It's what you do when you've tried everything else

WVUE:

New Orleans - In 1996, the Department of Justice launched an 8-year investigation into the New Orleans Police Department.

The feds never assigned an official monitor to New Orleans. But now, there are some experts who say today's problems within NOPD are much worse than the issues in the late nineties and early 2000's.

Last time the Department of Justice was considering stepping into local police affairs in New Orleans, two NOPD officers, Len Davis and Antoinette Frank, were convicted for their roles in two unrelated murder cases.

Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission says today's crisis within NOPD is worse and the feds know it.

"To me it's not a question of whether the feds will step in and monitor. It's a question of to what extent will it be?"

Right now the jabber about Federal oversight of NOPD mostly addresses the question of whether or not this constitutes some sort of sudden radical step. Which is why I'd like to remind everybody that, since the flood, we've already turned these responsibilities over to the National Guard, the Louisiana State Police, Blackwater (now known as Xe or some such unpronounceable symbol... which is hardly surprising for an organization founded by a man named Prince but I'm digressing) Let's see who else? Oh yes, there were the Guardian Angels, some scary dudes running around Algiers with shotguns, and, of course, who can forget, the Ghostbusters.

After all that is there any argument that Department of Justice oversight would be the absolute last ditch gambit at reforming law enforcement in this town anyone could possibly conceive of?