Judge: New Orleans police reforms at risk as manpower falls

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A day after New Orleans officials asked that the city’s police department be removed from federal oversight under a decade-old court order, the judge in the case said she fears hard-fought reforms are at risk. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan stressed Wednesday that she was not commenting on the city’s motion to end the “consent decree” that imposed reform requirements on the department in 2013. A hearing on that motion hasn’t even been scheduled yet. But at Wednesday’s status hearing on the reform pact, Morgan issued orders for increased scrutiny of areas including the supervision of crime reporting, officers’ off-duty security jobs and the office that helps officers deal with mental health problems.