New Orleans Police Department
Sgt. Willie Jenkins, III
Fraternal Order of Police
Crescent City Lodge #2
2nd Vice President
Labor Committee Chairman
wjenkins@nola.gov
williejenkinsiii@gmail.com
Many law enforcement agencies in Louisiana had informed their employees that the Municipal Police Officers Supplemental Pay Board of Review had decided to begin sending a lump sum each month to the various law enforcement agencies around Louisiana whose employees receive Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay starting January 1, 2024. Those municipalities would then be responsible for disbursing the funds owed to each employee entitled to receive Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay.
Earlier today, December 21, 2023, this letter was distributed by the Supplemental Pay Division of Management & Finance Louisiana, Department of Public Safety & Corrections, Public Safety Services. Louisiana FOP President Darrell Basco received a copy of the letter and distributed it to FOP members.
In short, implementation of the new distribution plan will be delayed to the start of Louisiana’s next fiscal year. The letter states that will be July 31, 2024. As a result, all law enforcement employees who receive Louisiana Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay will continue to receive those payments as usual until July 31, 2024.
For those who are interested, this was made possible by Louisiana Act No. 637, which started out as HB 918, Supplemental Pay for Certain Law Enforcement Officers introduced by State Representative William “Bill” Wheat, Jr., a Republican representing Tangipahoa Parish. Louisiana Act. No. 637 changed La. R.S. 33:2218.4, which required the Secretary of Public Safety and Corrections to write and sign a check for supplemental pay to each recipient to La. R.S. 40:1667.3(B) only states that “the Department of Public Safety and Corrections shall issue payments in accordance with the privisions of this Part.” The statute governing payment of State Supplemental Pay no longer states how it is to be distributed. Therefore, it can be sent to the municipality instead of directly to the officer entitled to the payment.
There will be times when the FOP will send you an email or text message asking you to send an email to your elected representatives regarding legislation that the FOP has decided it is in favor of or opposed to. Normally, it only takes a couple of clicks to send an email to your elected representatives because we use a service called Voter Voice. Voter Voice prepares an email for you. You can edit the email if you want. Voter Voice will then send the email to the proper recipients. So, even if you are not sure who your elected officials are, you can contact them using Voter Voice. Be on the lookout for emails regarding legislation and the use of Voter Voice. The number of people Legislators receive phone calls and emails from on certain issues can be the determining factor in how the elected representative votes on that issue.
The Louisiana FOP also hired a lobbyist several years ago to represent our interest in Baton Rouge. Joe Mapes of Mapes and Mapes is the lobbyist for the Louisiana FOP and does an excellent job for us. Hopefully, Joe will be around to help us for quite a while.
You can also check on the Louisiana FOP’s legislative priorities on its website at www.louisianafop.com. In New Orleans, Crescent City Lodge #2 often discuss important legislative issues in its newsletters. If you are an FOP member who is interested in being part of the Legislative Committee for your Lodge or for the State Lodge, talk to your Lodge Officers and they should be able to fill you in.
This article contains profane language. If you are offended by profane language, you may want to skip this one. I do not want to offend anyone.
If you have never heard of Will Aitchison, he is an attorney who specializes in police (public safety) legal issues whose company, Labor Relations Information System (LRIS), is in the northwestern part of the United States. Will also puts on seminars for public safety employees, professionals, attorneys, etc. on important issues. For example, LRIS just put on a seminar titled the Advanced Course in Police Discipline and Public Safety Union Leadership in Las Vegas this past November (2023) and will put on a seminar titled Public Safety Union Leadership at the beginning of 2024 in Las Vegas. January and February are good months to be in Las Vegas. Will has also published a number of books, including Interest Arbitration, the Rights of Law Enforcement Officers, the FLSA, a User’s Manual, and other handy books. Finally, Will publishes a podcast once a month that can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasts can also be found on the LRIS website.
On December 7, 2023 Will published the December First Thursday Podcast. Click here for First Thursday on Apple Podcasts and click here for First Thursday on Google Podcasts. At the end of the December First Thursday Podcast (about the last 10 – 15 minutes), Will discusses a study on the use of the word “fuck” by police officers. It is worth reading. In my opinion, it is worth listening to Will talk about it and reading the actual study. Will included the link in his show notes. Click here to open “Fuck: The Police.”
I appreciate “Fuck: The Police.” I also appreciate Will for letting those of us who were unaware of the study know about it. There are many law enforcement agencies with policies seeking to forbid profanity altogether. The current policies represent a sea change from the previous notion of including profanity in what was known as “Verbal Judo” — a hands-off way of controlling a situation through words. “Verbal Judo” has fallen out of favor, and more agencies are opting to forbid profanity, which is often recorded on all the cameras law enforcement officers carry while working.
I have handled plenty of cases in different agencies for officers accused of using profanity in the course of an officer’s duties. In the New Orleans Police Department, if an officer uses profanity, it is a violation of Rule 2, Moral Conduct, Paragraph 2, Courtesy, which reads “Employees shall be courteous, civil and respectful in their conduct toward all persons. The use of profane, vulgar, or discourteous gestures or language to or in the presence of any citizen is prohibited. The use of profane, vulgar or discourteous gestures or language either verbal or written by one employee to another employee is prohibited.” Sometimes, they use Rule 3, Professional Conduct, Paragraph 1, Professionalism, which reads “Employees shall conduct themselves in a professional manner with the utmost concern for the dignity of the individual with whom they are interacting. Employees shall not unnecessarily inconvenience or demean any individual or otherwise act in a manner which brings discredit to the employee or the New Orleans Police Department.” Sometimes, an officer could end up charged with both violations, which seems like piling on to me. I represented an officer at a different agency who was charged with Conduct Unbecoming an Officer for using profanity in the car by himself. I have had several cases in New Orleans where officers were charged with one or both of the above violations for using profanity in a police car alone because it was recorded by the in-car camera and someone might see it, or it might have to be presented to a jury. It all seems pretty crazy.
Personally, I think an officer’s use of profanity can be appropriate. At the same time, I do not think officers should ever try to denigrate another person while acting on behalf of his or her agency. Officers should also refrain from attempting to (or successfully) belittle someone while he or she is off duty and there is a nexus between the officer’s action(s) and the officer’s employing agency — officers can be disciplined for that even if he or she is not working at the time.
Anyway, officers are adult men and women who live in our community. I believe they can tell the difference between when it is appropriate to use profane language. For example, it is appropriate to use profane language when the starting quarterback for the Saints is injured during a game. I also firmly believe that our adult police officers who live in our community know when they are too tired to do their jobs and need a nap. Telling officers they are not allowed to work more than 16 hours and 35 minutes in any 24-hour period is ridiculous. They know when they are too tired. I know that when I was a police officer, there were days when I had to work for 16 hours and then go home and pick up kids from school, go shopping, cook dinner, or do other work at home. All the policy really does is tell officers they can only be paid for 16 hours and 35 minutes per day.
To make matters worse, there is an adult who may or may not be a member of our community who is constantly requesting payroll records for our adult police officers and subsequently making complaints on our adult police officers for working too much. In the United States of America, we encourage hard workers. The vast majority of these complaints have been based on mistakes made by the officer, the officer’s supervisor, the Office of Police Secondary Employment, and other human beings. If there is one thing I am certain of, human beings regularly make mistakes and will continue to do so. I am also sure that the complaints being made on police officers every day about working off-duty paid details are about nothing but harassment and the investigations waste hours and hours of time of the officers required to investigate these unfounded, harassing complaints as well as the accused officer and any witness officers required to participate. Please stop wasting everyone’s time. Nobody is double-dipping or stealing from secondary employment employers. You are not an investigative reporter or any kind of watchdog.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a happy Holiday Season. Hopefully, next year will be better than this one. I am optimistic. Anyone looking to be a professional law enforcement officer should consider applying to the New Orleans Police Department. Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick is going to have the NOPD moving forward. Mayor LaToya Cantrell, CAO Gilbert Montaño, members of the New Orleans City Council, Director of Personnel Amy Trepagnier, the members of the New Orleans Civil Service Commission, the members of the Crescent City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, and others are working hard to make sure that NOPD officers are the best-paid officers who have the best equipment. There are also many opportunities available to officers. The NOPD is a big city police department in a medium-sized city that is growing. The NOPD has many different types of units for officers to work in and learn from. Many promotional opportunities will be available for years to come. It is a good time to come down to New Orleans to start your new career in law enforcement or continue your law enforcement career with the new lateral hire program instituted by Superintendent Kirkpatrick.
I hope you enjoy the study “Fuck: The Police.”
I know I ranted a little and definitely drifted off-topic above. I am going to assume that you, the reader, will grant me the rant and off-topic content. It took me at least an hour longer than I wanted to spend writing this because of it. For that, I apologize to my wife. Sorry – I love you.
It used to be a constant struggle for the Crescent City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police to convince the administration, whoever that happened to be at the time, that the men and women of the New Orleans Police Department deserved an opportunity to get this time-and-grade promotion, that the necessary functions were in place to make the promotions, and that making the promotions will have a positive effect on the retention of valued, veteran officers.
These days, we do not have to make those arguments. What we do have to do is remind our members — more than 92% of all NOPD employees — that in order to get promoted, they have responsibilities and that there are deadlines for doing those things.
This past Friday, Dawnella Adams of NOPD Human Resources sent a very informative email concerning SPO promotions via the NOPD.GOV email system. If you are an NOPD Police Officer seeking to be promoted to Senior Police Officer, please take the time to read over this important information. To read the full email sent by Ms. Adams, check your NOPD emails for Friday, November 3, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. Here are the highlights of that email:
Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick is proud to announce online training modules for the promotional position of Senior Police Officer.
Minimum qualification requirements for this application include:
*After the above requirements are met, CLICK HERE.
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER TRAINING PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS:
The Academy has formulated a SPO curriculum that will be delivered in a series of web-based training courses. Candidates are required to complete a total of five interactive courses offered by the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services – COPS Program). The VCPI “E-Learn Center” offers 24/7 access to these courses which include a variety of learning tools, multi-media segments, and exercises. Officers may access this training website on personal time from any computer with
Internet connectivity. The modules can be paused and resumed to the location where discontinued. Participants will be able to print a certificate of training upon successfully passing each course examination.
HERE ARE INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCESSING THE ON-LINE TRAINING (CORRECTED):
Eligible SPO candidates may CLICK HERE to access the VCPI website, CREATE AN ACCOUNT and REGISTER AS A NEW USER. Once registered, you’ll be able to access the Student Dashboard to view and register for Courses and to download evaluations and training certificates.
Upon accessing the E-Learn Center officers will be presented with a menu of 13 Events, Courses and Resources from which to choose. Officers should click on the button REGISTER MYSELF and BEGIN for each of the SPO required training modules listed below.
A tutorial on how to use the commands is provided initially and can be viewed at any time by clicking on the “help” button on the top right of the screen. Officers taking the courses must complete all pages and each tab/insert within each page to be eligible for the certification exam. If at any time you exit the modules, reentry will allow you to go back to the location where you left off.
SUBMITTAL OF TRAINING CERTIFICATES:
Upon completion of the modules and the course exams, you will be able to click on the final section to print the “Certificate.” The five completed certificates (in total) shall be personally delivered to the front desk receptionist at the Police Academy Monday through Friday between the hours of 8AM and 3PM.
DO NOT EMAIL CERTIFICATES.
If you experience any difficulties with the online training, contact Duane Johnson, Academy Curriculum Director, dujohnson@nola.gov .
The Fraternal Order of Police urges all eligible members to visit the VCPI E-Learning Center as soon as possible and to register for the required courses. Each course listed states the course is the 2023 version and lists an End-Date of 12/31/2023 at 11:59pm. We are not sure if that is an actual end-date for course availability, but will check and report back to members.
Here is an outline of the SPO Curriculum as provided in Ms. Adams nopd.gov email:
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER TRAINING PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS:
The Academy has formulated a SPO curriculum that will be delivered in a series of web-based training courses. Candidates are required to complete a total of five interactive courses offered by the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services – COPS Program). The VCPI “E-Learn Center” offers 24/7 access to these courses, which include a variety of learning tools, multi-media segments, and exercises. Officers may access this training website on personal time from any computer with Internet connectivity. The modules can be paused and resumed at the location where they were discontinued. Participants will be able to print a certificate of training upon successfully passing each course examination.
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER CURRICULUM:
I. ETHICAL DECISION MAKING: POLICING WITH PRINCIPLED INSIGHT
Synopsis – EDM explores the practice of decision-making and the ethical principles that support effective policing. EDM stresses that police ethics are not just an afterthought or a means of discouraging bad behavior, with public trust integrity and liability hinging on each and every decision. Ethics are a controlling insight that informs and guides police practitioners from an internal personal capacity while exploring realistic modern-day challenges faced in the policing profession.
Run Time: 2 hours Completion Time: 4 hours
II. COMMUNITY POLICING DEFINED
Synopsis – Provides participants with a basic awareness and understanding of the fundamental principles and best practices of community policing. Describes the practice of community policing while also examining how it can be effectively applied. The course explores partnerships, problem-solving, and organizational transformation as they relate to specific issues and challenges facing today’s law enforcement professionals and the communities they serve.
Run Time: 4 hours Completion Time: 8 hours
III. COMMUNITY POLICING: IMPROVING POLICE EFFICACY AND BUILDING TRUST
Synopsis – Explores how emerging issues necessitate a commitment to the key components of community policing: partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem-solving. The course includes an examination of the current state of policing—locally and nationally— addressing the current and emerging issues that challenge the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies and the well-being of the communities they serve. CPIPEBT challenges participants to explore the principles and practices of community policing as a means of achieving the public safety mission with greater efficiency by gaining and maintaining public trust and engaging the community in the shared responsibility of effective policing.
Run Time: 3 hours Completion Time: 6 hours
IV. PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING: THE SARA MODEL
Synopsis – Provides participants with a basic awareness and understanding of the fundamental principles of a common approach used by many community policing agencies to identify and solve repeat crime and community problems: the SARA model. The SARA model allows agencies to scan through multiple data sources, conduct a thorough analysis of a problem through the lens of the crime triangle, formulate a response, and continuously assess the impact of the response to the problem.
Run Time: 1 hour Completion Time: 2 hours
V. CRIME REDUCTION: ENFORCEMENT AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES
Synopsis – Designed to provide participants with an overview of best practices for crime reduction, including guidelines for implementing an organizational model for crime reduction at all levels within a police department. The course offers useful strategies for problem-solving in order to develop immediate, short-term, and long-term responses to crime within a community.
Run Time: 2 hours Completion Time: 4 hours
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ONLINE TRAINING:
Eligible SPO candidates shall access the VCPI website at VCPI (vcpionline.org) and click on the “LOG-IN” screen. From there, click on the “CREATE AN ACCOUNT” heading to register as a new user.
Upon access to the E-Learn Center, you will be prompted to a menu in the left corner titled “STUDENT DASHBOARD,” from there access the “VIEW/REGISTER FOR COURSES” and then click “REGISTER MYSELF” to take each of the SPO required training modules.
A tutorial on how to use the commands is provided initially and can be viewed at any time by clicking on the “help” button on the top right of the screen. The modules are sequential and cannot be opened out of order. Officers taking the courses must complete all pages and each tab/insert within each page to be eligible for the certification exam. If you exit the modules at any time, reentry will allow you to go back to the location where you left off.
SUBMITTAL OF TRAINING CERTIFICATES:
Upon completion of the modules and the course exams, you will be able to click on the final section to print the “Certificate.” The five completed certificates (in total) shall be personally delivered to the front desk receptionist at the Police Academy Monday through Friday between the hours of 8AM and 3PM. DO NOT EMAIL CERTIFICATES.
If you experience any difficulties with the online training, contact Duane Johnson, Academy Curriculum Director, dujohnson@nola.gov.
Dawnella Adams, B.S., M.A
Management Development Analyst I
New Orleans Police Department
Human Resources
715 South Broad St.
1st Floor
New Orleans, LA 70119
(504) 658-5400
deadams@nola.gov
Click here for the promotion list put together by the New Orleans Civil Service Department for the classification of Police Sergeant (.pdf). To download the list, right-click on the link and choose “Save As” and tell the computer where to save the .pdf document. This list is based solely on scores from the Police Sergeant promotional exam administered by the New Orleans Civil Service Department in 2023, Please keep in mind that current procedures call for the application of CAO Policy Memo 143(R). I won’t get started on that here, but other articles address CAO Policy Memo 143(R) here on Signal108.
I received several calls from members of NOPD Class 196 regarding State Pay. During their application process, members of Class 196 had been told that the City of New Orleans would be paying them the State Supplemental Pay for Law Enforcement during the initial period where the State does not pay State Supplemental Pay to new police officers. This information had been passed on to members of NOPD Class 196 by the Recruitment Division during the background investigation portion of the onboarding procedures.
I made several inquiries on behalf of the members of Class 196 about the status of these payments. The following is the information I received from both the NOPD and the New Orleans Civil Service Department:
The NOPD, the Civil Service Department, and the New Orleans Finance Department’s ADP Liaison are working on the matter. They are apparently waiting on new programming from ADP that would allow the payments to be made. It sounds like the ADP programming is necessary for several reasons and will constitute a significant upgrade to the ADP software.
Apparently, this programming is necessary to process the payments that the members of Class 196 were asking about. I will advise of any new information I receive in this regard.
If you log in to WordPress and subscribe to this blog (Signal108), you will be notified by email of any new articles posted. That way, you will not miss any new information.
This blog post is specifically for law enforcement officers who are members of FOP Crescent City Lodge #2 and who work in Louisiana. There may be benefits available to law enforcement officers who are not members of Crescent City Lodge #2 or who do not work in Louisiana. However, the benefits I refer to will be benefits specifically available to members of the Fraternal Order of Police Crescent City Lodge #2 and the law will refer to the law in Louisiana.
Members of the FOP Crescent City Lodge #2 get 2 hours of legal services to use any way they desire or need every year. In addition, members of Crescent City Lodge #2 are entitled to a benefit of up to $500 per year for family law. That means that most members of the FOP Crescent City Lodge #2 have these two benefits available to them. Using these benefits, I can usually prepare a Last Will and Testament, a Living Will, a Power of Attorney, and a Durable Health Care Power of Attorney for our members with no out-of-pocket cost to the Crescent City Lodge #2 member.
I often get calls from members of the FOP Crescent City Lodge #2 who ask if I can do a Living Will for them. The answer is almost always “Yes.” But, I know they are not usually really looking for a Living Will. They are usually looking for a Last Will and Testament. The good news is I can do both and I can usually do both with no out-of-pocket cost to the Crescent City Lodge #2 member.
So, what is a Living Will? A Living Will is a declaration relative to your desires as to what medical professionals will do if the person executing the Living Will is sick or injured to the point that two physicians, one being your treating physician, agree that the declarant is sick or injured to the point that they will never come back and the machines you are attached to in the hospital would only serve to artificially extend your life. The declarant also has to make a decision about what they would like the medical professionals to do regarding nutrition and hydration.
A Last Will and Testament contains your instructions as to how you want your property distributed at the time of your death. Of course, it is not quite that simple, but that is why you have a lawyer advise you on the creation of this document. This is almost always what people are looking for when they call to ask about a Living Will.
I also give the Crescent City Lodge #2 member the option of executing a General Power of Attorney and a Durable Health Care Power of Attorney. These documents essentially pass on the authority to make decisions on your behalf. The General Power of Attorney pretty much covers all aspects of your life and the Durable Health Care Power of Attorney is specific to health care.
What happens in Louisiana if you die without having a Last Will and Testament? All of your separate property (as opposed to community property) is divided evenly among your children. Your surviving spouse, if there is one, gets usufruct over the property that was divided evenly among your children. I’m going to save the explanation of usufruct for another day. The General Power of Attorney and the Durable Health Care Power of Attorney lose their authority when the person who executed those documents passes. The Living Will also fails to have any meaning once the declarant has died.
Most Crescent City Lodge #2 members have both of these benefits available to them — the personal legal benefit and the family law benefit. If you want to create these documents or revise one or more of these documents that have already been done, call me. It is usually not difficult to find my telephone number. You can also email me at dlivaccari at gmail.com. I can also be reached at dliva at protonmail.com, which has end-to-end encryption.
If you want a ProtonMail account so you too can take advantage of end-to-end encryption, click here.
As I mentioned at the top of this article, the personal legal benefit and the family law benefit are benefits that are particular to the FOP Crescent City Lodge and the law my statements were based on came from Louisiana. However, if you do not have the personal legal or the family law benefit, I can still discount a Last Will and Testament, Living Will, General Power of Attorney, and Durable Health Care Power of Attorney. Furthermore, if you are not in Louisiana, your state is probably similar, but you would be better off getting the work done in your state.
As the great Mark Twain once wrote, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone whose call I missed or whose text I was unable to return. I suffered some unexpected medical issues, but I am back in the saddle and available to whoever might need me.
Please do not hesitate to call about any investigations, questions, or legal matters. Take advantage of the FOP’s Legal Defense Plan. I look forward to hearing from you!
Donovan
On March 3, 2023, the members of the New Orleans Civil Service Commission had their monthly meeting. On March 11, 2022, the Civil Service Commission approved some lump sum payments to police personnel in order to improve Retention and Recruitment. This also applied to the incentives for NOFD and NOEMS.
In order to be certain the payments were legal, the Civil Service Commission sought an opinion from the Attorney General. The Attorney General ruled favorably on the payments, but, generally, decisions based on an Attorney General’s Opinion delay the effectiveness of the item until the date of the positive ruling, which was received in July 2023.
In this case, the Fraternal Order of Police was very concerned that if the payments were pushed back to July 23, 2023, it would seriously impact the employees’ confidence in the administration’s reliability as it relates to promises it makes. In its Opinion, the Attorney General stated that the Civil Service Commission could revise its motion to March 11, 2022, so that the City Council could approve the change to March 11, 2022, and the payments could be made by March 11, 2023.
The Civil Service Commission received a letter from Councilman Joe Giuruso requesting the Civiil Service Commission consider a revision of the motion to change the effective date to March 11, 2022, so the Council could approve the change and the checks can be cut on March 11, 2023.
The Civil Service Commission unanimously voted to add the measure to the agenda and then unanimously voted to make the revision. The Council will consider the revision at its earliest opportunity and we will advise you when the checks will be issued.
The Fraternal Order of Police would like to to thank the New Orleans Civil Service Commission, Councilman Joe Giurusso, the New Orleans City Council. Mayor LaToya Cantrell, CAO Gilbert Montaño, and Superintendent Michelle Woodfork for making this a priority.
Signal 108 