Conference Beginnings

Loki kicks it off with a Bloggers' Prayer after opening remarks by Kim Marshall and Alli deJong.

If you are using Twitter, use the #RT5 hashtag to mark your tweets as being from the Rising Tide Conference.

Public Safety panelists are introducing themselves.

Allen James: founded Safe Streets in 2006 to bring about public funding for indigent defense. Safe Streets tries to organize the community and inform them about public policies and the criminal justice system.

Jon Wool: discusses the Vera Institute

Ronal Serpas: discusses his background, what brought him into law enforcement, the challenges
of directing Gen X and Gen Y officers, and he emphasizes that good policing involves the entire community.

Susan Hutson: "My job is to be totally up in Ron's business." She is New Orleans' second police monitor. There's an "unprecedented wave of cooperation now" between the NOPD and the independent police monitor's office.

Scharf to panelists: What is your plan to deal with police misconduct?

Hutson: Hopes that Danziger was an anomaly, but if it does happen again, they want to be prepared for it.

Serpas: Concerning Danziger - The behavior of the Danziger officers was incomprehensible and an insult to the community - the other insult has been to those officers who did serve during Katrina and served well. Speaks of Hosli and Burrell's bravery and rescues. Less than 1 1/2 % of calls have anything to do with murder, robbery, rape, assault, burglary. Nearly ten times that number is spent on false alarms. And yet, the murder rate here is high. We must redirect how we do the policing.

Wool: Discusses intervention of the Department of Justice. Development of a pretrail incarceration system must be built. A "continuum of rational, just services" is key to maintaining public safety.

Both Wool and James comment on feeling as though Serpas has just taken a lot from their notes on law enforcement.

James: "We shouldn't expect radical change" despite the presence of the DOJ and the improvements of the police force. Each of the elements of the criminal justice system affects the other.

Serpas: Our disagreements (between the panelists) won't be major. Difference between 1994 and today: there were individual officers doing individual things then - today, there is a system-wide failure. "Our system has completely come off the tracks."

Scharf: How do you change a police culture?

Hutson: What will happen here will echo what happened in L.A.: there will be greater scrutiny on how the officers report crimes.

Serpas on police misconduct:
"You lie, you die" - People will be questioned in public hearings
A false report will result in termination.
Aiding in a false report will result in dire consequences.
If you fail to cooperate in an internal investigation, there will be consequences.

Look at how hiring practices can be changed to aid police culture.
Also look at how you promote officers.

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