New Orleans Police Chief: Mayor Pressed Pause on Officer Promotions
By Missy Wilkinson
Source The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said Wednesday that Mayor LaToya Cantrell recently "paused" a round of high-ranking police promotions, including the elevation of two officers who signed off on an investigation into her former bodyguard and alleged paramour Jeffrey Vappie.
"She obviously was given the list ... understanding it was not a final list," Kirkpatrick said in an interview with The Times-Picayune. "She had opinions about it and yes, she did" have a say in stopping the promotions.
The decision has drawn the ire of several police organizations, including the Police Association of New Orleans and the Black Organization of Police. Those groups asked the Civil Service Commission Tuesday to investigate what they described as a "blatant political infringement into the civil service process."
Kirkpatrick declined to say more about the mayor's influence on the decision to shelve the promotions for majors and captains after the test rankings came out. The Cantrell administration said Wednesday they are working on a response.
PANO attorney Eric Hessler, however, said there is good reason to suspect retaliation.
"There were persons that were high up on the list that were ripe for political discrimination," he said.
Lists provided to the newspaper show the top rankings for major went to Kendrick Allen and Precious Banks, two officers in the Public Integrity Bureau who were involved in an investigation that found misconduct by Vappie, who has since been accused by federal prosecutors of conspiring to hide a romantic relationship with Cantrell in order to keep collecting his taxpayer-funded salary.
The officers' groups had long suspected the influence of mayors on NOPD promotions, "but this is the first time we've ever had a high-ranking officer confirm it," Hessler said. "I applaud (Kirkpatrick) for doing that."
Hessler said it was the first promotional round for major in 34 years. He called the mayor's influence an affront to the civil service system.
"These were all tests that were conducted by the city under their approval, under their policies," said Hessler. "The entire thrust of the system is to protect people from this, and here we go."
Cantrell's alleged interference in the NOPD promotions strikes at supervision issues that are at the core of a consent decree that has governed the police force since 2013, federal monitor Jonathan Aronie said Tuesday at a public meeting. Aronie promised a deeper report on the action.
"If there is bias, we want to know. If the process wasn't followed, we want to know," he said. "No one can stop (the process) just because they don't like the results."
It's an area that, like all NOPD policy, has been rewritten under the federal consent decree. The mayor's alleged involvement has prompted another revisiting of the department's promotional policy, Kirkpatrick said.
Currently, the NOPD employs a hybrid model for promotions, consulting both outside and inside reviews of applicants.
Kirkpatrick said she's working on revising that process and has been in talks with Cantrell, federal monitors and the U.S. Department of Justice. She said she hopes to salvage the existing promotional list, with some adjustments.
"We want outside assessment as a total test process," Kirkpatrick said. "If you don't know me, you can't claim I'm biased."
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