Ending NOPD promotions raises questions about politics and reforms

On October 2, most of the New Orleans Police Department’s command staff was gathered in a conference room at the police department’s shiny new downtown headquarters, eager for news of a rare round of high-level promotions.

Many attendees had studied, tested and interviewed to become captains and majors. The rankings were in and they had arrived expecting to hear who had won the coveted gigs, said Capt. Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, who had tested for major.

Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick threw them all a curveball.

“This list is going to expire,” she told the meeting, in video obtained by The Times-Picayune. “I’m not going to promote it.”

Glasser said the mood in the room immediately changed.

“Everyone was dead quiet,” he said. “We couldn’t wait to hear the rationale. Unfortunately, we never heard it. … I’m 48 years old and we’ve never seen a delisting because someone filed a complaint.”

In the video, Kirkpatrick cited a history of complaints about favoritism and her desire to distance herself from internal decision-making in promotions. This round of promotions, which used a hybrid ranking system with internal reviewers, generated “pushback and concerns,” she said.

Kirkpatrick said she was considering setting aside the internal assessments and relying solely on the Civil Service’s objective test results. The federal consent decree that governs the NOPD prohibited this, she said.

“I will not willfully, knowingly, violate the consent decree. That doesn’t happen,” she said.

The policy resulting from the consent decree required candidates to be scored both internally, by a group of deputy chiefs, and externally, by the outside contractor that administered and scored the Civil Service exam, she told the group. But Kirkpatrick said she wouldn’t stick with the final rankings either.

“We can go back to the drawing board,” she said. “It is my wish that all measurements be handled with external people. That is what I will work towards in the next review.”

She made no mention of Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s input at the time, saying only that complaints of bias left her with no choice but to scrap the list and start from scratch.

However, Kirkpatrick revealed this week that Cantrell was involved in the decision, sparking a new wave of criticism and accusations of political interference from some police groups.

Under heavy fire, she has withdrawn her call for a retest and says she is now working to somehow save the current list.

But the icing on the cake of these promotions and the confirmation of the mayor’s involvement have raised concerns about the morale of the force. Former NOPD chief Ronal Serpas, now a professor at Loyola University, was among those who opposed the move.

“It hurts the morale of all those people who were waiting to be promoted,” Serpas said. “This is their career.”

Kirkpatrick told the Times-Picayune on Wednesday that she and Cantrell “paused” the promotion process after the mayor shared “opinions” about the promotion list.

The decision to suspend a procedure renewed under the federal consent decree has frustrated a selection of veteran police officers in the upper echelon of NOPD leadership. It could potentially cost the city $103,106 in canceled exam fees, according to Civil Service records.

Glasser also cited the impact on morale for a department that has struggled with turnover and remains below 900 officers, a low in decades.

“They can study, take the test and then be told, ‘We’re not going to do promotions because we don’t like the outcome,’” he said.

A revised and subsequently withdrawn promotion policy

The NOPD captain promotion, a hotly contested process that was renewed in 2021 under then-Chief Shaun Ferguson, sits at the intersection of multiple areas needing reform under the consent decree, including bias-free policing, transparency and oversight.

Previous issues contributed to what Deputy Supt. Nicholas Gernon described Wednesday as a pre-consent decree culture of “hiding, ignoring or covering up” problems.

Serpas, meanwhile, listened to a successful effort by former Mayor Mitch Landrieu to give the government more leeway over promotions. Serpas said the consent decree was intended to abolish an arrangement that was considered “too incestuous,” but that the latest developments cast doubt on the reforms.

“How could this have solved the problem if the mayor and chief had to destroy the list they made?” he asked.

Kirkpatrick, a self-proclaimed changemaker, arrived last year and tied her tenure at the helm of NOPD with Cantrell’s second term, saying she was committed to growing NOPD leadership from within.

The suspension of promotions for captains and majors has derailed that goal. The decision comes as attorneys for the city and the U.S. Department of Justice jointly asked a federal judge to move the department to the exit phase of the long-running consent decree. Jonathan Aronie, the lead monitor reporting to U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, said he is looking into the matter and will issue a report soon.

Independent police observer Stella Cziment, whose office oversaw about five promotion processes, described the role of captain as “extremely important” in a Report 2021. Captains shape police strategy and influence the department’s commitment to reform, the report said.

In 2019, NOPD captains filed a lawsuit challenging the unclassified commander role, which was created to allow police chiefs to choose their upper echelon. As a result, lieutenants and former unclassified commanders had to apply for the role and take the captain’s exam, which the Civil Service administered in 2021.

The policy awarded 50% of an applicant’s score to his civil service test results, and 50% to a quadrant of background material reviewed by a panel of three deputy chiefs, Glasser said.

Cziment and others say they are unhappy with the process. This includes the Fraternal Order of Police, which does not want the suspended list to be thrown out.

Cziment also expressed concern that the revamped promotion process was thrown out after the rankings were announced, for reasons that remain unclear. Allegations of retaliation have dogged the mayor, whose office has yet to respond to a request for comment on the matter.

PANO and the Black Organization of Police petitioned the civil service this week to investigate the proceedings, alleging “political patronage and political interference in the civil service” by the mayor. Glasser said he hopes to get answers at a committee meeting on Nov. 8.

“The city takes the test, grades the test, and now they say it’s a bad test,” he said. ‘Why? Well, that’s a secret. We can’t tell you why. The whole thing stinks.”