As crime has risen, there have been cries to bring back the National Guard so that New Orleans has the strength of force evident just after Katrina. In some ways, Superintendant Serpas is giving granting that wish by having NOPD lieutenants and sergeants undergo leadership training in an award-winning program used by the National Guard.
The result should be the knowledge and decision tactics employed by the National Guard leadership without the Hummers and heavy arms clacking through the streets. Frankly, those young’uns with what appeared to be very large, very deadly guns, and goggles, and helmets, and stompin’ boots, and who knows what hanging from their belts, made me very nervous.
Seriously, the result of this move should be a new degree of accountability in the police department. Serpas, knowing what training his lieutenants and sergeants have been through, will be able to hold them to a higher level of accountability. Those same lieutenants and sergeants, after using what they’ve learned to guide those below them, will be able to hold the patrol units and other officers to a higher degree of accountability. Do you see where this is going?
Those who have called for the National Guard to return won’t be happy. They want the firepower and the presence. The firepower was too deadly, and the presence would be lessened now by the increased population in the city. Those guys patrolled the least populated areas of New Orleans when they were here. They would find it a different ballgame in those same areas today, and I’m quite sure their marching orders would be different.
What we need to resurrect from that time is the organization and precision of thinking that came with their presence. Serpas’ partnership with the National Guard in this leadership training should provide that to the NOPD. I think it’s a conscious, smart move that is neither a band-aid nor a stop-gap tactic. It isn’t meant to immediately quell crime. But it is meant to provide long-term improvement in our police force.
Serpas’ recent partnership with local clergy with the Cops, Clergy and Community Coalition is a band-aid. Granted, if it works, it could grow into a skin graft that is sorely needed. Unfortunately, the clergy are working as slippery a slope as the police in getting community cooperation for police investigations. After all, I doubt seriously that those committing the crimes run breathlessly into church on Sunday to atone. And those who surround and know the serious perpetrators, while they may be wonderful, God-fearing people, are also fearful of the more human ramifications of talking about those they know. What the alliance may provide, if the clergy truly follow through, is another element in the city that trusts and talks positively in a public setting about the work of the NOPD. And that can’t hurt.
I’ll admit I had my reservations about Serpas. But the more I see of his actions, the fewer are my reservations. It appears we have been given a Superintendant who thinks then actually acts rather than one who acts without ever thinking.
