NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans Police Department continues to evaluate operations and make necessary changes in a continued effort to improve transparency in all functions of the department.
In coordination with the NOPD’s Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau, the Federal Consent Decree Monitoring Team initiated a multi-phase audit late last year of the department’s district-based task forces. Findings from the Monitoring Team suggest inadequate supervision of these task forces. The findings were also recently exacerbated in a published media report concerning similar issues in the Eighth District.
“The findings by the Monitoring Team are extremely troubling to me, and they should be so to the entire New Orleans community,” NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said.
Effective immediately, all task force operations have been placed on hold and officers assigned to these units have been reassigned back to their respective patrol units.
Over the next few weeks, a team led by NOPD Deputy Chief John Thomas will launch a thorough internal investigation into this matter. The team will work together with the NOPD’s Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau, the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau and the Federal Consent Decree Monitoring Team. Chief Thomas’ team will go beyond the Monitoring Team’s district-based task force audit and will operate with the full authority and direction of Superintendent Ferguson.
“I take this issue very seriously and will not rest until I and our community have understood the full scope of the problem and full scope of the solution,” Ferguson said. “Our Department has come too far since the onset of the Consent Decree to do anything less.”
The full corrective action plan will be included in the Monitoring Team’s forthcoming Task Force Special Report.