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New Orleans Police Department Essay

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Introduction The New Orleans Police Department is an organization that struggled long before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August of 2005. Many residents feared the department and some would say that “the department was infected by a culture of discrimination, abuse, and lawlessness” (Ramsey, 2015). Beginning in the 1980’s, police brutality became a major issue in the city, which still continues now, almost 12 years later. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it seemed that the situation was only worse. Residents of New Orleans were experiencing even higher levels of police brutality and with not much control over the city, there appeared to be no form of relief coming any time soon. However, in May of 2010, the Department of Justice …show more content…

Pam Metzger, a criminal law professor said “New Orleans was a city where the general population had a fair degree of skepticism coupled with outright fear of the police department. It was quite justified. That made this a place where one’s view of the police depended largely on one’s race and socioeconomic background” (Ramsey, 2015). Many accounts of the violence were targeted towards the black community and became nationally known. Another issue that surfaced with the police department was the criminal behavior that surfaced including unjustified shootings, involvement in the drug epidemic, and various other criminal activities. A civil rights lawyer, Mary Howell, included her input by saying, “We had police officers involved in kidnappings, rape, murders, drugs, bank robberies. There was a guy who used to do, like, bank robberies on his lunch hour. It was just astonishing- at one point we had four police officers facing first-degree murder charges” (Kahn, 2010). Following the spur of bad behavior from the officers, a new mayor and police chief were instated into the system, hoping to bring reform to the city. After holding office for some time, numerous officers were fired, the murder rate dropped, and relations improved. However, the efforts did not last long and by 2005, the police department was back to its corrupt ways (Kahn,

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It states for over six years there has been officers: continually using “unreasonable force against people who presented no threat to officers or to others, routinely detained, arrested, and used force against people exercising their First Amendment rights, routinely blamed victims of sexual assault for their assault, particularly those in the sex trade, and failed to properly investigate over half of rape charges brought to them” and the like (p.2). Spence expresses that “these practices, which the report notes have been disproportionately used against black men, women, and children, are so deeply ingrained in the police department that some occurred during ride-alongs” (p. 2). Going to the extreme of officers being told by higher powers to ‘make something up’ if a patrol officer has no valid reason to stop a black citizen located in these impoverished areas and gloating about this on social

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The felt injustice is statistically supported, as police reforms across the United States, including Atlanta (“APD policy and practice updates”, 2020), have expanded since 2020 to increase de-escalation training, increase knowledge of implicit bias, and include crisis intervention training, while simultaneously the number of individuals killed by police hit a record-high in 2023 (Campaign Zero, 2024). A clear illustration of this has occurred during the protests and demonstrations against Cop City, as over 40 individuals have been charged with domestic terrorism without bond, 61 individuals have been charged with racketeering (a charge created for mafia members and used against organized crime)(Bruce & Shamsi, 2023), and one individual was shot 13 times and murdered at the hands of police officers while sitting with their legs crossed and hands raised in the air (Remembering Tortuguita,

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Throughout history, the failure of the government to protect black people from ruthless enforcement officers, forced blacks to act in their own interests. During the 1930s, the National Negro Congress organized massive rallies against police brutality, the Black Panther was created to stem the tide of police abuse, and in the 1970s the Congress of African Peoples sponsored the “Stop Killer Cops” Campaigns (Fitzgerald, 2007). The list goes on and on of groups and campaigns that African Americans formed to protect themselves from white supremacy and most importantly police brutality. Although some observers claim that racial profiling doesn’t exist, there are an abundance of stories and statistics that document the

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