Meeting held to receive public input on two year sustainment period of NOPD consent decree

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Dozens of community members came out to the East New Orleans Library to give their opinion on whether or not the NOPD is ready to do away with the consent decree, and the response is fairly one-sided.

“The community got a lot of concerns about getting out the consent decree, because we know why the consent decree was brought here,” Belden Batiste said. “It was brought here because there was abuse of black people, and doing a lot to black people and a lot of the community wants the consent decree to stay.”

Several took the opportunity to ask questions and voice their concerns. Batiste pointed out the recent issue in police response times, saying those gaps will only continue, as long as the NOPD is not required to comply to the consent decree.

“We want to see action. We want to see these things put into motion. Because, if you look, we just had a case with the murder suicide and the police took 4 hours to get there, you know. That’s a problem. We had 3 kids to die for in the fire and that was a problem,” Batiste said.

“I feel like we’re really lacking for solutions as to what will solve these problems that got us to the consent decree in the first place,” Toni Jones said.

Deputy Monitor David Douglass says their oversight wont end after the consent decree does.

“Finding them in compliance, it does not mean that the consent decree ends or that we will be leaving. We will be here continuing to monitor the department’s performance for at least two years after that initial finding of compliance,” Douglass said.

A second meeting was held hours later at the Treme Recreation Center.

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