GW: What is your plan to lead New Orleans out of the current crime wave, and how will you make the city safer in 2007?
RILEY: We have reformatted the New Orleans Police Department in the aftermath of Katrina. We have put some very serious plans in place that unfortunately have been diminished because of our attrition rate. Today our department has 1,401 officers, which includes 41 recruits. We have 107 officers that are out sick. We’re operating a department with about 1,200-and-something officers. And that has hurt us.
GW: Some people would naturally suspect that things wouldn’t be this bad unless some police officers were either working with drug dealers or turning the other way. And that’s a terrible thing to allege because we don’t sit here with any evidence. But people just, when they reach a level of frustration or even fear, they begin to harbor the darkest thoughts. What assurances can you give the public that NOPD is honest?
RILEY: I can’t vouch for 100 percent of the officers being honest. We have some corrupt cops. I don’t think we have the level that we had during the Len Davis days. We have run more integrity checks than any previous administration has ever run. We have done sting operations. And we have fired more people than any other police administration has done within the first year. We are targeting individuals. We have taken swift and decisive action.
Now, what you don’t hear is that we terminated them because under this administration, when they’re caught, they resign because they already know the outcome. … We have taken a no-tolerance policy. We have run undercover operations. We have set up drug houses where we’ve set dope up for officers to go in to see what they’re going to do. We have done a number of sting operations not only to instill professionalism, but also paranoia into the minds of the few who might consider doing something wrong. We want them to think twice about committing a crime because it might be us; it might be the FBI.
We have FBI agents assigned to public integrity that are working with us. There are some things that I am seeking with the Department of Justice as it relates to some activities within the New Orleans Police Department. All I can do is tell you that the public needs to know that this administration is doing everything that it can to ensure that this department does the right thing.
To our surprise, with all the sting operations and all that we have done and all the people that we have fired, there are still a handful out there that will take a chance and do something wrong. And that’s unfortunate. But I guess it comes with the territory.
GW: You and police chiefs before you — and many officers — have found yourselves at odds with the DA’s office from time to time. Tensions have heightened since the indictments of the Danziger Seven. Tell us how your relationship with Eddie Jordan has evolved since you first took office and how well do you think you’ll work with that office going forward.
RILEY: We’re going to be fine as it relates to working together. The DA’s Office and the New Orleans Police Department, as you mentioned, have historically had some difficulties in certain areas.
GW: It’s been kind of a blame game going back and forth.
RILEY: And for far too long, for far too long. And let me say this: as it relates to the New Orleans Police Department, we have sent our officers to report writing training, investigative training. We’ve done everything that we can over this last year to make sure our people are preparing the best cases, providing the best evidence.
The relationship between Mr. Jordan and myself is fine. As it relates to the implementation of the processes that go from NOPD with a case to the DA’s office, it isn’t quite where it needs to be yet.
I’ll give you an example. We have suggested, and we would like Mr. Jordan’s office to, when a homicide occurs, get involved from the very beginning. Come to the scene, the collection of evidence. If our detectives are missing something, for them to say “You need to take a photo of this. You need to bring that piece of evidence in.” We want them to be a part of the entire process. We invite them to do that.
We want to ensure that our cases are submitted within 60 days, which we are doing. We also want them to understand as it relates to crime analysis information that it takes more than 60 days. If someone is in a violent crime and we have to send blood samples away because we don’t have a crime lab, that’s going to take some time to get back. … We can write a report in 60 days, but we can’t say that drug analyses are going to come back in 60 days. We can’t say that blood splatter results are going to come back within 60 days. It’s out of our hands.
But the relationship going forward, as it relates to Mr. Jordan and me, we’re fine. It’s not a personal thing. From the Danziger incident, certainly Mr. Jordan made some comments, and I certainly made some comments. But that was it. That was over with. Mr. Jordan and I met last Saturday. We are working together. We’re going to do everything that we can to make sure that we do all that we can to make this city safe. The relationship simply needs to be tweaked where everybody’s on the same page. And that’s something that we’re working to get done.
GW: The local president of the Fraternal Order of Police says the Danziger Bridge case could put a damper on recruiting. At the same time, the local NAACP president says police demonstrations for the accused officers can have a chilling effect on witnesses. What’s your take on the impact of this case on the department and on the community?
RILEY: I’m not going to make any comments of any sort on the Danziger. I don’t want to do anything that’s prejudicial.
GW: The mayor recently said that racial tensions have increased since the storm. It’s often said that a police department should reflect the community it serves. What do you believe is the state of race relations within the department?
RILEY: We had some serious issues after the [mayoral] election within the department along racial lines. The department was divided down racial lines as a result of the election. And it is certainly better now, much better now than it was immediately following the election. There was some severe separation. And I think that’s sort of come back together. Within any organization you’re going to have some racial issues, I believe. And we have some, but it’s not significant. But we do have some issues.
GW: How prepared is NOPD for the next major hurricane, and what will you and the department do differently?
RILEY: We’re very prepared. The difference is before we were prepared for a hurricane. We weren’t prepared for a levee break. We weren’t prepared for water to cover 80 percent of the city. Now our emergency preparedness plans are for a catastrophe, not just for an emergency. We have sufficient boats now. We have training from our intelligence units and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau and our Special Operations Division. We were never the lead on water rescue; the fire department was. But we have a bigger role in that now, although the fire department is still the lead.
As it relates to communications, we have our new radios in. … That new radio has the ability to turn a channel and we can talk to anyone in the state. So in the event that our current system goes down, we turn to another channel [and] we can communicate with the FBI, with DEA. We can communicate with Lake Charles, Shreveport. We will have the ability to talk to each other through those systems that are around the state. So that will never ever be a problem again.
GW: Part of getting past a catastrophe like that is looking back at what went right and what could have been improved upon. Did anyone at any level issue a shoot-to-kill order during Katrina?
RILEY: No, no.
GW: Was martial law ever declared? And if so, on whose orders?
RILEY: Martial law was never declared, just a state of emergency.
GW: The Metropolitan Crime Commission says the city needs to form a special commission with vast powers to investigate what happened after Katrina. Would you welcome such an investigation?
RILEY: I would. I believe that the U.S. Senate investigators did a detailed investigation. I don’t know what could be any more thorough than that, but I would have no objection to it. It’s an open book. Whatever’s going to identify problems and improvements is welcome.
GW: Chief, this interview is going to be published the week of January 15, which is your birthday. Happy birthday. At the same time, we couldn’t help but notice that in the year you were born [1959] there were only 59 murders, and the city had more than 600,000 people. What would it take if we were to set that as a goal? How would we get back to a number like that?
RILEY: An education system that was anywhere near what it was back then. An economy that was thriving. A poverty level far lower than the 27 percent that it was pre-Katrina. Opportunities where our impoverished youth didn’t feel their life was useless and that they were going to live beyond 25 years of age because they were educated and had opportunities. And a criminal justice system that, when you’ve committed a crime and it was proven, you go to jail and you do your time.
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