’This isn’t a job for the faint of heart’: NOPD chief’s experience could uniquely suit new role

By Hanna Krueger, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune

New Orleans Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said last month that, although he had been approached about a job as Baltimore’s police chief, he didn’t want the position. On Tuesday (Jan. 8), however, Baltimore’s mayor announced that Harrison was her pick to lead law enforcement in her city.

Harrison didn’t speak in depth Tuesday about his decision to leave New Orleans. But aside from considerations of salary and politics, the two cities share similarities that explain why they wanted him – and maybe why he said yes.

New Orleans and Baltimore police are both under federal consent decrees and have struggled with high crime rates and poor public perception of police. Having tackled those issues in New Orleans, observers say Harrison is an ideal candidate to take them on in Maryland.

“This is one of the most consequential weekends of my life,” Harrison told the Baltimore Sun. “The phone call Saturday morning (about the job opportunity) was a life-changing phone call … It took a lot of thinking, but my whole career has been preparing for this moment.”

The similarities

Like the police department in New Orleans, law enforcement in Maryland’s biggest city is also under a consent decree aimed at addressing longstanding patterns of unconstitutional policing. New Orleans entered into the agreement in 2012 and has since become almost fully compliant with its mandates. Baltimore’s consent decree is more recent, having only been in effect for a year and a half.

Both cities have a history of unconstitutional policing and a severe lack of public distrust in police, which is only exacerbated by consistently high crime rates. With more recent corruption and a larger population, Baltimore poses greater challenges than current-day New Orleans, but criminologists believe Harrison has a good shot at improvement.

“There has been progress in New Orleans, a place where progress once did not seem possible. He is one of the few who might be up to the job,” said David Harris, who researches police behavior and law enforcement as a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Baltimore’s troubles

Federal oversight in Baltimore came on the heels of the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American man who was found unconscious with a nearly severed spinal cord after traveling in a police transport van in April 2015. The police department’s lack of consistency in explaining Gray’s arrest and his injuries spurred a citywide protest which deteriorated into mass chaos, violence and looting.

Though Gray’s death was ruled a homicide by a medical examiner, three Baltimore police officers were found not guilty and the charges were dropped for three others.

A year later, the United States Justice Department issued a sprawling report which “condemned many long-standing discriminatory enforcement practices by Baltimore police that allowed for illegal searches, arrests and stops of African Americans for minor offenses.” Gray was originally arrested for possessing what the police alleged was a knife illegal under Baltimore law. State Attorney Marilyn Mosby later declared the knife legal.

Then, in March 2017, eight rogue officers within a nine-member Gun Trace Task Force were charged with a massive criminal conspiracy of abuse, theft, profiling and deception.

“A criminal enterprise was permitted to operate within the police department for years at a time,” Sen. Bill Ferguson told the Baltimore Sun.

Since the Baltimore Police Department entered into the consent decree in April 2017, crime, corruption and community distrust have persisted. Last year, the department experienced cases of officer misconduct, sustained record levels of violence and the final convictions in one of the biggest police corruption scandals in city history.

All the while, three different commissioners headed the already unstable department in 2018. Former Police Commissioner Kevin Davis was fired in January. Darryl De Sousa replaced him, but lasted just a few months before resigning when it was revealed he failed to file federal taxes. Gary Tuggle, a former DEA special agent recruited by De Sousa, was picked for the interim spot.

Is Harrison fit for the challenge?

Harrison leaves New Orleans with high praise from city officials and criminologists, who argue he helped bring the department to the cusp of fulfilling the consent decree mandates through community outreach and enhanced technologies. Can he maintain his efficacy and popularity as commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department?

“It will certainly be one of the more difficult jobs any police chief has faced,” Harris said.

It remains to be seen whether Harrison will be able to effect change in a new city struggling with corruption and crime.

“He will need to manage new sergeants, a new political dynamic, a new relationship with the city. How easy will it be to transition those skills?” asked Peter Scharf, a criminologist with LSU’s School of Public Health.

Baltimore is also a far different police department than the New Orleans force Harrison took over in 2014. NOPD entered into the consent decree in 2013 after a federal report exposed misconduct and abuse by law enforcement during and after Hurricane Katrina. Superintendent Ronal Serpas was head of the department at the time and remained in that role until 2014.

“By the time Harrison was appointed, much of the reform had already been put in place and he was able to continue it. He was the good cop, who boosted morale and improved technology,” said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission. “Baltimore will be a different challenge for him. He is going to be the doing the gutting and cleanup.”