The New Orleans Police Department can begin winding down its longstanding federal oversight, a judge ruled Tuesday in response to a request from the city and the Justice Department to start wrapping up the monitoring program.
In 2013, the City of New Orleans agreed to what it called “the nation’s most expansive” federal oversight plan after a U.S. Justice Department investigation found evidence of racial bias, misconduct and a culture of impunity. The department had long engaged in mistreatment of the city’s Black community and been plagued by high-profile scandals including a 1994 murder ordered by a corrupt cop and an attempt to cover-up police killings of unarmed civilians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
