Warren Riley! Stacy Head! In 3-D! On Ice!

Update: WDSU just caught up with Superindendent Riley and he appears to be meekly backing off. It makes his comments on the radio last week all the more slanderous.

Off-camera, Riley told WDSU that he doesn't believe the e-mail is a big deal, that he's never seen the message and he doesn't have proof that Head actually sent it.

Update II: Seriously, I cannot believe how pathetic this walk back is by Riley. Unbelievable. He should apologize to WBOK's listeners and to Councilwoman Head.

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Warren Riley leveled some pretty serious and racially charged allegations in an interview with WBOK last week. I really wish WBOK archived its broadcasts. Thankfully, the T-P's Brendan McCarthy was tuned in.

The allegations about Head's e-mail came up when a radio station caller, who went by the name Malcolm, mentioned the alleged message.

The caller said: "I hear some of our council members are sending e-mails out -- one in particular, Ms. Head, sent an e-mail saying she hopes you fail and let's not approve your budget. But anyway, she's the failure in all of this anyway.

Riley responded: "You forgot the N-word that was in that e-mail, from what I understand."

"Well, yeah, you heard about it," the caller responded. "She said 'Let's make this Negro, not Negro, but she used that other one."

The caller then lambasted the media for ignoring the message. "The news (media) did not, nobody else put that out, nobody else interviewed, nobody made a big story about that. And if it was somebody of color that sat on the City Council who had that kind of behavior, would have been asked to step down."

Those who know Stacy Head personally have been quick to insist that this allegation is baseless and that such behavior would be unimaginable. But considering Stacy Head's history of off-color and, in a general sense, prejudiced language, Riley's allegation must at least be considered plausible.

Saying something that reflects ignorance, prejudice, or bias is different from saying something indisputably racist with malicious intent. Riley's accusations, if true, would be far more condemning of Head's character than her casually offensive observations in the Walmart checkout aisle.

If Head indeed used that epithet toward anyone, she would have to resign. She should not and cannot represent a population for which she has such an expressed, visceral hatred. The public pressure would be intense and well-deserved.

Luckily, we don't have to live in a world of 'what ifs.' Warren Riley claims Councilwoman Head used that particular slur in an e-mail. He should immediately produce the email. Regardless, news organizations should submit a public-records request to Head to obtain it.

Head's colleagues should hold immediate hearings to demand Riley produce the email, to censure Head if he can come through, or to call for Riley's ouster if he cannot.

If this email does not exist, Riley would be guilty of an extraordinarily insidious, divisive and manipulative slander. He knew that the forum he chose to air this allegation, WBOK, would not challenge him. He knew he was speaking to an audience predisposed - because of Head's past intransigence and WBOK's listener base - to believe a plausible, even if baseless, allegation of racism about the councilwoman.

And maybe he thought Head would prefer to ignore the story and minimize its media echo amid a tough reelection fight instead of throwing down the gauntlet to make him prove his charge.

Stacy Head should not and cannot simply ignore this story. Merely asserting that the allegations are totally baseless and false, as she did to the Times-Picayune, is not enough. Because of her salty language in the past, there is a special burden on her to substantively prove her innocence to the extent that she is able. When the e-mail controversy first began, Head took it upon herself to release a large set of emails to the public by publishing them for download on her website. Those emails have since been taken down. She owes it to herself and her supporters to more substantively address her views on race, language, and the allegations being leveled by Warren Riley, perhaps first by reopening her email outbox to additional public scrutiny.

As someone who has interacted with Stacy Head and parsed all of her emails released to date, I personally, have an extraordinarily hard time believing Riley's accusations.

This is different than a blind caller on talk radio throwing out an accusation. This is the Police Superintendent, one of the most important and powerful people in the city.

For someone of that stature to level this kind of accusation without prepared evidence is irresponsible, dangerous, and wrong.

It's not just manipulative.

Mr. Riley seems... a bit... delusional, and here's what I mean:

Riley said the recent release of a poll - showing that only 33 percent of citizens are satisfied with the NOPD - was timed to dissuade him from entering politics. The poll was unveiled by business leaders shortly before the political qualifying period. Riley also alleged The Times-Picayune chose that week to release several negative stories about him.

"There's a revolution going on, and we are missing it," he said.

Riley also criticized the slate of mayoral candidates and promoted his tenure as police chief.

"You know, I listen to the mayoral candidates," he said. "I run a bigger organization, and have had bigger budgets than any of these individuals. And I'm not knocking any of them. I'm just saying, I have had the ultimate challenge. The only person ... there are two people who have bigger challenges than I. And that's Mayor Nagin and President Obama."

Riley appears to be saying that he was all set to enter the mayor's race until that poll, which showed faith in the police force at an all-time low, was released.

Riley apparently put out feelers for a mayor's race over the summer before explicitly announcing in August that he would not seek that office, saying that he had "absolutely no interest."

So Riley is essentially saying that just weeks before the qualifying deadline, with no money raised, and with no campaign team assembled, he was considering swooping into the mayor's race. That is, until, a poll was strategically released to demonstrate his department's almost cartoonishly low approval ratings. Riley is intoning that he had a really great shot at raising money and gaining popular traction had it not been for that poll.

Think about how crazy that is.

Objectively speaking, Riley has presided over one of the most dysfunctional police forces in the country, to say nothing of his own conduct during his career on the force. The feds are looming over the NOPD for its unjustifiable pattern of police brutality, missing evidence, and who knows what else. Hasn't Riley been one of the most unpopular figures in local politics for over two years? Would people argue that the poll released in early December said something they didn't already really know?

If Riley had assembled his record of sloppy, ineffective catch-and-release, fire-when-ready police work during a Presidential administration that put any effort into exercising the powers of the Clinton administration's COPS bill, the NOPD might currently be in the control of a federal receiver right now because systemically discriminatory pattern and practice.

He's not just delusional and silly. He's not just calculating and manipulative.

He's desperate.

Riley's plans, given that this conspiracy of unpopularity dissuaded him from seeking the Mayor's office?

"I'm looking at a public venture ... with a couple people here in the city that I think would be profound and lucrative," he said. "I also am looking at another position that I will absolutely not talk about. Regardless, I am going to do well no matter what. As I stated, my future is bright. If I don't work another day in my life I'll be OK. I'm not just a police chief."

Blast from the past

Murderous corrupt cop Len Davis is seeking to avoid the death penalty.

I am against the death penalty and I hope this man is instead forced to rot in prison for the rest of his life. I wrote about Len Davis and Warren Riley's role protecting him from a domestic violence investigation last spring. Riley is a cop's cop, they say.

Dude!

Rumor has it that this week there will be an announcement that simple marijuana possession cases will no longer be pursued in criminal court.

Update: It would have to be a decision from the DA. Chief Riley would still have the discretion to make arrests unless he volunteered to alter police policy to award summons. Nonetheless, moving these frivolous possession cases into the municipal courts is a great first step if in fact this pans out.

The bar fight and the blurry blue line

Cliff wrote last week that the the NOPD has an image problem, linking to a few of the latest embarrassments.

I'd argue that the NOPD has a reality problem.

One example Cliff discussed was the fight at the Beach Corner bar.

Now, stories like this could trigger a few uncomfortable discussions about race and the police department. It could cause an officer or two to get fired or indicted. If everything in these stories is true then I think that's a good thing. At the least all of the officers involved in that bar fight should be terminated. If they can get away with lying and planting guns on innocent people then I don’t have any confidence in their capabilities to catch the guilty. If you want to eliminate the race card and conspiracy theories out of local government then you have to correct the things that make it so believable.

Cliff touches on it but let's really flesh out what's gone on here.

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1. In February, 2008, there was a fight at the Beach Corner Lounge. Lamont Williams of the RTA was arrested on weapons charges. Opposing accounts of the evening emerged a few weeks later after Williams and his coworkers retained the services of an attorney and filed a complaint.

The initial police report, compiled by the responding officers, describes the incident in detail -- and includes two starkly conflicting versions.

In one version -- told by [Hans] Ganthier, [Jason] Samuel and a 29-year-old Kenner resident -- the men disarmed Williams, taking a gun from him.

Both Ganthier and Samuel said a gun had been taken from Williams. The Kenner resident, Donald McMyne, agreed. McMyne could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

According to the report, the three men gave the following account:

McMyne said he was sitting at the bar and heard there was a disturbance in the men's restroom. As Lamont Williams left the restroom and walked toward the front door, McMyne was sitting on a barstool and said he told Williams to "just relax and calm down." While walking toward the front door, Williams "lifted the front of his shirt exposing a dark-colored handgun," McMyne told police.

Williams left the lounge and McMyne followed him out. Next, McMyne said, he tackled Williams from behind, and they struggled. The two off-duty officers joined in and assisted in removing the handgun from Williams, McMyne said.

Williams and his RTA coworkers told a different story.

Hagan, who is black, said he left three co-workers to use the restroom. While waiting in line, a white man walked in and skipped the line. Hagan told the line-skipper that he was next in line, and the man responded: "Oh, you getting (expletive) cocky with me?"

Hagan advised the man to "just go ahead" and left the restroom and told his co-workers they should leave. While walking out, Hagan said someone whistled and "a large group of unknown white males" approached him and his co-workers. The co-workers split up.

The men followed Hagan, Damon Tobias, 27, Williams and Kisa Holmes, 31, outside the bar and on Canal Street. After getting into his car, Hagan said, he told the group of men following him, and a woman who had joined them, that he had a gun and "if I have to use it to defend myself I will."

At that point, the unidentified woman swore at him, reached into the glove compartment of his truck and removed the handgun. Hagan said the woman then put him into "some type of arm hold" and detained him. The woman eventually released him and he went to the aid of his colleague who was being attacked.

Tobias told police he was attacked by a group of men who followed him from the lounge. A third colleague, Holmes, corroborated her colleagues' version and said she saw the group attack them from afar. She had fled from the scene. The group said they believed their alleged attackers were off-duty officers, the report said.

The NOPD opened an investigation upon the citizen complaint. Warren Riley told WWLTV there would be accountability.

"There will be no cover-up. There will be hiding no information. If these officers were wrong, they will suffer the consequences of their actions."

Three officers were reassigned from the special operations unit pending the outcome of the investigation including Sergeant Hans Ganthier, and Officers Jason Samuel and Joey* Lapene.

*For some reason earlier media accounts refer to "Joey" Lapene whereas later ones refer to him as "David" Lapene. He's just one person. I will call him David.

2. In February of 2009, Mr. Lamont sues the NOPD, the city, and the three officers.

The lawsuit alleges that several off-duty police officers used excessive force and falsely arrested Lamont Williams, 36, in an apparent dispute between Regional Transit Authority employees and off-duty police officers last year.

A criminal inquiry was opened, but a spokeswoman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said Friday that the district attorney believes the incident is a civil matter. She declined to comment further.

The NOPD recently finished its own administrative investigation and is holding disciplinary hearings for the officers, NOPD spokesman Bob Young said. Once those hearings are completed, the police superintendent will have the final say on whether penalties will be handed down to the officers.

3. In late April of 2009, Officer David Lapene is fired from the NOPD for his role in the fight.

Officer David Lapene was dismissed after a hearing and a "thorough review of the evidence," according to a department news release. He was found to have broken four regulations of the department.

Lapene violated regulations governing moral conduct, adherence to the law, truthfulness and professional conduct, the NOPD news release said.

Another officer, Jennifer Payne, was suspended without pay for 80 days as a result of the same investigation, NOPD spokesman Bob Young said Thursday night.

Payne was the woman accused of seizing Mr. Hagan's handgun in the initial report.

*Note: Jennifer Payne is sometimes referred to as Jennifer Samuel. She is married to officer Jason Samuel, who was also investigated as part of the bar incident.

4. Between May and June of 2009, David Lapene is hired by DA Leon Cannizzaro before subsequently resigning.

Cannizzaro has defended Lapene's hiring to WDSU. He said Lapene's case was reviewed by the two previous interim district attorneys, and both times there were no charges filed. After looking at the file, Cannizzaro said agrees with that decision.

Prior to Lapene's resignation, it was reported that the District Attorney's daughter, Laura Cannizzaro was present at the bar during the incident in 2008.

5. In July, 2009 the investigation by Public Integrity Bureau into the incident at the Beach Corner leaks to the public.

An internal report from the New Orleans Police Department Thursday night suggested that several officers lied about what happened at the Beach Corner Bar and Grill in February 2008.

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Another part of the internal report states that a civilian man named Donald McMyne was also part of the investigation. He told investigators that he never saw the fight, but later an officer told him what happened. McMyne stated that that officer asked him to lie.

Also, Officer Jennifer Samuel changed her story several times, according to the report. The report states that Samuel removed Kennis Hagan's personal gun from his parked car, and the remaining officers conspired to falsely arrest Williams for possession of Hagan's firearm. They then convinced the civilian to participate in the conspiracy. The civilian has since admitted to the conspiracy, which was documented in an official NOPD arrest report.Investigators also noted that Officer David Lapene admitted that he exited the bar right behind Damon Tobias. He admitted to walking behind Tobias when he claimed an unknown person swung over his shoulder and punched Tobias in the face. He repeatedly denied punching Tobias, even though Kisa Holmes identified him at the scene as the person who punched Tobias.

6. Just last week, PANO sued the Public Integrity Bureau and the Officer who filed the investigation for how the case was handled - though it's not clear to me on what grounds other than... well, revenge.

The attorney for the accused officers said the police department's investigation is flawed and that Sgt. Darryl Watson, who conducted the investigation, may have broken the law.

"He filed a false police report," the attorney said. "They have been disseminating it. There have been repercussions to police officers because of it and now it's time for him to eat his words and we are going to feed it to him."

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The PID report is available at NOLA.com.

I downloaded and read the report.

The details are quite striking, particularly when the civilian witness, Donald McMyne, admits he was coached by officers to fabricate his entire story about recognizing the alleged bathroom dispute, seeing a gun on Mr Lamont, and tackling him from behind. Apparently none of that actually happened.

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There are so many burning questions here...

For the NOPD, remember Riley's words:

"There will be no cover-up. There will be hiding no information. If these officers were wrong, they will suffer the consequences of their actions."

1. Since it is clear that this incident involved several officers from the Special Operations Division and a transparent attempt to cover up what actually transpired, why has only one officer, David Lapene, been fired?

2. Did the firing of Lapene and suspension of Samuels represent attempts to find fall guys for an incident that fingers Riley's elite unit? Is there a pattern of special treatment for SWAT and Special Ops units emerging?

3. Given how shockingly casual these elite NOPD officers were about planting evidence, coaching false witnesses, and providing false accounts to their own investigators, what is to prevent the public from simply assuming that this stuff occurs rather regularly?

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For the DA, refer to the statement from Mr. Cannizzaro's office:

A criminal inquiry was opened, but a spokeswoman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said Friday that the district attorney believes the incident is a civil matter. She declined to comment further.

4. Was Mr. Cannizzaro aware of the PID report when he hired Mr. Lapene?

5. If not, is the DA reconsidering the prospect of criminal prosecution?

6. Did you discuss the incident at the bar with your daughter and aspirant assistant DA, Laura Cannizzaro?

7. Why did Ms. Cannizzaro refuse to answer questions when she was approached by Public Integrity Division investigators the night of the incident?

8. What was her role in the hiring of Lapene?

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More later.

Buried on ABC26

I'm really glad Cliff is back to discussing municipal issues again. On Sunday, he questioned the rationale behind the DA's hiring of fired NOPD officer David Lapene.

[W]hy would he hire someone that was fired from the police department for a fight that appears to be racially motivated? When I read the story I was trying to imagine what he had to do to get fired from the police department. It’s not like the NOPD has a history of zero tolerance for bad behavior so he had to really do or say something crazy to be terminated. There was five officers involved in the fight and he is the only one that got terminated. Is Leon Cannizzarro playing good ole boy politics at the expense of potentially losing trials down the line? The reason I say that is because I am sure not many people will know who David Lapene is when he is out looking for evidence or interviewing witnesses. My worry is what’s going to happen when that defense attorney tells the jury that will certainly have some black people on it, the person responsible for the evidence was once fired from the police force for fighting and shouting racial slurs at a bunch of black transit authority workers. All it takes is one person with enough distrust of the system to hang a jury.

That's the substance of the matter and Cliff does a great job explaining precisely why this was a really stupid hire by the new DA. Today David at the Gambit reported that Mr. Lapene has resigned. In a letter to DA Cannizzaro, Lapene wrote he was stepping down because "continuing my employment with you could interfere with your good work in attempting to make a positive difference in this community.”

I'd like to point everyone's attention to this report from ABC26's Meg Gatto, the substance of which has not seemed to permeate the rest of the media for reasons I don't understand.




This was not just a thoughtless hire. It smacks of nepotism. Cannizzaro got put through the paces on WBOK on Monday morning and he deserved it.

That said, this morning Clay lists a bunch of links related to the feud between Cannizzaro and Police Superintendent Warren Riley and really Riley's generally shameful stewardship of the NOPD. I really wish WBOK's morning team would give Mr. Riley the same tough questions they did Mr. Cannizzaro instead of worshipping him like he's god's gift to crime fighting like they have the last few times I've listened in.

Another thing to note is that ABC 26 continues to be the only embeddable local news station. Considering they're not at the top of the ratings heap, this strikes me as an important competitive advantage they've given themselves to help increase the impact of their reports. Their hounding of Mr. Cannizzaro over his daughter's connections to Mr. Lapene is, IMO, what precipitated Mr. Lapene's resignation.

Checkered Past Comes Full Circle

Maybe you saw this in the paper on Friday:

The City of New Orleans must release to The Times-Picayune police department records of 10 officers, including Superintendent Warren Riley, related to any misconduct investigations or complaints, a judge ruled this morning.

"They're entitled to these records," Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso said after a hearing in her courtroom. "Public records are public records are public records, and the citizens of this city have a right to know what's in them."

Yes, the public needs to know that it can trust the public integrity bureau. Given the NOPD's horrendous relationship with the public at present and by historic reputation, one would think that if the NOPD had nothing to hide, they'd be anxious to open up to the media about how they do business.

But as the article continues, we learn that it's not just the media that's been spurned by NOPD record keepers:

NOPD advocate groups tried to block another person's request for 16 decades' worth of police complaint records, suing the city and arguing in court Friday that the officers are entitled to a "right to privacy" that goes back to the framing of the U.S. Constitution. Their attorneys suggested at the hearing that they would appeal Giarrusso's ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal.

The newspaper intervened in an effort to allow the city to answer McCarthy's request.

Other parties, including the Orleans Parish Public Defenders, were also asking for the NOPD Public Integrity Bureau records. One woman had asked the city for every Public Integrity Bureau file dating to 1992.

So it doesn't seem to be Riley's reactionary stance to the "Times Pick-on-you," it's actually long standing NOPD policy. What might it be specifically about the public integrity bureau?

Again, the T-P's Gwen Filosa provides some historical context:

In 1954, the New Orleans police department created an "internal affairs" division, Mince said, but in 1995 then-Police Superintendent Richard Pennington abolished it.

"He said, 'We're going to have a public integrity bureau," she said. "He recognized the need to restore public trust in the New Orleans Police Department."

Riley in 2002 was part of a task force charged by Mayor Marc Morial to review law enforcement's performance, Mince added. The task force members agreed that "an educated and informed citizenry" was key to following the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

But there is A LOT more to it than what was included in yesterday's paper.

You have to remember what precipitated Pennington's move, or really what even brought Pennington into town in the first place. A few months ago, I happened to be digging into a little bit of NOPD history and became very much fixated on what was going on in the early '90's. Certainly these are not good times at the NOPD but what was going on before Pennington joined the force was mind-boggling. We're talking about some Wild West bullsh!t going on - from the rank and file all the way up to the top of the force.

Using Lexis-Nexis, I came across a 60 Minutes transcript from the fall of 1994 that gets at some of what was going on at the time. At that time, Joseph Orticke was police superintendent and the Department of Justice had just named the NOPD worst in the nation for police brutality. Without excerpting large segments of that transcript, Mike Wallace profiled several visionary crime fighters who deserve some description:

• Former NOPD officer Michael Thames was imprisoned for skimming from illegal gambling, drug, and prostitution rackets to the tune of $100,000 per year. When asked about the Rodney King beating in L.A., Thames responded that he didn't know what the big deal was because that was "kiddie-land" compared to New Orleans.
• Dr. Frank Minyard, New Orleans coroner (to this day - more on him some other time) defended his office against charges that it fudged an autopsy of Adolph Archie who wounded after killing a cop only to be intercepted by a mob of police officers on the steps of Charity Hospital, taken to a police station, and beaten to death while in custody.
• Antoine Saacks was a 28 year veteran of the force and the NOPD's second-in-command under Orticke before getting fired a week before 60 Minutes got to town. On a salary of $50,000 per year, Saacks boasted millions of dollars in assets related to number of schemes including a vice-squad extortion racket in the French Quarter, exacting 'fees' for permitting officers to moonlight as private security in the film industry, and by setting up an operation to capitalize on video poker by connecting Vegas firms to a mafia-connected Bourbon St. landlord named Frank Caracci.

In 1994, the Clinton Administration granted the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice new powers to take over troubled local police forces with poor track records on civil liberties, brutality, and racism. Only a handful of police forces were ever taken over but a certain degree of the law's effectiveness is derived from police policy adjustments made under threat of takeover. Given some of the issues illuminated above, certainly the NOPD was an early candidate for receivership takeover. Mayor Morial's decision to search outside the city for a new police chief in '94 resulted partially from this downward pressure out of Washington D.C. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, the man he picked, Richard Pennington, was plucked from D.C.'s force.

After police pay was frozen for some time in 1982, starting salaries for NOPD officers was still so low when Pennington came in that they had to be doubled. Internal affairs was liquidated and the officers were dispersed. Pennington then created the public integrity bureau, moved it outside of precinct HQ and added FBI agents to its staff.

Chief Pennington's adjustments weren't a cure all by any stretch, as issues with brutality and corruption continued to plague the force to the point that the Department of Justice opened up an official investigation into New Orleans in 1996 to monitor the reform efforts.

The general consensus of the city seems to be that the Pennington era of the NOPD was a success. Significant progressive reforms were instituted that made a pretty noticeable dent in the city's crime stats and in public perception of safety.

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It is crucial to understand the context behind the decision to scrap internal affairs for the public integrity bureau.

Though those changes may have come regardless, the most direct catalyst was the murder of Kim Groves, which occurred just six hours after Pennington was sworn in.

Groves was murdered as a result of an execution order from NOPD Officer Len Davis, who was tipped off from within internal affairs after Groves filed a report that she had witnessed Davis senselessly beating a teen aged suspect.

At the time Davis ordered Groves' death, he was also one target in a wide-ranging federal drug investigation. Officer Davis was apparently one of at least 15-20 officers helping to guard cocaine warehouses run by undercover federal agents. Groves' killing ultimately short-circuited the drug case, as only ten officers ended up being charged. (At least according to the July 13, 1996 Washington Post article that helped me guide the narrative of this case.)

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So let's get back to Superintendent Warren Riley's defensive protection of records related to internal affairs and the Public Integrity Bureau. What was Warren Riley doing back in the early '90s?

Well, he was at Internal Affairs, assigned there in 1991 after several years between the maligned Narcotics and Vice squads.

In late 1997, Riley was suspended for three days without pay after an investigation of an incident that occurred in the months after the Groves killing and two weeks before he had been reassigned out of the new public integrity division that Pennington was creating.

Riley was on duty on February 17th, 1995, when Sharon Robinson came forward to report that she feared for her life because she'd just ended things with her then-boyfriend, NOPD Officer Victor Gant who had a long history of physically abusing her and had repeatedly threatened to kill her in the event that she left him.

Officer Riley did not file a report or open an investigation.

Months later, on April 27th, 1995, after Riley had been transferred to the 6th District, Officer Gant approached Riley to discuss Robinson's coming forward to Riley, for which she had apparently confessed. Gant told Riley that the couple's issues had been resolved.

Sharon Robinson's body was found drowned in a swamp days later.

Here's a 1995 article from UK Independent that profiled Officer Victor Gant after he was named a suspect:

The target of the hunt is a serial killer who, investigators believe, has struck at least 24 times. The FBI think that Gant may be the killer but they don't have enough evidence for an arrest. So Gant sits at his desk, suspended from patrol duty. If you have his telephone number, you can call him and hear his Louisiana drawl: "I can't really discuss the case, you'll have to talk with my lawyer."

Gant became a suspect after Karen Ivester was found strangled. Her body was dumped in the swamp about half a mile from Interstate 55, just 30 minutes from the French Quarter of New Orleans. As local police combed the scene they found a second corpse, another young woman. Sharon Robinson had been drowned. She was still dressed in her work clothes, a uniform from the Harrah's Casino in New Orleans. Before death, her head had been shaved. In life, Robinson and Ivester had been best friends.

Police inquiries at the casino revealed that Robinson had left work on 29 April this year at 3am accompanied by Gant, a 33-year-old officer who was once her boyfriend. The New Orleans Police Department immediately named Gant as a suspect. Then the FBI announced that the man who killed Robinson and Ivester had also claimed 22 other victims.

Twenty-one of the killer's victims had ties to prostitution, Ivester included. Nineteen were known prostitutes, including one man. There were two other male victims and there is evidence to suggest they were also prostitutes. According to NOPD sources, each body carried some distinctive marks that matched through all 24 deaths.

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Gant used to patrol in Treme and Algiers. Several residents say a group of New Orleans police officers has operated a string of prostitutes in the area for years. Some say they've seen brutal beatings and threats of murder and a few have claimed Gant was an associate of one suspect group which allegedly ruled through intimidation.

On a recent Friday night the bars along Treme's Claibourne Avenue were busy and outside each one there was a small clutch of women working the street. Many are scared, some are aggressive and few were willing to speak. When they do, they insist on anonymity.

"The police and the politicians don't really care about us," said one. "It took over a dozen deaths before those motherfuckers lifted a finger to find the killer. I knew two of the three girls who died but I wouldn't tell the police about it. I'd be the next one dead if I did." The woman then went further. "I saw the girl called Peach just a couple of days before she was murdered. The thing is, some of the cops were running the girls around here, they were pimping. Some people say Peach got out of line."

"Peach" was the name used by Karen Ivester. According to FBI investigators, Gant had told some acquaintances that he disliked Karen Ivester because she had persuaded her friend not to join her in prostitution. Local papers report that the Treme prostitutes have been victims of an intimidation campaign by a group of rogue police officers.

Upon the discovery of Robinson's body, Officer Riley wrote a letter to Major Loicano at the Public Integrity Bureau, telling him of Robinson's visit the previous February.

It was Major Loicano who ultimately reported Riley's violation, as we can see from the Major's testimony at Riley's appeal of the suspension to the Civil Service Commission in 1998:

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Now to bring it all back, lets get back to Filosa's article:

At issue was a request by newspaper reporter Brendan McCarthy to view any Public Integrity Bureau records kept by the New Orleans Police Department on Riley, along with his top three officers and the officers involved in the Jan. 1 fatal shooting of 22-year-old Adolph Grimes.

Certainly, we can understand how it is in the interests of Superintendent Riley and PANO (Police Association of New Orleans) to deny public records requests related to Internal Affairs and the Public Integrity Bureau. And we can also understand how it's in Superintendent Riley's interests to deny the public the right to inspect his own complaint records.

But I think it will be very interesting to examine common threads possibly bind all ten officers in McCarthy's request together. How many of Riley's top Lieutenants came from the old internal affairs outfit of the early '90s? What about from narcotics and vice of the '80s?

The most disturbing thing to think about is how the NOPD in total seems to have gone full circle back to the old pre-Pennington days. How many brutality cases have we heard about since Katrina? How many arrests of uniformed officers? And how much never sees the light of day?

A trail of busted doors

Note from Eli: Everyone be nice to the letter "a."


So last night I attended a candidate forum at the Uptown Jewish Community Center. Eastern New Orleans state representative Austin Badon Jr. was the featured candidate. The talk motivated me to contribute my first-ever post to this here blog, a longtime favorite of mine. I cross-posted this at http://www.theneworleansinstitute.com, the New Orleans Institute website where Karen Gadbois and I are regular contributors. FYI: My background is in traditional print reporting so forgive the non-blog-style blog post; I like stories with ledes and quotes sometimes too. Here goes:


We are officially living in a war zone.
Eastern New Orleans mayoral hopeful Rep. Austin Badon raised eyebrows last night with a call for a new Stazi-style approach to crime fighting, telling a roomful of District B voters that if he is elected mayor they will see “the NOPD kicking in at least four doors a day.”
The line appeared to stun many in the audience of uptown neighborhood leaders who had come to hear Badon, many of them for the first time. Upon reading furrowed brows, Badon quickly added that he would not lose track of “civil liberties and all that” and pointed out in a style reminiscent of police chief Warren Riley that most of the violence in the city was between “thugs and drug dealers killing each other off.”
The similarity to Riley was ironic as Badon emphasized throughout the talk the need to take him and other members of the current administration out to pasture.
“We are going to bring the best and brightest people,” he said. “Right now I am working to set up meetings in Miami to look at the best people, the best police chief to bring here.”
Badon appeared to have given more thought to crime than other issues, such as planning. While he did not know that the city’s master plan has not yet been written, he was prepared enough to note that the police chief he picks will be, unlike Riley, on the same page as the district attorney and the business community.
“The next police chief will be someone who has the support of the business community and the DA,” he said.
Badon, who considers himself a fiscal conservative, also noted that the City Council and the mayor “need help.”
“They are somewhere between Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless and I am not happy with what I see,” he said in response to a question about the behavior of the city council.
The married and childless Badon had no love either for Director of Public Works Robert Mendoza. He named public works as the department most in need of restructuring, as well as more funding. “I have been with the manager (of public works) and heard things I don’t agree with. They should not be treating you taxpayers the way they are.”
The nebulous statement was followed up with an explanation of why he hadn’t read any of the reports put out by the city or the Bureau of Governmental Research that describe possible restructuring. The reason?
“When there is a study, they don’t send it to us,” he said.
But if the 2010 mayoral race ends up turning on issues of personal style, New Orleanians better get used to sending their studies Badon’s way.
The little-known state representative showed up last night to the informal forum dressed to the nines with a sharply-tailored zoot suit jacket ( hello inverted back pleat!) and a four-pointed hankie in his breast pocket. The unstoppable outfit set the right tone for a campaign presentation long on big, sometimes extreme statements, and short on nuance.

Bad Politics By French Quarter Chotchky Elite

Unless you've been living under a soundproof rock, you know that this city's been gripped by a particularly nasty wave of violent crime since the New Year and citizens across New Orleans are fed up.

Of course people are fed up with the actions of violent criminals but what makes the reaction to this crime wave different is the overwhelming frustration with the NOPD itself.

This frustration is felt in black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, uptown neighborhoods, and downtown neighborhoods. People do not trust the police. People do not respect the police. Too many officers have been arrested for crimes themselves. There are too many documented and anecdotal stories of indifference and laziness, brutality and violence on the part of the NOPD. Too many caught criminals have been released because NOPD officers don't file police reports properly or on time. Statistically speaking, if you murder somebody tomorrow in Orleans Parish, there's only a 20-30% chance you'll ever fact legitimate punitive jail time. And so on and so forth...

Again:

[E]xperts have already identified many of the major issues facing the NOPD. The NOPD itself ordered an audit by BGI in 2007. But after BGI identified several systemic failures and prescribed a blueprint toward the superior community policing model, the NOPD suppressed the report for months. To this day, Warren Riley has failed to substantively institute the suggested reforms.

Wendy Byrne's murder in the French Quarter was certainly a flash point. But so were the murders of little Ja'Shawn Powell and Adolph Grimes. It's the compounded frustration of so many instances of violence touching so many of our lives that I think compelled so many people to participate in some of the organic anti-crime activities of the last week.

But piggybacking on some of those efforts was today's so-called "Meeting of the Minds." They called a big press conference in the Royal Omni Hotel to call attention to a petition they circulated that calls for a number of both totally reasonable and extraordinary measures to address crime in the French Quarter and Marigny Triangle. Here is the list of signatories:

• Chuck Ransdell, chair, Meeting of the Minds
• Eric Reitman, president, French Quarter Business Association
• CoCo Paddison, president, French Quarter Citizens
• Jude Marullo, president, Bourbon Street Merchants Association
• Chris Costello, president, Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association
• Lori Herbert, vice-chair, North Rampart Main Street
• Samara Poché, president, Lower Quarter Crime Watch
• Ken Ferdinand, executive director, French Market Corporation
• Darryl Berger, senior chair, French Quarter-Marigny Historic Area Management District
• Mike Moffit, president, Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents & Associates
• Christine Sory, president, French Quarter Business Women’s Network
• Beth Lovett, representative, Upper Quarter Neighborhood Watch
• Stephen Swain, president, Patio Planters
• Jason Patterson, chair, Frenchmen Street Coalition

Anybody missing from that petition?

Yes. The entire rest of the city.

By discussing the crime problem as something specific to the French Quarter and the Marigny, these organizations are demonstrating a callousness to the much more frequent violence occurring in every other neighborhood.

It allowed Superintendent Riley to couch his response in these terms (video available):

"We understand the value of the Quarter to the city, but we also understand the value of every community."
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"This is one New Orleans,” he said. “We are not gonna pull other resources from other parts of the city, to put into the Quarter, when we feel we have a sufficient force there at this point."

That argument is going to win every time.

---

In a similar vein, the Mayor has challenged the same business community by backing off a prior compromise agreement with City Council to fund full sanitation services. Council is livid because the Mayor seemingly sprung this upon them without any kind of warning. They're threatening legal action to compel the Mayor to continue FQ sanitation services. After it seemed like a compromise was already in place, why would the Mayor all of sudden threaten to pull the rug out from under the French Quarter by cutting sanitation right before the busiest season of the year?

It's a proxy war, I tells ya.

It's another opportunity to force French Quarter business owners to demand extra services, money, and attention denied to the rest of the city's residents.

It forces the FQ business community to engage in two geographically-specific battles against the administration at once.

Good divide-and-conquer strategy by the Nagin administration.

Predictably bad strategy of exclusion by various French Quarter business associations.

Mostly Crimey with Crime Expected Later

That was the weekend forecast and it was unfortunately accurate.

It is ubiquitous. It is in every neighborhood in this city, it affects every group of people in this city.

On Friday night, I was sitting on the stoop of a friend's house in the LGD and heard that morning's double shooting on the 700 block of Ninth.

On Saturday, I went to Wendy Byrne's memorial second line parade.

Today, Sunday, I learned that my old landlady was nearly beaten to death by her own son.

The Times-Picayune was chock full of long pieces detailing the many ways crime hurts our communities.

From Laura Maggi, Brian Thevenot, and Brendan McCarthy, on getting away with it:

District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said the daylight killings speak to a pervasive lack of respect for the justice system.

"They are not concerned about the consequences," he said. "They are not concerned about who might be watching."

That attitude stems from a grim reality: Most killers here do get away with it.

So far, the New Orleans Police Department has made arrests in 59 of the murder cases in 2008, or 33 percent of the total. Prosecutors have accepted 32 of those cases, refused 11 for insufficient evidence and are considering whether to pursue the remainder. None of the cases has yet been tried.

Even if convictions are secured in every case accepted so far -- highly unlikely -- that would mean the city would punish just one in five killers. Police could secure more evidence and make more arrests at any time, but homicide cases generally do not age well, becoming tougher to solve with every day that goes by.

From Keith Spera, on front doorstep gunfire:

Until now, my wife and I have chosen to remain in the neighborhood and accept whatever risk that entails. But what of our responsibility to our child?

Does it make sense to raise her in a neighborhood, or a city, where killing is routine?

From Brian Thevenot, an artist asks the most important question:

"To me, I'm making American art; to a lot of folks, I'm making black art," he said. "It's the same with the murder problem -- people see it as a black issue. ... How can we get people to see that we live in one world?"

I leave that question for last because I think it helps give us a framework for evaluating WWL's Sunday panel on crime, featuring Samara Poche of the Lower Quarter Crime Watch, Mike Moffit of the Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents & Associates, and Thom Khaler of NO Crimeline.

They got some things right and some things so very very wrong.

Perhaps the most glaring issue wasn't the fault of the panel at all, it was the panel itself. Limiting a discussion about crime in New Orleans to the French Quarter perpetuates the same kind of provincialism that has always stopped us from getting at the big picture. That the French Quarter has experienced a rash of high profile violent crimes recently shouldn't be put to the side, but it is a constant source of frustration throughout the city that panels aren't organized on WWL when young men are slain in the 7th ward. That crime seems to get be on the radar only when tourist-oriented businesses are threatened is insulting. And to hear the crime issue couched in these terms during the panel was bothersome.

The panelists were on the money about some really important things. The issues with the NOPD start at the top with Police Superintendent Warren Riley. So long as he continues to poorly manage his force, there will be no change. The panelists seemed to understand that the issue is not money or manpower. New Orleans has more cops per capita than most cities in the US and it's almost impossible for us to devote a greater percentage of our city budget to police equipment than we already do. They also pointed out that the typical Warren Riley PR move in during a crime wave, sending out officers on more vehicle patrols, will not do. Foot patrols force officers to interact with residents, to learn names and faces, and helps foster trust while increasing the sense of safety.

But by and large, things got sticky when the panelists were asked to prescribe medicine. Panelists seemed to think that one of the problems was that the NOPD was not making the quality of life arrests it needs to make, that it was not enforcing petty crimes and this was leading to big crimes. One panelist seemed to think that the NOPD had gotten away from the strategy of racially profiling potential criminals, following young men who wear hoodies and then frisking them if they spit or jaywalk or the moment they have a millimeter of probable cause.

This is most definitely the wrong approach. In fact, the major problem with the NOPD right now is that they're using up all of their resources making catch-and-release arrests for drug possession and traffic-related bench warrants. If anything, the NOPD is arresting too many people. New Orleans and Jefferson Parish arrest more people than anywhere else in the country. We prosecute more nonviolent crimes than anywhere else in the country. This wastes resources and is the biggest reason why we don't focus money on punishing violent crime or on preventing crime in the first place. And certainly encouraging more racial profiling, aside from being an offensive suggestion, is only going to exacerbate some of the other fundamental issues hurting the NOPD: public mistrust and police violence.

In fact, experts have already identified many of the major issues facing the NOPD. The NOPD itself ordered an audit by BGI in 2007. But after BGI identified several systemic failures and prescribed a blueprint toward the superior community policing model, the NOPD suppressed the report for months. To this day, Warren Riley has failed to substantively institute the suggested reforms.

At the end of the segment, Thom Kahler suggests that business leaders may be working behind the scenes to remove Riley, like they did for former DA Eddie Jordan. I'm not comfortable with this if we're not ready to be honest, a. that we can't have a shadow government of business associates determining when and if our ineffective leaders stand down and how much to pay them to do so, and b. that removing the police chief will not reduce our crime rate unless we're also able to get real about the actual problems our police department has.

NOPD Hiding Fund

I missed this from earlier in the week.

Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman helps administer a state fund, the Louisiana Crime Victims Reparations Board, which helps families pay for funeral and hospital expenses. But the fund hasn't been making very many payouts, which is surprising considering that New Orleans has the highest murder rate in the industrialized world.

Gusman's office submitted 203 applications to the state board last year and 150 in 2007, resulting in a total of $330,000 delivered to victims of crime in Orleans Parish. The parish's convicts have kicked in $86,000 to the fund during the same time period, Gusman said during a City Hall meeting of the council's Criminal Justice Committee.

"That (payout) figure should be so much higher and it's not," said Capt. Mechelle Delahoussaye, who orchestrates the crime victims' reparations fund for the sheriff's office. "It looks great on paper, but that's in the year and a half in Orleans Parish. We're not running out of money."

Victims' rights advocates, including David Kent of Victims and Citizens Against Crime Inc. said NOPD officers aren't routinely handing out information about the assistance program.

-

Victims don't always get an item number from responding police officers, let alone the brochure about the compensation fund, said civil rights attorney Mary Howell.

"This (informing victims) needed to be done yesterday," Howell said. "I'm sick of talking to people who don't know about it. This is not complicated. If you get into a car accident, you get an item number. But you don't get that slip of paper when your child is murdered."

NOPD Detective Latina Thomas interjected, "Every victim in any crime receives an item number. That's part of our procedure."

"It's not happening," Howell responded, adding that police are by law supposed to notify victims of the fund.

So in other words, the fund isn't being tapped because the police aren't informing the families of victims about their eligibility.

Why don't we look at how this ridiculousness hurts our community with a real life example?

Everyone remembers the tragic murder of Ja'Shawn Powell, an innocent 2-year-old child killed by his absent father around the New Year. This community remains devastated by the event but rallied in support of the victim's family, establishing a memorial fund on their behalf.

It was supported far and wide. There was a vigil, there was a second line.

The memorial fund was established to help defray funeral costs for the family, which is precisely the function of the Louisiana Crime Victims Reparations Board's budget.

The money that should have gone to help pay for little Ja'Shawn's funeral continues to languish in a bank account while the citizens had to scramble for loose change from their couch cushions to help - all because the NOPD can't get it together to hand out brochures to the families of victims.

It is NOPD policy to inform families about the fund but apparently NOPD officers aren't doing that. So is it actually NOPD policy?

Why would Warren Riley not want to take advantage of a the Sheriff's program? It's not like there's any extra paperwork on the NOPD's end. Could it be residual resentment from Gusman's electoral victory over Riley in 2004?

Wear Red, Skip Work, Make Trouble

Big day tomorrow.

Official Warren Riley Memorial List of Grievances to come sometime later today...

Update - I even wore red pajamas last night.

Another?

Big Red alerts us to another internal investigation under way, as reported on WDSU.

This incident being the second involving out of control plainclothes cops on New Years Day.

I mean, just what kind of pep talk were NOPD officers given back at the station?

Not a good way to ring in 2009, not at all.

SCLC I Can Believe In

Waaaay more like it.

Link.

Where did all of this come from?

DeBerry has been on top of things lately.

Riley went on to talk about poverty and the city's history of god-awful public schools. That's a tried-and-true formula for increased criminal activity, and most rational people understand that. But just as we don't expect dentists to turn away patients who haven't flossed, and we don't expect firefighters to ignore flames caused by those who smoke in bed, we don't expect a police chief to cite bad schools and poverty as reasons to wash his hands of the crime problem.

Connick Calls for Riley's Ouster

He wrote a letter to the editor of the T-P:

Police Superintendent Warren Riley should be fired. And the district attorney should charge him with malfeasance.

Tough times for Nagin partisans.

Riley's foibles have been well-documented on the internet.

Inexplicable incompetence + outdated ideology = ineffective and untrustworthy police department

Meanwhile, Crime Is Fought

From the T-P:

More than a dozen of Kendrick Thomas' friends stood outside his house Tuesday afternoon, steps from the spot where he was shot dead the night before.

They hugged, commiserated, and most of all, seethed with anger.

"Why, someone please tell me why, that camera isn't working?" asked Thomas' stepfather, Jimmie Ricks. "A girl got shot right over there weeks ago. Some boys got shot right there. Why is this camera not working?

"Mayor Nagin: Please handle your business, " he pleaded.

But even if crime cameras are operational, and that's been a big if, have the crime cameras helped prosecute any cases?

Crime cameras have been used by the DA's office in about 3 cases out of 12,000 arrests.

On average, since Hurricane Katrina hit the area, police have made roughly 12,000 felony arrests per year. The district attorney's office accepts anywhere between 7,000 to 8,000 of those cases on average.

In a written statement, the district attorney's office told WDSU prosecutors have "utilized" crime camera video in three cases during the last year.

Additionally, the annual cost of maintenance is somehow greater than the cost of the original cameras.

"Unless you can show third-party validation that we'll have 200-plus cameras up and working every day of the year and that they can be used by prosecutors as evidence, I think we're throwing good money after bad," Fielkow said.

Head put the budgetary problem in perspective. She noted the city spent $7,500 maintaining and upgrading each of 240 cameras in 2008 when it only cost $6,240 to purchase and install a brand new camera. At a proposed $1.6 million for 2009, the maintenance and restoration cost would still be higher than buying new cameras, at about $6,600 per unit.

Hurricane Gustav knocked out 100 of the cameras, and Head said the city's current goal is only to restore 200 cameras, which would yield an even higher per-unit maintenance cost. She said she wants to see the budget proposal cut by $1 million, leaving only enough to maintain the current array of cameras, at least until their usefulness can be established.

It would appear that the NOPD has more pressing concerns anyway.

Police Superintendent Warren Riley is embroiled in a controversy after a series of blistering reports about the state of the NOPD evidence room. Conditions have deteriorated to the point that criminal evidence has become damaged. Lax security has lead to the loss or theft of $19,000 in seized drug money. Poor documentation, substandard storage, and the overall lack of basic adherence to legal standards will ruin cases and set scores of alleged criminals free.

And it should.

How could anyone ever convict somebody based on "evidence" kept by this NOPD?

The scandal again calls into question the basic integrity of the criminal justice system, raising concerns even about cases in which prosecutors were able to secure a guilty verdict.

Also at issue is why the NOPD failed to correct the problems at the evidence room after weeks and months of repeated warnings.

Meanwhile, our new District Attorney took office this week and got to his first order of businesses promptly:

Lobbying City Council not to cut $1.3 million from his budget as the Mayor had requested.

Cannizaro now has about a week before he has to go before the New Orleans City Council to ask for more money.

Mayor Ray Nagin's budget proposal does not replace the federal funds now paying for dozens of investigators and clerical workers.

"I understand I need five votes on the council to over-ride the mayor's veto of his refusal to place the $1.3-million in budget which we need in order to keep those 34 employees.

Everything is as it should be, no?


UPDATE:

Deon Roberts finds that actually crime cameras don't work anywhere.

Not only do I not want to keep pumping maintenance money into these things. I want to take down what's up and put it up for sale. There are schoolchildren with no textbooks in this city.

Criminal Justice Reform Now

Towns in ultra-liberal Arkansas:

The local grassroots organization Sensible Fayetteville is sponsoring an initiative that would make enforcement of adult marijuana possession laws the lowest law enforcement priority. It also includes language mandating city officials to write an annual letter to their state and federal representatives notifying them of the city's position and urging them to adopt a similar one. If the measure passes, Fayetteville will become the second Arkansas community to adopt such an ordinance. Nearby Eureka Springs did so in 2007.

That we have one of the three highest jail rates for nonviolent drug offenses in the United States is reprehensible. If Fayetteville and Eureka Springs, Arkansas can move in a positive direction, so can we.

For a complete rundown of drug policy reform initiatives on various state and local ballots around the country, check this out.

NAGIN AND RILEY: STOP CATCH AND RELEASE NOW!

Don't overlook this article in today's T-P about the continued failure to end the NOPD's failed catch-and-release policy. The Metropolitan Crime Commission has found that there is some decline in the number of frivolous arrests by the NOPD but that by and large the asinine official policy remains in place:

But after comparing practices in the first half of 2008 with last year, the commission still found that police spend too much time making minor arrests, which account for 46 percent of all arrests during that time period. According to the analysis, since January 2007, police made more than 40,000 arrests for traffic and municipal offenses. Almost 29,000 of these people were released from jail within a day.

While accepting more cases, the commission found the district attorney's office continues to dismiss too many pending prosecutions, a fact the commission believes could expose a problem with the screening of incoming cases.

Within a day.

Remember: an internal audit of police policy ordered by the NOPD and then subsequently suppressed and hidden from the public indicates that so much of the NOPD's rank-and-file morale issues derive from widespread consensus AGAINST catch-and-release.

I'll Bite - It's Entrapment

This is a great article in City Business. Big props to Richard Webster. Big time props.

A pack of Kool cigarettes, a can of Budweiser and a box of Boston Baked Beans sat on the dashboard of an unlocked car with the windows rolled down at 1732 Canal St.

Somewhere nearby two New Orleans Police Department officers watched and waited for someone to reach into the bait car and snatch the items.

They wouldn’t have to wait long, as the police parked the car just one block away from a homeless encampment under the Claiborne Avenue overpass, where dozens of desperate, hungry and addicted people lived in a makeshift village of tents.

Absolutely repugnant, but there's more:

For stealing less than $6 in items, the police charged the two homeless men with simple burglary, a felony that can carry up to 12 years in prison. Neither suspect had any prior arrests in Orleans Parish.

A month later, the men remain in Orleans Parish Prison awaiting court dates and the possibility they will spend the better part of the next decade in state prison.

“I don’t know what the policing justification is for such an action,” said Pamela Metzger, associate professor of law at Tulane University Law School. “But on a fundamental human level, it smacks of a meanness, a pettiness, a spitefulness that has no place in a city as broken as this one. It’s a way of manufacturing offenses that may not have otherwise existed.”

Well said by Professor Metzger.

--

Mr. Webster goes even further to extend his article beyond sensational outrage to discuss the racially and socio-econimically loaded implications of the use of Kool Brand cigarettes and beer.

Further, Webster leaps away from sensational discussion to point out how fiscally irresponsible the policy is:

The district attorney has 60 days to accept or refuse the charges against a suspect. It costs $23.39 per day to house an inmate in Orleans Parish Prison. If it takes the district attorney 60 days to decide the fate of the eight people arrested in the sting, the cost to the taxpayer for incarcerating them in parish prison would be $11,227.20.

Should anyone be convicted, the cost of housing an inmate in state prison for one year is $14,815.

It's a sickening story but it's great journalism. Kudos to Mr. Webster and shame on the NOPD.

It is part of a three part series that examines the utility of Police Superintendent Riley's ideological comitment to catch-and-release style policework. I discussed this at length at a few different junctures earlier this year and I look forward to seeing the rest of Mr. Webster's series unfold. I'll also take the opportunity to reiterating my request for Mr. Riley's resignation so that we can ideologically realign the department to better reflect community policing practices and the desires of the great majority of NOPD officers on the beat (obviously excluding the jerks entraping the homeless).

Also I'd like to point out that the cost of housing a homeless man in prison for a year is significantly less than renting them their own apartment in high-rent New Orleans for a year. I'd like to point out that Unity's model for housing the homeless has been proven effective throughout other urban communities in the United States and is much cheaper than jail. Finally, let me also point out that our affordable housing crisis has never been addressed by the Mayor or City Council and is the biggest contributor to New Orleans' large homeless population.

OMG and Then I Did A Keg Stand and Then I Like Became a Republican

When I went to Tulane, there was not a student there that couldn't tell you some despicable story about the PIKE fraternity. Allegations of date rape were rampant, even if they did not always go reported to the authorities. They're not the only fraternity with a bad reputation either.

I once heard that one frat forced pledges raise puppies and then kill them by putting them in pillowcases and slamming them against the wall, like what the Hitler youth were forced to do in Nazi Germany. The punishment was that they were suspended from campus organizations or something.

I've also heard incredible stories about the fraternity scene's role in the drug trade. Maybe it's not obvious, but there's a lot of cocaine and prescription drug use amongst the college students here. (It's a party town.)

The PIKE house on Broadway and Freret should be demolished as an IHT. Was that one of the homes used as a staging ground for criminals that Warren Riley identified for immediate demolition the other day?

Probably not.

A lot of people I meet in town hate Tulane students. I don't blame them.

They benefit from an incredible double standard and don't even realize it.