‘No stone unturned’: How new NOPD chief aims to use newcomer status to her advantage

By Missy Wilkinson

Source: The Times-Picayune | Nola.com

In the sunlit atrium of a New Orleans skyscraper, a group of business leaders and policymakers sat shoulder-to-shoulder on Wednesday morning, lobbing questions at a virtual unknown in town: the city’s new police chief.

Anne Kirkpatrick, the first true newcomer to take the helm of the NOPD in nearly three decades, has made public outreach a major theme of her first weeks on the job, her schedule shows. On Wednesday, she stood in uniform and wielded a microphone as she trumpeted the positives of her outsider status at a Bureau of Governmental Research breakfast at the Pan-American Life Center.

Kirkpatrick touched on her crime plan, and hot topics such as the NOPD’s nascent drone program and a projected return of regular Louisiana State Police patrols to the city. She also gave a nod to her acclimation to New Orleans, noting a recent crackdown on snake-toting and other illegal French Quarter vending.

“You’re not going to see (exotic animals) in Seattle. You’re not even going to see it in Oakland,” she quipped, referring to previous stints as a chief on the West Coast.

One meeting at a time, participants say, Kirkpatrick is leaning into her outsider status while staking out a vision for tackling her stated goals in New Orleans: drive down violent crime; exit the federal consent decree that has governed the NOPD for more than a decade; and build leadership within the force.

Her schedule over her first three weeks in the permanent job included at least half a dozen meet-and-greets; five meetings on federal consent decree updates; sit-downs with former NOPD chief Michael Harrison and former interim chief Michelle Woodfork; and a confab with the FBI.

“She’s willing to listen to what people have to say,” said Aaron Jordan, president of greater New Orleans East Business Alliance. Jordan and members of the group met with Kirkpatrick on Oct. 26, hoping to familiarize her with New Orleans East and ask how the group could support the police force.

Jordan said he floated the idea of splitting New Orleans East, where emergency response times are the city’s highest, into two police districts. Kirkpatrick said she would consider it, he said.

Kirkpatrick met that same day with Elizabeth Boh of the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, the department’s booster arm. Boh said the foundation solicited ideas for its “next big project” after it turned over police officer recruitment and advertising to NOPD in July, ending a decade in the role.

“She’s interested in leadership training,” Boh added. “She feels that has fallen through the cracks. … She has plans to send some of the white shirts to different training, and we’ll help fund that.”

Kirkpatrick on Wednesday touted new department recruitment efforts, including a billboard campaign featuring an NOPD officer, TV ads that will air in south Louisiana markets beyond New Orleans, and recruiting tables at New Orleans Saints games in the Caesars Superdome.

Police hiring hit a low point last year, and the department has struggled this year with sinking applicant numbers. Kirkpatrick preached patience while noting that the number of commissioned officers on the force has shrunken by about one-fourth in four years, to 901 commissioned officers as of Wednesday, according to an NOPD dashboard.

Kirkpatrick was Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s surprise choice to lead the NOPD after a prolonged national search. She’s the city’s first permanent female police chief, and also the first outsider to lead the department since former Mayor Marc Morial plucked Richard Pennington from Washington, D.C. in 1995 amid a modern peak in deadly violence in New Orleans.

On Wednesday, Kirkpatrick pointed to an advantage when it comes to a sore spot among many NOPD officers: favoritism in promotions.

“Historically here, culturally, it’s all about who you know and how well connected you are,” Kirkpatrick told the crowd on Wednesday. “That’s the plus of hiring an outsider: I don’t know anybody.”

Claude Schlesinger of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge said he and Kirkpatrick discussed officer promotions when they met on Halloween at NOPD headquarters. They raised the possibility of having similarly sized Southern law enforcement agencies, such as those in Birmingham, Nashville and Charleston, South Carolina, grade the competition for sergeant spots.

“Hopefully, it’s a fairer way than ranking officers from within the department, who have preconceived notions about people they have known over the years—good or bad,” he said.

Schlesinger is among those who also see Kirkpatrick making headway with the federal judge and monitors who have overseen a decade of reforms to the NOPD, in a change of tack. Last year, Cantrell adopted a combative stance while seeking to exit the consent decree.

U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan recently found the NOPD violated a dozen terms of the consent decree in its probe of Cantrell’s bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie. Still, Morgan declined to sanction the city, crediting a remedial action plan crafted by Kirkpatrick and Deputy Chief Nicholas Gernon. Kirkpatrick’s schedule shows her meeting with Gernon at least six times over her first three weeks as permanent chief.

“(Kirkpatrick) gave (Morgan) a way to deal with that,” Schlesinger said of the tensions over the Vappie probe. “It is my impression they have met on more than one occasion and that they get along well.”

Whether a fresh approach from Kirkpatrick helps NOPD reach an end to the sprawling reform agreement remains uncertain. The new chief sounded optimistic tones before a crowd of about 100 suited attendees on Wednesday morning.

“A lot of the narrative is about getting out of the consent decree,” she said. “I think that’s the wrong term. It’s about showing we’ve arrived.”

In the meantime, Kirkpatrick is “leaving no stone unturned” in getting acquainted with the local players, said businessman John Casbon, who has advised a number of New Orleans mayors on policing and chief selections.

Casbon met with Kirkpatrick on Nov. 6 with the Anti-Defamation League. A few days later, Metropolitan Crime Commission member Jeffrey Doussan and his colleagues at Keller Williams Realty sat with the new chief. Both praised the new chief for her penchant to connect.

“She’s meeting with every group that asks her to go there,” Doussan said.

“Her vision is to make sure she knows the community in total,” added Casbon. “She is working the background, getting to know people. Looking around the department differently than other people have looked at it.”

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