New Orleans police chief revives promotion list

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

Kirkpatrick, who has served as chief for a year, said she is moving forward with a revised protocol for NOPD promotions that would address complaints of bias. The change comes amid a chorus of criticism from officer groups and others after Kirkpatrick told candidates she had dropped the promotion rankings and later said the mayor was behind the move.

“I’m happy to know that we have a path forward and to think that we’re going to be talking about a long-term solution,” Kirkpatrick said at a hastily called news conference outside Gallier Hall. “The mayor and I are on the eve of this process.”

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

A civil service complaint from the Police Association of New Orleans and the Black Organization of Police soon followed, alleging the mayor had “political patronage and political interference in the civil service.”

“I want to take these opportunities away from anyone who even tries to attack other people,” Kirkpatrick said Wednesday. “That is by ensuring that the process is so legitimate that no one can carry out an attack.”

Under city policy, the grading system awards half of a candidate’s score to the officer’s performance on a civil service exam. The other half is divided between four criteria: preliminary evaluations, an interview with deputy heads, disciplinary history and job history.

This final set of criteria will be reassessed by outside evaluators, but civil service exam scores will remain in place for those candidates, Kirkpatrick said.

She had previously told the candidates that she wanted to ‘go back to the drawing board’ with a retest. Many on the list were angry at the prospect of having to take another exam and wait until the following year to be promoted.

Kirkpatrick said the complaints led her to push for a review.

Records show that Cantrell’s Chief Administrative Officer, Gilbert Montaño, rescinded the policy regarding the “promotion process for classified, non-civilian (commissioned) positions” on September 25, two days after the final lists were released to candidates.

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

This round of promotions created “pushback and concerns,” Kirkpatrick said at the time.

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

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

Kirkpatrick said Wednesday that she was recently given the space to change the process of U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who has overseen NOPD reforms for 12 years.

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