NEW ORLEANS -- After a year and a half, the inspector general praised the police department's efforts Wednesday to improve the way it handles sex crime cases.
"It is rare for any organization to correct a serious problem in 18 months," said Ed Quatrevaux, New Orleans inspector general. "But NOPD has done it, and this turnaround is very impressive, and NOPD deserves praise."
Almost two years ago, Quatrevaux slammed the New Orleans Police Department Sex Crimes Unit's handling of rape cases. However, his new report finds major changes.
"What we found was that all files had required documentation, 99.4 percent of calls for service were classified correctly," Quatrevaux said.
Police leadership said the improvements were due to department-wide efforts."We brought in new leadership to immediately right the ship, and improve accountability and supervision, we created and implemented new systems of accountability," added Police Chief Michael Harrison.
Harrison said they created new procedures, brought in more detectives, civilian investigators, social workers, and moved the entire unit into the Independent Family Justice Center."We gave them all new smartphones so they can remain in contact at all times with all of the victims," Harrison said. "We gave them all brand new vehicles to get to the scenes quickly. We gave them better cameras to better document crime scenes, new laptop computers so they can work from anywhere."
Victim advocates said they can see the difference."We are definitely significant positive responses from survivors, they are definitely getting more information on their cases than ever before," added Mary Claire Landry of the Family Justice Center.
The original report, first released about 18 months ago, focused on the apparent misconduct of five detectives, now six supervisors have also been investigated."We found no evidence that any criminal misconduct had occurred," said Chief Harrison. "However, administrative violations were identified, and the disciplinary hearings for those officers and supervisors are scheduled to take place over the next couple of weeks."
Chief Harrison added the number of sexual assaults reported to police between January and March jumped 95 percent over last year but said that number shows victims trust police more. He added there is much more to be done, and victim advocates want the next steps to include focusing on sex crime prosecutions and making sure judges are giving victims justice.