An uptick in police shootings this year in New Orleans prompted the New Orleans Police Department to issue a statement this week “to assure the public” that in each scenario “our officers were left with no alternative” than to shoot.
Internal investigations into four NOPD-officer involved shootings this year in which a civilian was shot or killed, however, are still ongoing, NOPD spokesman Aaron Looney said Friday (June 21).
Six NOPD officer-involved shooting incidents in as many months in 2019 have resulted in the deaths of three civilians; injuries to three NOPD officers; and injuries to at least five civilians, including three bystanders.
NOPD’s statement, emailed to media on Wednesday, came on the heels of the latest gunfire exchange between officers and civilians. No one was killed in Monday’s shootout at the Prytania Street CVS, but an officer and two suspects were shot. All are expected to recover.
CVS police shootout suspects detained employees with zip ties, filled trash bag with pills: NOPD
The NOPD has improved its strategies related to use of force, NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said in the statement, but added, “it is unfortunate that the nature of our work sometimes forces a confrontation with those intent on harming others.”
NOPD’s policy on deadly use of force, and most other departmental policies, have been rewritten in recent years with the guidance of federal consent decree monitors. Many of the new policies are purposefully aligned with what’s considered national best practices in policing.
Including 26-year-old Richard Sansbury and 18-year-old Alan Parson, the men suspected of robbing the Uptown CVS and shooting at officers on Monday, eight civilians have been shot by NOPD officers this year.
There were no NOPD officer-involved shootings last year, a fact the Office of the Independent Police Monitor publicly praised.
The total number of civilians shot by police in 2019 includes three men who were fatally shot by police in separate incidents after police said those men initiated gunfire with officers: Zonell Williams, 33; Reginald Bursey, 32; and Donald Davis Jr., 40. Police have released video showing each of the encounters.
Footage shows man killed by NOPD fired first, told officers, ‘Shoot me’
The count of civilians shot by police in 2019 also includes three bystanders police believe were accidentally shot by officers the night Bursey was killed after he initiated a shootout with officers, police said. He started shooting as officers, who recognized him as a person of interest in armed robberies, approached him on Canal Street.
In one of the six NOPD-involved shooting incidents, an officer was the only person struck by gunfire when a gun went off as the officer struggled with an armed man inside a Mid-City gas station last April. In another, an officer returned gunfire during a standoff at a Gentilly home on Mardi Gras Day, but no one was struck. An officer also was struck by gunfire, and was expected to recover, in the Jan. 4 shooting that ended in Williams’ death.
“While the spike in shootings thus far in 2019 may seem concerning to some, we want to assure our citizens that the facts surrounding each of these incidents clearly demonstrate our officers were left with no alternative when faced with a split second decision involving armed suspects,” the statement says.
The Office of the Independent Police Monitor, which New Orleans voters in 2008 opted to create and fund, issued its own statement Thursday saying the “sudden uptick,” in police shootings requires “deeper analysis,” even if the increase is not the fault of police.
While it’s “wholly possible” each police shooting followed NOPD policy, “those decisions have not been made yet,” Chief Monitor Tonya McClary said in the statement, a likely reference to the fact the internal probes into the shootings are still open.
Ferguson referred to NOPD’s deadly use of force policies, as “among the best in the country,” and attributed the policies in part to NOPD’s Use of Force Review Board.
The use of force review board, whose voting members are comprised of top NOPD administrators, probes each serious use of force as part of the investigation and discipline process, but also analyzes uses of force to recommend training for individual officers or the entire department.
After each of the fatal police-involved shootings, police publicly released body-camera or surveillance video evidence. The footage appeared to show Williams, Bursey and Davis fired at officers before the officers returned fire during the respective incidents in January, February and May. In the latter two fatal shootings, Ferguson said responding officers had little to no other option than to shoot.
Former superintendent Michael Harrison, who left NOPD in January to become the Baltimore Police Department’s commissioner, relayed the same message regarding the fatal shooting of Williams.
The mental health of Williams and Davis likely played a role in the fatal encounters, officials have said. A reduction of mental health services over the last several years in Louisiana has placed an increased burden on law enforcement, making them the de facto first responders to mental health crises.
NOPD leaders said they believe three of the five bystanders wounded as part of the Feb. 17 police shootout with Bursey were accidentally struck by NOPD gunfire. Bursey shot one of the bystanders, and it is unclear who shot a fifth bystander, police said. Video showed Bursey firing at officers seconds after spotting them, then running down Elk Place near Canal Street -- an RTA bus and streetcar transit hub -- while firing at officers, who then returned fire.
Another police-involved shooting this year in New Orleans involved Louisiana State Police, not NOPD. A trooper shot Eric Kullander, who was driving the wrong way down Bourbon Street, on May 30. Kullander was drunk -- his blood alcohol content was tested at five times the legal limit -- when he refused to stop after troopers ordered him to do so, and was heading toward pedestrians, the agency said. NOPD policy does not permit officers to shoot into moving cars. State Police has typically not released its written enforcement policies, citing safety concerns.
An affidavit of probable cause sworn by an NOPD sergeant states Monday’s shootout happened as Sansbury and Parson were leaving the CVS with a trash bag full of stolen prescription drugs after detaining two employees with zip ties. Sansbury and Parson were booked into jail Monday and Tuesday, respectively, after being treated at a hospital. Each faces three counts of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer, two counts of false imprisonment with a weapon and one count of armed robbery with a firearm.
The affidavit does not expressly say if either Sansbury, Parson or any of the three officers at the scene fired their gun first.
NOPD said its Force Investigation Team within the Public Integrity Bureau is working closely with the police monitors’ office, federal consent decree monitors and the FBI to ensure transparency of all its officer-involved shooting investigations. Federal monitors who happened to be in New Orleans related to the consent decree on Monday were present at the crime scene that spanned Prytania Street between Robert and Upperline streets.
NOPD has been operating under a consent decree since 2013 to correct a pattern of civil rights abuses that included fatal shootings of unarmed civilians and coverups that followed the deaths.
https://www.nola.com
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