart trying to liquidate his asset portfolio in a slow market for downtown office space. At the time of the sale, the building was roughly 50 percent vacant. But its buyers, Eddie and Joseph Hakim were strangely bullish on its prospects. Likely the, by then, well underway negotiations over a guaranteed NOPD tenant had something to do with that.

All of this is typical New Orleans cronyism. But it also reflects the conservative ideology at the heart of the Cantrell administration. Gilbert Montano said recently that "the future" of city government should rely more on regressive user fee-based budgeting rather than a reliable tax base for dependable services. Under that kind of regime, there can be no real investment in social or physical infrastructure. City services will exist under continual threat of cuts. City departments won't own their own buildings.  Not even the police.  The only dependable revenue streams created go the other direction. Out of the public coffers and into the hands of corporate landlords.

For his part, (potential mayoral candidate) Oliver Thomas wants to put a pause on the NOPD lease because he doesn't feel adequately communicated toward.

“Not only was there a lack of communication about this viable move, but it seems like there was not a lot of thought put into multiple locations that would provide the best access to the men and women that utilize the headquarters, as well as the citizens to whom access is extremely important,” Councilmember Thomas said in his letter to Montano and Chief Kirkpatrick.

Thomas wants to “take a step back” to review other possible locations for the new NOPD headquarters.

He says he’d like to see the new NOPD headquarters be in a location that is more “community-oriented” with easier parking and that could become a more permanent spot that would add “value to the community.” He also says he’d like to see the new NOPD headquarters be in a location that would add overall access to residents in the city.

The kids are already joking that maybe Thomas will suggest putting the new HQ at the Six Flags site his friend Troy Henry is supposed to be redeveloping. But it occurs to us that this would put us a step closer to the New Orleans Cop City we've already speculated that Mayor OT might build one day. So maybe it's not that funny. In any case, it wouldn't represent a change in governing philosophy so much as a slight adjustment in the direction of the spoils.  It's never really a question of whether the rats are going to get a piece of the stash so much as it is which rats in particular.

 *That link references an evidence room scandal from 15 years ago.  When I started writing this post, I hadn't yet seen the latest one out just today.  Interesting that after the weed rats got their fifteen minutes of fame, NOPD has moved right along to blaming the conveniently deceased for what is clearly a systemic issue.

Speedily warped

As the regular session of the legislature begins, I just wanted to flag this particularly good Gambit summary of where we are so far in Jeff Landry times.  The "crime" special session alone should be considered a human rights violation.

During his campaign for governor, Landry painted New Orleans as a lawless city that only he could fix, vowing to “bend the city” to his “will.”

While the city has struggled with gun violence and high rates of poverty and trauma, the rate of violent crime dropped significantly in 2023.

Violent crime increased nationally during the pandemic, from 2020 to 2022, especially in New Orleans. But, by last October, the city’s murder rate had fallen by 24%, with similar declines in nonfatal shootings, armed robberies and aggravated batteries. The national rate of violent crimes also dropped, but the rate in New Orleans declined twice as much.

Still, Landry kept his promise to call a special legislative session on crime, which ran from Feb. 19 to Feb. 29. During it, lawmakers speedily passed traditional failed “tough on crime” measures that certainly will put — and keep — more people behind bars in a state that already has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country.

The previous legislature seemed to understand that in 2017 when lawmakers passed a bipartisan set of reforms to the criminal legal system. The changes reduced penalties for nonviolent crimes and expanded opportunities for parole by allowing a state board to release certain nonviolent offenders from prison early.

The current legislature, fueled by Landry’s support, undid much of those reforms last month — in some cases making the system harsher than it was before 2017. He’s already signed most of them into law and is expected to soon sign the rest. Once signed, they’ll start taking effect over the next six months.

I've already said this but those 2017 reforms were the result of decades of hard work and struggle while people waiting on relief from the cruel punishment state suffered.  All that's been wiped out in an instant. It will take generations of more suffering to fix that. 

Much more damage to come this spring.

The backlash is swift and devastating

The 2017 criminal justice reforms were the culmination of decades worth of struggle and effort. They were an imperfect but long overdue compromise born out of years of experience as Louisiana learned the hard way that excessive cruelty and mass incarceration does not make our communities "safe" from violent crime.  And, for a brief moment, even those mild and imperfect compromise measures were beginning to show some small benefit. Here is a recent Washington Post summary of all that.

Embarrassed by his state’s incarceration rate and racial disparities, Edwards set out to reimagine the state’s prison system after he was elected in 2016.

Edwards worked with GOP legislators and national nonprofit groups to figure out how to make Louisiana a national model in criminal justice reform. At the time, the state was sending nonviolent offenders to prison at 1.5 to 3 times the rate of other Southern states, according to state data. Louisiana’s inmate population was so high the American Civil Liberties Union called the state the “prison capital of the world.”

In 2017, with bipartisan support, Edwards signed into law 10 bills collectively known as the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI). The legislation recalculated prison terms for nonviolent offenders, gave judges more discretion to offer probation, and made it easier for some prisoners to receive parole, including juveniles sentenced to life in prison.

The Pew Charitable Trusts, which helped develop the legislation, estimated the new laws would slash the state’s prison population by 10 percent over the next decade. The measures were also expected to save the state $262 million, money that would be diverted to community-based groups that work to lower crime and recidivism.

Separately, Edwards signed a law in 2017 that stated juvenile offenders under the age of 18 couldn’t be tried in the adult criminal justice system, although prosecutors could still make exceptions for minors suspected of carrying out heinous violent crimes.

Six years later, state data indicates the reforms have achieved the goal of reducing the number of nonviolent offenders in the state’s prison system.

A December report by the Louisiana Department of Corrections found the state’s prison population has fallen from about 35,000 inmates in 2016 to about 29,000 by the end of 2023 — a reduction driven by a 50 percent decline in prisoners being held on nonviolent offenses. Recidivism due to new criminal offenses or parole or probation violations also dropped sharply. All that has added up to $153 million in taxpayer savings, the report noted.

Yes, well, goodbye to all that. We're boomeranging back the other direction now, and then some.

Louisiana death row prisoners could soon be executed with nitrogen gas and the electric chair under legislation given final approval by state lawmakers Thursday — part of a push by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to toughen penalties for criminals and limit their opportunities for second chances.

The legislation, House Bill 6, headlined a whirlwind 10-day special session convened by Landry in a bid to fight crime. Lawmakers sent 19 other pieces of legislation to Landry’s desk Wednesday and Thursday, marking a victory in the governor’s effort to lurch the state’s policies to the political right by dismantling bipartisan justice system changes enacted in 2017.

Lifetimes of arduous organizing effort erased in an instant. No more parole for any adult (which we will define as 17 yrs and up now.) Extreme limits on conviction appeals. And, on top of that, now also, death by torture. All of this will take another generation or longer of suffering before a new mild, hard-won compromise might hope to undo any of it. 

"Major entertainment district"

This is kind of a story about the mayor's objections to a recently passed concealed carry law.  But the part that draws our interest is where we learn that Alonzo Knox might have a solution. 

City leaders said they hope that after  Gov. Landry signs the bill, legislators will at least agree to exempt the entertainment district of New Orleans. 

Councilwoman Helena Moreno said she believes a proposed house bill might offer some pushback against permit-less concealed carry. According to Moreno, State Rep. Alonzo Knox, whose district includes The French Quarter, plans to author a bill to limit the crime session law's application to his district. 

"It's a carveout of what we are calling a major entertainment district, these are the areas which have the largest crowds," Moreno said. "What the legislation does, is it puts it under a firearm-free zone, so in public places there would not be firearms allowed."

Moreno said she has spoken to Republican legislators privately, who said they would support the bill. 

Something tells me an "entertainment district" bill by Alonzo Knox is likely to be more about heightening surveillance, cracking down on street vendors and removing homeless people from sight during the Superbowl next year and that the guns bit is just a coincidental add on.  Anyway, watch this space, I guess.

Actually, instead of being lazy, I looked up the bill. On its face, it just defines a new term, "major entertainment district" in order to create a zone where firearms are prohibited.

A major entertainment district" means the public spaces within an area that traditionally hosts more than fifteen million people annually, contains a venue for sports and entertainment with a capacity for more than seventy-five thousand people, a convention center with more than one million square feet of exhibition space, and has one land-based casino. 

This shall include the area of the city of New Orleans containing the boundaries of the French Quarter as provided in R.S. 25:799(B), the Downtown Development District as provided in R.S. 33:2740.3(A), and the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center as provided in R.S 33:130.862(A).

Conveniently, of course, this creates a new stop-and-frisk zone for Jeff Landry's "Troop NOLA."  There are other issues as well with designating a larger part of downtown under a term that implies its primary function is to entertain tourists.

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.

When a fraud policing tech gets taken down, does it make a sound?

Chicago is finally ditching ShotSpotter. (Although, you might notice here that Johnson is dragging his feet a bit.)

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced Tuesday that he won’t renew the city’s controversial contract with ShotSpotter, making good on a key campaign promise to do away with the gunshot detection system that has come under heavy fire for allegedly being overly costly and ineffective.

After the Sun-Times reported on the decision earlier in the day, Johnson’s office issued a statement saying the city “will decommission the use of ShotSpotter technology on September 22,” meaning cops will have access to the system throughout the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention.

"During the interim period, law enforcement and other community safety stakeholders will assess tools and programs that effectively increase both safety and trust, and issue recommendations to that effect,” the mayor’s office said.

The move comes after several years of mounting evidence that the technology is ineffective and, in fact, actively harmful. 

He insisted the technology is “unreliable and overly susceptible to human error,” adding that it “played a pivotal role” in the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021.

Many of those concerns were reiterated by critics of ShotSpotter, who frame it as a costly surveillance tool that has led to overpolicing in minority communities. Proponents argue it’s a lifesaving resource that gives cops another much-needed tool to respond to gun violence.

Last week, the Sun-Times reported the Cook County state’s attorney’s office had conducted a review of ShotSpotter that found the technology had a minimal effect on prosecuting gun violence cases.

ShotSpotter was previously slammed in a May 2021 report by the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern School of Law, which found that nearly 86% of police deployments to alerts of gunfire prompted no formal reports of any crime.

In another scathing report that August, the city’s Office of the Inspector General concluded the technology rarely leads to investigatory stops or evidence of gun crimes.

Ever behind-the-curve, though are New Orleans public figures who reflexively promote the fraudulent technology as a "solution" whenever crime and policing is missing. (Here's JP Morrell doing that not even a scant two years ago, for example.) The more cynical among us would posit that this has something to do with the presence of local political and business personages on the company's board.  But it doesn't have to be that.  This city is backwards enough on its own.

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.

I believe this was a hearing about establishing law and order

I hear there were a  lot of fun public comments but I still was hoping I wouldn't have to watch the recording of this one. Unfortunately, now I may have to.  

A New Orleans City Council committee on Wednesday voted to move the nomination of Mayor LaToya Cantrell's nominee for police chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, to a full council vote, although the 4-1 vote was not technically an endorsement.

Kirkpatrick, a West Coast transplant and veteran police chief, seemed to garner support from committee members in a first-of-its-kind confirmation hearing. Council President JP Morrell's motion for "no recommendation" was something of a compromise after hours of virulent opposition from public speakers and a shouting match between Morrell and Council member Oliver Thomas.

Thomas said he had been leaning against voting to confirm but was open to changing his mind. He took offense when, in his view, council members seemed to presuppose a vote in favor of Kirkpatrick. Morrell and Thomas traded accusations of being out of order, and Thomas suggested they settle the argument outside before tensions cooled.

Imagine challenging someone to a duel right in front of the police chief. 

Anyway, it looks like the hearing and the public comment covered a lot of ground. The article doesn't catalog everything that might have been brought up. It does mention a little bit about Kirkpatrick's experience in Oakland although it isn't clear if that was addressed. 

In Oakland, Kirkpatrick took heat for what critics have called a lack of progress on that city’s court-enforced police reforms, and for her handling of discipline for officers involved in the killing of a homeless man, among other controversies. She was fired by a newly formed police commission. A licensed attorney, Kirkpatrick later won a $1.5 million settlement for wrongful termination after a jury ruled in her favor.

There's a little more to that story. I wrote a little about it a few weeks ago.  It seems to me like the candidate's actual record ought to have at least as much scrutiny as her promises to learn about "local culture" and so forth. But, honestly, this all seems like a formality at this point.