New Orleans Police Chief to Revive Promotion List

New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said late Wednesday that she will revive a promotional list for captains and majors that she and Mayor LaToya Cantrell had recently halted. Kirkpatrick said the process would be revised to include outside evaluators.

Kirkpatrick, who has held the chief's post for a year, said she was making progress on a revised protocol for NOPD promotions that would address complaints of bias. The change comes amid a chorus of criticism from officers' groups and others after Kirkpatrick told the candidates that she was ditching the promotional rankings and later said the mayor was behind the move.

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"I'm glad to know that we do have a path forward and to think we're going to be talking about the long-term fix," Kirkpatrick said at a hastily called news conference outside Gallier Hall. "The mayor and I are lockstep in this process going forward."

Kirkpatrick this month told 33 officers who qualified for the upper ranks of majors and captains that her decision to ice the promotions was based on complaints about the subjectivity of the grading system.

A civil service complaint soon followed from the Police Association of New Orleans and the Black Organization of Police, which alleged "political patronage and political interference in the civil service system" by the mayor.

"I want to remove these opportunities of anybody even trying to attack other people," Kirkpatrick said Wednesday. "That's through making sure the process is so legitimate that no one can make ... an attack."

Under city policy, the grading system assigns half of a candidate's score to the officer's performance on a civil service exam. The other half is divided among four criteria: prior evaluations, an interview with deputy chiefs, disciplinary history and job history.

The latter set of criteria will be assessed again by external assessors, but the civil service exam scores will remain for those candidates, Kirkpatrick said.

Earlier, she had told those candidates that she wanted to "go back to the drawing board" with a retest. Many on the list were upset at the prospect of having to take another exam and wait until the following year to be promoted.

Kirkpatrick said the complaints sparked her to push for a revision.

Records show that on Sept. 25, Cantrell's Chief Administrative Officer, Gilbert Montaño, rescinded the policy governing "promotion procedure for classified, non-civilian (commissioned) positions," two days after the finalized lists were released to the candidates.

Soon after, a video provided to The Times-Picayune showed Kirkpatrick announcing the change. She cited a history of complaints of favoritism, and her desire to move away from internal decision-making in promotions.

This round of promotions generated "pushback and concerns," Kirkpatrick said at the time.

On Wednesday, Kirkpatrick said she aims to streamline the process to be more objective, while complying with mandates under the federal consent decree that governs the NOPD.

Jonathan Aronie, the lead consent decree monitor, said he will soon issue a report on his investigation of the stalled promotions.

Kirkpatrick said Wednesday that she has just recently been granted the leeway to change the process by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who has overseen NOPD reforms for 12 years.

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