Bad Coroner: Port of Call New Orleans

There is a lot to say about this week's gripping series by Frontline, The Times-Picayune, and Pro-Publica, and I wish I had a few hours to go on at length. Unfortunately, I'll have to dart in and out.

If you haven't been keeping up, please get yourself started now.

I don't know exactly what's coming up in this series but I would like to briefly to discuss the race for coroner.

Though it had been assumed for a long time that the longtime incumbent coroner, Dr. Frank Minyard would retire at the end of his term, he has decided to run for reelection. At first, it appeared as though he would be unchallenged but an opponent did surface before the end of qualifying.


Dr. Dwight McKenna has entered the race.

Dr. McKenna was also once an employee of the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office, so he is not an inexperienced candidate. He and his wife, another doctor who was recently involved in a tragic and horrible car accident, are behind the McKenna Museum of African American Art and the New Orleans Tribune.

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Minyard came under fire after Katrina for the slow pace at which his office was able to identify victims and for apparently refusing aid that would have bolstered his staff.

Minyard has been on my own radar since I began researching material for this unflattering profile of Police Superintendent Warren Riley. Minyard came up when I was reading about the death of Adolph Archie, who was beaten to death while in custody after he was arrested for the murder of a police officer. You can check out this scanned clipping of the AP story reporting Minyard's new story, this account in Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force pg. 33, or this one from a 1995 New York Times column by Bob Hebert.

He also was a major impediment to A.C. Thompson's exposure of violent racist vigilantism in Algiers Point after the levee failure. From an interview with Thompson:

The lawsuit brought by me and the Nation Institute's Investigative Fund also gobbled up many months. We sued Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard for the right to copy every single autopsy report tied to Hurricane Katrina. All we really wanted were the autopsies documenting shooting victims, but Minyard refused to give us those, saying he couldn't sort them out from all the other autopsies. So we wound up demanding everything, as we were allowed under Louisiana law. We won. And the coroner now owes the Investigative Fund some $10,000 in attorney fees, which he hasn't paid.

Dr. Minyard is 80 years old now. At some point or another, someone else is going to be leading the Coroner's office. I have a hard time thinking of another city that elects its coroners. Are their any? What are the advantages of having the coroner subject to the political process?

Update: Does Dr. Frank Minyard still live in New Orleans anymore?

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.

Jumping in

I've been thinking through some things the last few days related to this discussion and the pursuit of justice for victims of unrepentant vigilantism during Hurricane Katrina.

After I suggested that some instances of abuse of power might be more easily prosecutable than others and wondered aloud whether or not some sort of truth commission deal might be appropriate for some of the cases, an anonymous commenter points out:

So the family of Emmett Everett, the black man killed by Doctors at Memorial hospital, only deserves an apology while the white cop who torched a black man deserves prison? The family of the black woman who died at the convention center because homeland security blocked ambulances deserves an apology while the police at Danzinger deserve jail?

This is moral relativism at its worse. If you killed someone under the color of law or in an official capacity as a medical care provider, you should pay the price.

We developed the Nurenberg acccords and International Court precisely to prevent people from using "special circumstances" as an excuse for murderous behavior.
Every human has an individual conscience and the history of human progress our of the ranks of primitive primates has been to get them to use it when mob mentality takes hold.

All true.

But earlier in the thread, the same (I think) Anonymous commenter points out:

Trust me, if these ever go to jury no white juror is going to hold the white defendants accountable. In their minds, blacks went wild and they share a collective guilt for the actions of a few, so the innocent ones deserve no sympathy.

So I guess I'm still not sure exactly what it is you do here.

If we have a moral standard for what justice should be in this case - i.e. appropriate criminal penalties for those that committed crimes during Katrina - but no practical means of enforcing the standard, how do you move forward?

Anon is right both about the plank you walk off when discussing moral relativism and about the low likelihood that a local jury would ever convict a DHS bureaucrat that blocked ambulances from the Convention Center or the Doctors at Memorial.

That's why I'm having a hard time resolving this.

Let's take the Memorial case.

I would applaud a criminal case being brought against Anna Pou. I think it is pretty damn clear that she killed Mr. Everett when he could have very easily made it through the evacuation.

But I highly doubt she'd be convicted. The trial would be highly polarizing, perhaps more so than the other cases, since I think people are naturally inclined to be sympathetic toward a medical professional and because of Ms. Pou's public exoneration tour.

So what kind of justice would be handed down from that kind of circus?

I'm curious to engage in a frank discussion about this. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of my readers are in agreement that these cases should be pursued. But I wonder to what extent impediments to justice exist and whether those impediments limit the ability of our traditional system to actually deliver. Are there practicalities to consider?

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Moving sideways...

I'm at least comforted by the knowledge the Eric Holder is the Attorney General of the United States. The administration is serious about empowering the Civil Rights Division to do what it is supposed to do. It's not a coincidence that the feds are now actively investigating some of these post Katrina horror stories to see what they might be able to successfully prosecute.

I am hoping Holder will utilize the powers established under the Clinton administration for the Civil Rights Division to take over police departments characterized by rampant civil rights violations. Forces with a "pattern or practice" of civil rights abuse can be effectively taken over using consent decrees. Cities are threatened with civil rights lawsuits unless they agree to a federal police monitor to implement sweeping reforms. Holder came to oversee the Civil Rights Division as Deputy Attorney General just as it began pursuing consent decrees against police departments in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.

New Orleans was once a candidate for a consent decree from the Department of Justice. This outside pressure played a role in Marc Morial's decision to hire Richard Pennington, who presided over a pretty damn successful reform of the NOPD. Some background here.

This is something that people should pressure our Mayoral candidates about. Would they sign a consent decree to bring in federal oversight of the NOPD or not and why?

Not a pretty picture

When the NYTimes holds up a mirror.

Great article but not fun to read.

OIG office in crisis

I apologize for my infrequent posts lately, this one may have been more timely if I had written it a week ago. Oh well.

Anyway, things are not going very well at the fledgling Office of Inspector General.

It is both depressing and embarrassing that the office seems to have devolved before ever really becoming an intelligent life form in the first place.

To quickly recap, the original inspector general, Robert Cerasoli resigned for health reasons last winter, leaving the office on an interim basis to his number two guy, Len Odom. Over the summer, Interim IG Len Odom circumvented process to select an Independent Police Monitor, Neely Moody, just before the Ethics Review Board was to make a final decision on Odom's position as temporary head honcho. This undermined the credibility of the new police monitor with those that had fought for the creation of the position. After the new IG was selected, Odom was pushed out entirely by Ethics Review Board Chairmen Rev. Kevin Wildes before being promptly reinstated on a temporary basis by new IG Edouard Quatrevaux, who himself then immediately took a leave of absence. Odom resigned within a week. Immediately following that, the police monitor, Neely Moody resigned.

In between, Moody and Odom collaborated on a report bashing Robert Cerasoli's handling of the office and released it to the press. Quatrevaux claimed Moody told him he would "take the office down with him" during a heated argument preceding his resignation and the release of the report on Cerasoli.

Do you got all that?

It is a gigantic mess. And it's shameful. For all of those that fought for the creation of the Office of Inspector General, this sideshow basically proves the naysayers correct. It has become what they said it would become - an ineffective joke of an office that drains city resources while providing little of value in terms of exposing municipal inefficiencies and advising lawmakers and the public on how to improve governance.

Perhaps more upsetting, it has become yet another ridiculous racial lightning rod, another battleground in a never-ending and sometimes fictional turf war between dying political factions of various complexions.

Central to this is a never-ending disagreement over who is responsible for corruption and injustice in New Orleans This debate is almost always counterproductive because it is simultaneously oversimplified and overcomplicated by partisans for one side or another.

African Americans are not being unreasonable when they complain about the media and a lot of the white establishment's never-ending crusade against perceived corruption within African American political and business classes. It is unambiguously hypocritical for whites to moralize about perceived African American corruption while turning a blind eye to or openly advocating for the continuation of the structural and historic racism that has created an entire economy of white privilege and an almanac of horrible outcomes for black children born into it. Besides, it is not as if there isn't plenty of entrenched corruption amongst white political and industrial elites - superfluous boards, tax assessment treats, and the like.

However, that certainly doesn't mean that corruption in what are generally perceived as African American hustles in the municipal game should just be ignored or brushed under the rug. Not everyone who wants the law of the land enforced against crooks of color is party to white tribalism.

The whole concept of the Office of Inspector General became part of this never-ending tug of war from the moment the City Charter was changed to authorize it many years ago. That's why it took damn near a decade between the authorization of the office and it's actual creation.

Who's corruption would the OIG prioritize?

Black or white?

It's a circular firing squad and nobody feels safe enough to be the first to put down their gun.

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Robert Cerasoli once had the credibility and goodwill to create an effective culture and reliable systems within the Office of Inspector General. He had the chance to staff the office with responsible, dedicated, and selfless auditors and investigators.

He was the general manager and head coach of the team. He not only did the hiring and firing, but he was also in charge of how his employees operated on the field.

When he and his health failed, the team lost.

I don't know what it was that caused the rift between he and Len Odom. I don't know if it resulted from how Odom went about hiring the police monitor, but it seemed to have happened sooner.

Perhaps the rift appeared immediately.

When Cerasoli turned down access to a city car upon arrival and began to audit how the city distributes cars, maybe Odom disagreed with that prioritization. The IG's office did indeed hook up some cars after Cerasoli left.

I don't know how it happened exactly.

It certainly does seem like Mr. Odom hijacked the power of the office. He totally blew the Independent Police Monitor process, hiring someone with whom he was personally close and undermining an effort by police brutality and corruption watchdogs that had been in the works for a decade. He used his office to pursue what largely appears to be a personal vendetta against Mr. Cerasoli. He decided to sandbag the OIG on his way out of the door by releasing that report to the public and otherwise conducting himself like a child.

The report on Cerasoli could have been useful if it had actually been an audit of OIG systems to date, one that had recommendations on how to improve office operations. But it isn't. Instead, it's a largely personal hatchet job. That doesn't mean that some of the observations made don't expose mistakes for which Cerasoli is responsible - there are some bad bits in there - but you only have to read the 15 page report to realize that it's personal. So many of the issues examined are a direct result of the city's efforts to obstruct progress at the OIG not Cerasoli's shortcomings.

Yet the Odom-Cerasoli dynamic isn't the only thing at play here.

I was also struck by the way Odom was asked to step down upon Quatrevaux's hiring. Again, Rev. Kevin Wildes told Odom to pack up his things and get out even though Odom's resignation wasn't to be effective until sometime in October. Quatrevaux reinstated Odom and then Odom voluntarily resigned at the end of the week.

I don't know what got into Reverend Kevin Wildes but the Chairman of the Ethics Review Board does not have the despotic authority to fire the Inspector General.

His anger is what caused the ridiculous and embarrassing gymnastics that lead to Odom in and out dance.

The whole sad affair has created the political room for Mayor Ray Nagin to launch into one of the more insulting and hypocritical tirades of his administration.

The credibility of two of the most important reform offices of the city, the OIG and the Independent Police Monitor, is at risk. That is something that should alarm all of us.

We need working systems for accountable governance, not a total retreat from of the concept.

I fear that the latter is more likely than the former.

So how do we clean this mess up?

I have no doubt that the offices will remain, but that's not enough. We need them to have credibility so that they can actually be effective. They cannot be a lightening rod offices.

1. Reverend Kevin Wildes might need to fall on the sword. I don't know if people were insulted by his behavior but it didn't look classy from afar. He may not have "started it," but he took it public and that was inappropriate. His actions demonstrate his ease over the Ethics Review Board that makes me wonder if the length of his tenure there has lead him to treat it too much like a personal fiefdom. Other members of that Board should assert themselves.

2. Eduard Quatrevaux should be given a chance to stabilize the office with the support of our elected officials and the public. I wonder if he might need to agree to a sunset date for his administration of that office if a cloud of mistrust remains overhead.

3. The new Independent Police Monitor should be selected by a commission independent of the Inspector General and the Ethics Review Board.

4. City Council has got to band together and create an uninhibited consensus on how to proceed. They must resist all efforts by the Mayor to further undermine or de-fund the OIG or the Independent Police Monitor as the 2010 budget proceedings begin. However that needs to happen - let it happen. The Council factions, too often divided by race, need to set all their BS aside and agree to act as one. Each side must compromise to do so.

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It really really sucks that we're starting from scratch again. It's pathetic.

Given the elections and investigations underway and on the horizon, we'll have plenty of ridiculous politics over the next year that we'll be just fine if we do this one thing the right way.

Secondary Brawlout

Another NOPD officer fired for involvement in Beach Corner fight.

Interestingly enough, though Officer Keller was thought to have initiated the argument that lead to the incident, he was never among those disciplined or suspended.

More than 40 police officers were interviewed as part of the administrative investigation. Keller appeared to have only a minor role in the incident, according to the NOPD's own report. It is not alleged that he threw any punches or played any direct part in the arrest of the RTA employees.

Mr. Keller, for what it's worth, might be the only officer involved in this incident NOT represented by Frank DeSalvo.

Better Late Than Never

Justice creeping in on NOPD for Katrina brutality?

Link...

Minyard's office next?

Frank and Leon

Observe the chronology of statements from Frank DeSalvo related to the incident at the Beach Corner and ensuing cover up discussed below.

DeSalvo has been the go-to lawyer for the Police Association of New Orleans and for pretty much any officer accused of a crime.

DeSalvo represented every officer investigated in this case.


1. From February 2008, after news of the Beach Corner dispute became public:

Frank DeSalvo, an attorney for the officers involved in the fight, disputed the assertion that racism played a role in the fight. "They want to call this racism?" he said. "Well, racism works both ways. What the (NOPD) is doing is wrong. They are taking the best of the best officers off the streets because of this. It hurts the city."

I don't really understand what he means by 'racism works both ways.' Is he saying the RTA employees are racist for filing a complaint against the officers that beat them and planted evidence? Or is he calling Riley a racist for putting the accused white officers on desk duty?

2. From April of 2009, after disciplinary action was taken against two of the officers:

Frank DeSalvo, an attorney representing Lapene, said the officer did not strike anybody during the brawl. Witnesses have wrongly identified Lapene as being involved, he said.

"It is a clear case of mistaken identity," said DeSalvo, who added that the officer plans to appeal to the Civil Service Commission. "We are very, very disappointed in the decision."

In claiming mistaken identity, isn't DeSalvo essentially saying that it must have been one of his other clients?

3. On Jennifer Samuels' suspension (she was the one who apparently took a gun from another RTA worker's car):

DeSalvo said she will eventually be cleared, and that the only mistake Samuel made was drinking off-duty and getting involved in police work.

"She stopped a violent act from happening," he said.

Again, it's not clear what DeSalvo is arguing here. Is he working off the original report that lead to Lamont Williams' arrest even though charges were immediately dropped because of contradictory statements? Or is he saying something else? The mistaken identity comment seems to be based on the premise that Williams was attacked but the Samuel defense would seem to rely on the original report, on which civilian witness David McMyne admits to lying after being coached by the police.

4. Upon release of the Public Integrity Bureau report on the incident:

The NOPD said there was insufficient evidence to sustain allegations against Ganthier, Boudreau and Jason Samuel, and they were not disciplined.

DeSalvo, the police attorney, noted Thursday that this lends credence to his assertion that the internal investigation was botched.

"When you put everything together, you'll find that the (PIB) report is a lie, " he said.

DeSalvo promised the facts of the case would come out in the officers' appeal hearings.

Here, he seems to be arguing that because three of the other officers present - and probably responsible to some degree for the fight, improper arrest of Williams, and attempts to game the police report cover up their actions - were not charged, the entire internal investigation should be thrown out.

5. Upon filing suit against the PIB:

"There were some lies involved, and they all came from the Public Integrity Bureau," DeSalvo said. "None of these officers involved in this incident were found to be untruthful."

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."

Setting the menacing threat aside, it's quite a stretch to say that "none of the officers involved in this incident were found to be untruthful" given how obvious it is that Mr. Lamont Williams was arrested on weapons charges without possessing a gun, a witness admitted to being coached by police to lie, and that Williams was brutalized.

I mean if it's clear that one or more of the officers took part in some serious criminal conduct - be it assault, planting evidence, or coaching a witness to lie - how can DeSalvo credibly represent all of those involved? Invariably, at least one of them did something seriously wrong.

That's not to say his representation hasn't been effective, because as we can see, it would appear as though the NOPD officers are getting off pretty much scot-free. Even Lapene landed soft with the DA and although he resigned from that job, his firing from the NOPD is still under appeal with the civil service commission.

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I will give DeSalvo this:

That PIB report is pretty poorly written. Lots of grammar errors and clarity problems.

I can relate.

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Mr. DeSalvo is quite close to our District Attorney, Leon Cannizzaro.

A dispatch from the DA's swearing-in:

Cannizzaro, who enjoyed a 22-year career as a judge until retiring from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal last year to run for district attorney, was treated to a lengthy, thoughtful ceremony Sunday, attended by a few hundred people, including a host of elected city and state officials.

"It looks like a coronation," campaign strategist Billy Schultz joked as he opened the ceremony, which featured a full-length program of speakers including defense attorney Frank DeSalvo; Clerk of Civil District Court Dale Atkins; state Rep. Austin Badon Jr., D-New Orleans; Magistrate Commissioner Anthony Russo; and City Council President Jackie Clarkson.

In fact, DeSalvo was a formal part of Cannizzaro's transition team.

Guess what he was in charge of?

Human resources.

Thus, it wouldn't seem to be too much of a stretch to imagine that Lapene was hired partially on the recommendation of Mr. DeSalvo. Lapene and his former unit continue to count on DeSalvo as their attorney. At the time of Lapene's hiring, a criminal investigation into the incident should have been ongoing except for the fact that Cannizzaro's office had deemed the entire matter to be a matter for civil courts a few months earlier.

Without going over the top about this, I don't think we should feel too comfortable about the close personal relationship between Mr. DeSalvo and Mr. Cannizzaro given how commonplace allegations of criminality against the police have been and given that public mistrust of the criminal justice system is a main factor contributing to the deterioration of the rule of law in this city.

Certainly a fuller explanation of why the NOPD and DA handled the Beach Corner fight the way they did is warranted, particularly as it relates to the decision to hire Mr. Lapene.

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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.

Public Safety, Crime, the NOPD, and the 2010 Mayoral Circus

That's the theme for the next weekish here at WCBF.

This is an open thread as I work to prepare some stories and analysis to publish at my convenience.

Is crime a problem by itself or a symptom of other problems?

What should the next Mayor do in an ideal world and to what extent do real world political constraints limit those options?

Links Update:

1. NOPD's misleading rape stats
2. Investigations into racist vigilante killings during Katrina moving forward?
3. NOPD bar fight cover up

Links Update 2:

4. Audit finds $200,000 missing from NOPD evidence room

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?

So it goes

NOPD needlessly brutalizes another submissive suspect.

Fear of retaliation

Essential City Business story about a jerk cop and a friend of mine who knows his rights.

Wexler said his first impulse was to file a complaint with the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau, but he doubted the independence and effectiveness of the unit. If the police department can’t be trusted to treat citizens with respect, how can it be trusted to investigate allegations of abuse against its own officers, Wexler said.

Even his attorney, Sam Dalton, tried to discourage him from filing a report.

“I’ve seen what happens when people bring complaints,” Dalton said. “The police try to intimidate them from continuing their protests. It’s a very uncomfortable situation. One thing I know is that this officer won’t be punished.”

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A woman who works in the area at the time of the incident verified Wexler’s account to CityBusiness but refused to provide her name for fear of police retaliation.

Police accused in killing accused of lots of other stuff

T-P:

The record of Sgt. Daniel Scanlan, a ranking member of the nine-person unit involved in the shooting, has become a flash point in the wake of the killing. Some community leaders have questioned police tactics -- particularly the aggressive, plainclothes units like the one Scanlan helped lead -- and have called for a thorough vetting of each officer involved.

Police records show that only one of the dozens of complaints lodged against Scanlan has been sustained by New Orleans Police Department internal investigators, and that ruling was overturned on appeal by the Civil Service Commission.

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But here's the real kicker, from PANO:

Capt. Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, said the officers involved in the shooting have solid records. He drew a comparison between the Grimes case and another recent high-profile shooting, that of French Quarter resident Wendy Byrne, who was killed in a confrontation with three robbers. Quarter residents, Glasser said, want a strong police presence, with officers stopping, frisking and questioning people.

"You have thugs running around with guns robbing people, " he said. "Yet, just a few blocks away, cops are criticized for stopping a guy with . . . guns in his car and no real reason to have them."

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? "COPS ARE CRITICIZED FOR STOPPING A GUY?"

Officer Glasser, please get real. I think people's criticism derives from the strong possibility that these cops may have MURDERED a guy. Slight difference, no?

That guy was named Adolph Grimes III. He had no criminal record, was engaged to be married, and had a permit to carry a weapon. He was in town to visit family for the New Year.

Police shot him nine times in the back, half a block from his grandmother's house.

Hours earlier those same officers terrorized the Crutchfield family with guns and tasers.

Officer Glasser has every right to do his job and defend his fellow officers, but he can do so without denigrating the victim or insulting his grieving family. Show some class.

Asshole Cops Need Jail Time

Look at this bs!

The cops accused of murdering Adolph Grimes were the same cops that brutalized the Crutchfield family earlier that night.

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I hear NOPD horror story after NOPD horror story living in this city. I hate it. Enough is enough.

Meeting in my mind

NOPD broken all over this city. Looks increasingly as though officers murdered this young man after which the administration waged a PR campaign to destroy the victim's reputation.

Disgusting conduct.

In Oakland, young man named Oscar Grant was murdered by a police officer on the same day as Mr. Adolph Grimes and there were days of tense and sometimes destructive protests.

In other local state brutality news, litigation against the city for Gitmo-like conditions at a juvenile detention facility has expanded into a much larger class-action suit.

You can leave children in solitary confinement for weeks at at time.

That's torture.

But this kind of stuff is all in a day's news in this city with this city's criminally broken justice system.

One Lesser New Orleans

All of this in one small city in one bad week.

Cayne Miceli

Adolph Grimes III

Ja'Shawn Powell

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.