NEW ORELANS (WGNO)— An empty chamber belied what was to be an eventful meeting of the New Orleans City Council. Council President Helena Moreno was the sole member present, but by zoom, the meeting to get a handle on violent crime in the city was underway.
NOPD Chief Shaun Ferguson, began his presentation on the state of the police department and how the council can support the men and women in blue, “We can be as engaged as we want to be if the arrests are being made and there’s no accountability behind that arrest, we still need that support on that end.”
Ferguson was then pressed about a plan to address the violent crime increase from Moreno.
Moreno questioned, “I think what we’re waiting to hear, and the public’s waiting to hear, what is your plan? What is your plan to deal with this uptick of violence?”
Moreno wasn’t finished there. She pressed the chief on why the ‘Tiger Response Unit’, which pursued violent criminals was disbanded in October of 2020.
“Once, it was disbanded. we saw this spike in armed robbery, and we also saw this spike in carjacking as well, and it’s a big, like boom spike,” said Moreno.
To that end, the chief didn’t dispute the numbers but stated he moved the department in a different direction in the wake of the national movement following the killing of George Floyd.
Ferguson, offered this explanation, “At that time I thought it was the appropriate thing to do, we had to think of policing differently. I felt that there was a different direction we wanted to go go, from a more investigatory side.”
Ferguson also pointed out that the VCATE partnership of federal and local law enforcement pursues many of those same crimes, but Councilman-at-Large JP Morrell pressed to have the disbanded unit reinstated.
“I would really, really appreciate if you would reconsider putting Tiger back on the table because Tiger worked,” said Morrell.