SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2010 POLITICS THE NATION &
“It’s stunning. It reads like a bad novel. It’s just horrible.” — Ronal W. Serpas, the New Orleans police chief, commenting on the Danziger Bridge case
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PHOTOS BY JULIE DERMANSKY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST New Orleans police patrol the French Quarter at night, where the arrests usually involve people who have had too much to drink.
In New Orleans, a higher authority Justice Dept. accepts city’s invitation to guide police department overhaul
by Sandhya Somashekhar in new orleans
these accusations before. Stories of the police targeting and “executing” their sons, of tiny bags of crack planted by the police in a baby’s diaper, of a mentally ill man cooking break- fast when he was fired on by a SWAT team’s worth of guns. The difference this time was that they thought someone was listening. Seated in the front pew was Roy Austin, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, invited to the city by a desperate mayor and to the meeting by an even more desperate com- munity. His presence is part of an unprec- edented effort to remake the scandal-plagued New Orleans Police Department, whose al- ready bad reputation was left as battered as the city it was charged to protect after Hurri- cane Katrina. In the five years since the storm, the depart-
T
ment’s standing has worsened. Eager for a turnaround, the newly elected mayor did something nearly unthinkable for someone in his position: He called in the feds. “I have inherited a police force that has been described by many as one of the worst police departments in the country,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. earlier this year. “The police force, the community, our citizens are desperate for positive change.” Since the federal agency’s arrival here, 13 police officers have been indicted in connec- tion with the killing of civilians, and more are likely to follow. But rooting out corrupt offi- cers is only part of the goal, because “doing that alone will not be enough to bring about the systemic reforms that are necessary to transform the department,” said Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. “The president and the attorney general are personally invested in the success of the New Orleans Police Department,” Perez added. “I’ve seldom seen a situation where we’re be- ing invited in . . . and that in and of itself gives me optimism that we can succeed.”
Top-to-bottom overhaul At least a dozen Justice experts have been
dispatched to New Orleans to assist with a top-to-bottom overhaul aimed at strength- ening the department’s ability to police itself, Perez said. They have applauded some of the changes instituted by the new chief, who was installed by Landrieu and has hired a civilian to head the internal affairs office and adopted a no-tolerance policy toward officers caught lying. Officials hope the efforts will improve the
relationship between police and the commu- nity, especially members of the city’s black majority, which was strained before Katrina
he people fanning themselves in the crimson pews of the Evening Star Mis- sionary Baptist Church had leveled
are opposed to that as long as it’s done hon- estly and fairly. And the truth is, they will be infinitely better off if we can get good, solid, fair, consistent leadership” in the department, he said.
Officer David DeSalvo talks with Sabrinia Robertson at her father’s home, which was damaged during Hurricane Katrina and then targeted by thieves.
on
washingtonpost.com
To see a photo gallery of the New Orleans Police Department at work as it undergoes federal overhaul, go to
washingtonpost.com/nation.
but took on crisis proportions afterward. Some killers have probably been wrongly ac- quitted because juries don’t trust the police, Perez said. At the same time, the city’s homi- cide rate has risen to the highest in the nation. Not surprisingly, the most high-profile in-
dictments so far have involved officers ac- cused of heinous crimes during the tumultu- ous and lawless days that immediately fol- lowed the storm. In June, five officers were charged in con-
nection with the death of Henry Glover, whose burned body was found in a car near a police station shortly after the storm. Another six were indicted a few weeks later in the kill- ing of two unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge.
Also disturbing have been the alleged coverups. Federal prosecutors say Glover was shot by a police officer and his body was burned to hide the crime. In the Danziger case, two supervisors are believed to have fab- ricated witnesses and planted a gun to protect the four shooters, and an additional five offi- cers have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the case.
On Thursday, authorities announced that another two officers had been charged in the beating death of a man in the Treme neigh- borhood before Katrina. More charges could follow. Frank DeSalvo, a lawyer for officers in the Glover and Danziger cases, said that his cli- ents are innocent and that the police depart- ment is not corrupt. Still, he said, the rank and file welcome the Justice inquiry. “I don’t think New Orleans police officers
NATION IN BRIEF MICHIGAN
Energy company was warned before oil spill, agency says A federal agency said Saturday that it had
repeatedly warned the Canadian company at the center of an oil spill in southern Michigan about problems with a pipeline network that includes the segment that ruptured. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials
Safety Administration said it raised concerns during a February meeting with executives of Enbridge Inc. The company owns the pipeline that leaked tens of thousands of gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. The federal agency’s chief counsel, Bizu-
nesh Scott, said it pushed Enbridge to im- prove its performance with the Lakehead pipeline system, which includes the section with the rupture. Enbridge spokeswoman Gina Jordan said the company meets routinely with regulators and tries to exceed safety requirements. — Associated Press
ARIZONA
Murderers on loose after prison escape, kidnapping Police were using helicopters and dogs Sat-
urday to search for three convicted murderers who escaped from a northwest Arizona pris-
on, kidnapped two tractor-trailer drivers at gunpoint and used the big rig to flee. The men escaped Friday by cutting a hole through a perimeter fence at the Arizona State Prison in Golden Valley, about 90 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Police said the group kidnapped two drivers of a tractor-trailer in Kingman and forced them at gunpoint to drive two hours east to Flagstaff. — Associated Press
Wildfire persists north of L.A.: A wildfire smoldered in the desert north of Los Angeles on Saturday, spewing plumes of smoke into a nearby town. The two-day-old blaze has charred nearly 22 square miles of brush. — Associated Press
Still, the indictments have dealt a blow to the morale of beat officers who patrol some of the nation’s most dangerous streets. Several interviewed said they were eager to move past Katrina, which, rather than exalting the hero- ic efforts of many officers during a time of ex- traordinary need, has elevated the profile of the city’s worst elements. The department’s reputation has been so sullied that it has been the subject of critical articles across the coun- try and television shows such as HBO’s “Treme.” “All those officers and leaders who were go- ing up to Baptist hospital flooded up to their necks, no one’s ever going to remember that anymore because of what [some] officers, who’ve admitted what they’ve done, did at the Danziger Bridge,” said Ronal W. Serpas, the department’s new chief, speaking from a con- ference room at police headquarters. “It’s stunning. It reads like a bad novel. It’s just horrible.” To residents, many of them black, who have long complained of systemic abuse by police, the actions thus far by the Justice Depart- ment have brought a measure of relief and vindication. Katrina, they say, simply shone the national spotlight on their everyday real- ity.
In one notable case in the 1990s, 10 officers were indicted in connection with a cocaine operation, and one of them was sentenced to death for ordering a hit on a woman who had filed a brutality complaint.
Community hearings Frustrated with what they viewed as the
city’s inaction on police brutality, community activists organized hearings this year, includ- ing the one at the Evening Star church. They videotaped the sometimes emotional testi- mony, in which parents described opening body bags that contained their dead children and pointed at necks and foreheads to de- scribe entrance and exit wounds. “They say the old are supposed to die first,”
Patricia Anderson said into a microphone next to the piano. “How come these days it’s the kids that die first? And the cops are going to jail more than the kids?” Toward the back sat Norris Henderson, an
advocate who knew most of the stories by heart. He knows that some sound outlandish, but over time, he said, some of the worst have proved to be true. Many were detailed in a se- ries written by ProPublica, an investigative journalism nonprofit group, and the New Or- leans Times-Picayune. “To make a claim like that, people’s like, ‘Come on, get real,’ ” he said. “Now, because of the revelations, they think, ‘Holy smokes.’ They have to second-guess themselves. Be- cause now, the proof is in the pudding.”
somashekhars@washpost.com
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