New Orleans insists its police department is ready to end federal oversight. Not all are convinced

Associated Press/Report for America

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Police Department, plagued for decades by corruption, is pushing to finally end more than a decade of federal oversight. Department critics are expected to voice opposition to lifting court-ordered federal oversight at a public hearing Tuesday, raising concerns over racial disparities in use of force and unsolved rape cases. Whether federal oversight meaningfully changed the NOPD is particularly relevant as a cadre of high-ranking former NOPD officers and one of the lawyers overseeing the consent decree are now responsible for managing a state-level reform plan for the Minneapolis police department in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.