A new ordinance aimed at
educing false alarms is also
esigned to help the NOPD to
cut down on what the NOPD
superintendent is calling “wasted
manpower.”
NOPD Supt. Michael Harrison
told WWL that thousands of hours
are wasted, as well as taxpayer
money. The chief said last year
they responded to about 48,000
false alarms.
Harrison, along with members of
the City Council, said last week
that the new ordinance would help
cut down on about 12,000 hours of
wasted manpower.
The ordinance would also aid an
undermanned police department
whose dwindling numbers have
reached the crisis level, some say,
and hold civilians accountable for
repeated false alarms.
WWL reported that although
there is already a false alarm ordi-
nance in effect, it’s not enforced
and the penalties are very relaxed.
Page 3
THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY -
YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM
May 18 - May 24, 2015
City leaders, NOPD take aim at false alarms
Emails show Serpas
proposed similar
changes to law four
years ago
Under the old ordinance, civil-
ians get 10 false alarm calls before
they are removed from the
response list. The new ordinance
only gives you three, and the fines
are much more significant. You get
a warning and then a $75 or $150
fine.
Here in the city, a report shows
about 98 percent of all alarm calls
are false, which make up about 10
percent of the total calls.
Supt. Harrison told WWL that
this was needed by the department.
“The way we police is becoming
different,” Harrison said. “With all
the new technology that is out now,
we can be a department of the 21st
century. My people have said they
simply want to see more police out
in the community.”
The chief said the new ordinance
will save taxpayers about $400,000
and will save about six officers
from running out to the call.
Under the proposed ordinance,
alarm system users would receive
a warning for the first false alarm,
a $75 fine for a second violation,
and a $150 fine for the third viola-
tion. The study also claimed
approximately 5,300 addresses
were responsible for most of the
false alarms with three or more
false alarms, and these addresses
accounted for 73 percent of the
false alarms.
“For every minute police spend
responding to a false alarm, is
another minute they could be
responding to an actual crime or to
engage in proactive community
policing. With more than 130
false alarms a day on average,
this problem has gotten way out
of hand. I fully support Chief
Harrison’s proposals as they are
reasonable, well-researched and
are in line with best practices
being adopted by police depart-
ments around the country. Most
importantly, these proposals will
make NOPD more effective and
responsive, and they will make our
communities safer,” New Orleans
Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
While the City Council’s new
get-tough false alarm proposal
appears to be on a fast track, the
proposal isn’t exactly new. Similar
measures were proposed by previ-
ous NOPD Superintendent Ronal
Serpas several years ago, but
reception to the idea was less than
enthusiastic.
At a press conference Wednesday,
newly appointed Chief Michael
Harrison was joined by four coun-
cil members to express support for
an ordinance designed to cut done
on false burglar alarms and free up
overburdened police officers.
“We have studied best practices
by police departments around the
country, and our proposal is a mid-
dle-of-the-road approach that will
reduce false alarms, improve
police response times to actual
crimes and free up police
resources,” Harrison said.
But documents show that the
idea was floated by former NOPD
Supt. Ronal Serpas as far back as
2011. There was a note about the
issue in a 2011 PowerPoint budg-
et presentation by Serpas to the
council, and it also was suggested
by Serpas in an email to deputy
mayors Andy Kopplin and Col.
Jerry Sneed.
“This is a strategy that means
unless we get a call from a home-
owner, an alarm company or a
business that there is, in fact, been
a break in or robbery event, we do
not dispatch,” Serpas wrote.
WWL reported that neither the
council nor the mayor’s office
pushed to reform the city’s exist-
ing false alarm policy when it was
raised earlier, not even after the
Office of Inspector General
strongly pushed the idea in a May
2014 report.
“The city should make revisions
to the city code designed to reduce
calls for service due to burglar
alarms,” the OIG report states.
Councilwoman Stacy Head, a
strong supporter of the new ordi-
nance, served on the council when
the issued was raised several years
ago. When asked why the idea did-
n’t gain traction back then, she
conceded it should have.
“Getting things to happen in
government is a lot slower than,
frankly, I think it should be,”
Head told WWL. “This has
moved with lightning speed sinc
the chief took over. So we can
look back and say we should hav
done it before now. And I can say
that about 50 or 60 other things
that I wish had happened five,
six, seven years before now.”
But not only is this proposal not
new, at least one council membe
has serious misgivings. Councilman
James Gray said he spoke to Chie
Harrison about the proposal and
expressed misgivings about cutting
off police response to alarms after a
third false alarm violation.
“The ordinance has some details
that I’m not sure everyone is on
board with,” Gray said. “Righ
now, after the third (false) alarm,
you come off the list for police to
respond. I’m not sure everyone’s
going to agree to that.”
Councilman Gray, however, said
he does believe that some refor
action should be taken.
“It’s been raised before,” Gray
told WWL. “It’s a continuing prob
lem and there needs to be some
thing done.”
Although he declined to com
ment on a series of recent stories
about him warning the Landrieu
administration of the curren
NOPD manpower crisis, forme
Supt. Ronal Serpas, who took
teaching position at Loyol
University after resigning last fall,
issued a statement about his previ
ous attempt to change the city law,
noting that all stakeholders in th
problem should have input.
“As far back as 2011, I informed
the council of the need to implemen
new verified response strategies and
to false alarms and the drain on
NOPD resources,” Serpas wrote in
an email to WWL. “That didn’t hap
pen. Changing the city law on this
has to involve residents, businesses
and the alarm industry.”◊
N.O. NAACP branch prepares to
celebrate its centennial anniversary
The New Orleans Branch of the
NAACP recently announced its
plans to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of its founding in the
Crescent City. The Centennial
Celebration will kick off June 13,
2015 with the theme “The Dream of
1915 Becomes the Reality of 2015.”
On June 13, 2015, the New
Orleans Branch of the NAACP
will hold its annual Freedom Fund
Banquet, celebrating 100 years of
service and collective collabora-
tion to ensure political, education-
al, social, and economic equality
of rights of all people. This 100-
year benchmark will continue the
successful vision of ensuring a
society in which all individuals
have equal rights without discrimi-
nation based on race. Ensuring
rights, privileges and protections
granted from the Constitution of
the United States for all God’s chil-
dren who are citizens of the United
States to enjoy.
The newly elected president of
the New Orleans Branch, retired
Orleans Parish Judge Morris Reed,
has set into motion the centennial
celebration for June 13, at the his-
toric Xavier University where
community trailblazers and indus-
trial champions of Civil Rights
will be honored during the 100th
anniversary.
It was six short years after the
national organization of the NAACP
began its fight for equality that New
Orleans established its own branch
to champion the cause. From this
marriage, many local battles helped
the nation to achieve equality for all
people of color. It is with this legacy
of social justice, community
activism and tenacity that the New
Orleans Branch of the NAACP will
celebrate its historic milestone.◊
ept. of Children and Family Services
ook to recruit additional foster families
Law enforcement stance on pot
starts to shift in Louisiana
Baton Rouge, LA
— The
epartment of Children and
amily
Services
(DCFS)
announced that it’s seeking suit-
able families and individuals to
serve as foster parents for the more
than 4,300 children in Louisiana’s
foster care system.
Currently, there are only 2,000
certified foster homes available in
the state.
The agency’s ramped up push to
recruit new families is in recogni-
tion of Foster Care Month, which
takes place every May.
“To celebrate Foster Care Month,
each May we make an extra push
to recruit foster families,” said
DCFS Secretary Suzy Sonnier.
“Children do best in families. By
having foster homes in all areas of
the state, children in foster care can
tay close to home and in the same
chool.”
Foster care is a protective service
intended to provide temporary,
short-term care for children who
must live apart from their parents
for any number of reasons includ-
ing child abuse, neglect or special
family circumstances requiring the
need for out-of-home care.
DCFS recruits year-round for
foster families who can provide
loving homes and care for one or
multiple children. According to
DCFS, children in need of foster
homes range in age from infants to
teenagers, and vary in race and
religion. DCFS also says that some
“may have an emotional or physi-
cal illness, been neglected, abused
or abandoned, or have experienced
a breakdown in the family, or the
death of a parent.”
While the primary goal is to
reunite a child with his or her bio-
logical family, adoption is some-
times the outcome of foster care.
“DCFS is always looking for fos-
ter parents and there is especially a
need for foster families that are
willing and able to take larger sib-
ling groups or children with spe-
cial needs,” said Sonnier.
Applicants who are interested in
becoming a foster parent must be
at least 21 years old, have suffi-
cient income to meet their own
basic needs and be in good physi-
cal, emotional and mental health.
A foster parent can be single, mar-
ried, divorced or widowed.
Those interested in becoming a
foster parent must first attend an
orientation where information on
the qualifications, the certification
process and an overview of the
agency is provided. Monthly orien-
tations are held across the state.
To find out more about becoming
a foster parent, visit
-
la.gov/foster,
and for the full 2015
orientation
schedule,
visit
.◊
y Brian Slodysko
P Writer
(AP) — Marijuana enthusiasts
nd law enforcement don’t agree
n much. But there is one point
oth concede: Louisiana’s marijua-
a laws are exceptionally strict.
Caught with a small amount of
ot? Face up to 20 years in prison
n your third arrest.
And even though a medical mar-
juana law has been on the books
ince 1991, it’s essentially mean-
ngless because the state hasn’t
eveloped guidelines to cultivate
nd distribute the drug.
That could soon change. The
tate’s powerful law enforcement
ssociations, which have stymied
fforts to change marijuana laws in
he past, are shifting their stance —
ven if only a little.
For the first time, the Louisiana
heriffs’
Association
has
emoved its opposition to a bill
hat would make medical mari-
uana available to sufferers of
ancer, glaucoma and a severe
orm of cerebral palsy, though
moking the drug would still be
llegal. That measure, sponsored
y Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, won
assage Monday from the Senate
nd heads next to the House for
ebate.
The Louisiana District Attorney
ssociation opposes medical mari-
uana, but it does support decreased
entences for people with multiple
arijuana possession convictions
a measure by Rep. Austin Badon,
-New Orleans, that past in the
ouse and is now waiting its fate in
he Senate Judiciary Committee as
f press time.
State Sen. J.P. Morrell said the de
facto response used to be: “We are
really tough on marijuana — and it
is working.”
“Now we are having conversa-
tions about marijuana that were not
even possible five years ago,” the
New Orleans Democrat said.
Discussions about reducing sen-
tences in Louisiana follow the
court case of Bernard W. Noble, a
New Orleans father of seven, who
was sentenced to over 13 years
after he was arrested on his way to
work for having two joints.
Noble’s court battle came to an end
last year after losing his last
appeal.
Former New Orleans Saints play-
er Darren Sharper was “in posses-
sion of very potent and powerful
narcotics used to perform sexual
assaults against women and gets
nine years in federal prison, where-
as you can have a guy with two
cigarettes for his own use and he
gets 13 years?” said Badon, who is
proposing to reduce the top sen-
tence for a repeat marijuana pos-
session to eight years.
Morrell is sponsoring a bill that
would reduce sentences more dras-
tically, decriminalizing a first
offense and capping jail time for
repeat offenders at 30 days.
Pete Adams, executive director of
the District Attorney Association,
described Morrell’s bill as going
“radically far,” though he indicated
he’s open to limited negotiation.
Cities and states across the U.S.
have increasingly reconsidered
get-tough-on-drug laws. Eighteen
states including New York, Nevada
and Mississippi have decriminal-
ized marijuana possession, and
recreational use is legal in
Washington and Colorado.
At the same time, polls show
Louisiana attitudes are changing
toward marijuana.
Support for legalizing medical
marijuana had reached 60 percent,
a public opinion survey by LSU’s
Public Policy Research Lab found
earlier this year. And 67 percent
said people convicted of possess-
ing small amounts of marijuana
shouldn’t serve jail time.
The cash-strapped state — where
one in 14 arrests is for marijuana
possession — could also benefit,
saving an estimated $23 million a
year by reducing felony marijuana
possession to a misdemeanor,
according to Louisianans for
Responsible Reform.
Still, pot proponents shouldn’t
get their hopes up too high.
Measures to decriminalize mari-
juana, or mimic California’s per-
missive medical marijuana law,
appear to be nonstarters — includ-
ing a bill currently before the
Legislature calling for a statewide
election to determine whether pot
should be legal.
Asked whether law enforcement
was softening its stance on mari-
juana laws, Michael Ranatza, head
of the sheriffs’ association, said he
doesn’t see a shift.
Still, the advocacy of a col-
league’s terminally-ill daughter led
Ranatza to a recent change of heart
regarding medical marijuana, and
he passionately pleaded for law-
makers to approve Mills’ medical
marijuana bill.
“This is about medicine,” Ranatza
said. “This has nothing to do with a
shift of position or our belief.”◊
