NEW ORLEANS — A former New Orleans police commander who became a symbol of rampant under-the-radar brutality and the department’s one-time nonchalant attitude toward repeat offenders is back in trouble with the law decades after his behavior got him fired.
Christopher Maurice, now 72 and long-departed from the NOPD, was booked July 15 with felony aggravated assault for allegedly pulling a gun on a bicyclist who took issue with how the former police lieutenant was driving.
A police report states that the bicyclist took offense at Maurice driving close behind him and veering into a bike lane on St. Bernard Avenue back in May.
An arrest warrant for Maurice said that the two got into an argument. During the argument, the victim made a 'rude gesture' towards Maurice which resulted in the former NOPD officer brandishing a handgun and pointing it at the victim.
The bicyclist took a photo of Maurice’s license plate, the warrant stated, and later identified the former veteran officer out of a photo lineup.
The alleged road rage incident echoes more than a dozen complaints that were lodged against Maurice at a time when he was commander of the department’s inspection division, responsible for making sure other officers followed policy on everything from dress code to off-duty details.
In the 1990s, the complaints alleging physical or verbal abuse by Maurice routinely went nowhere.
That is, until he was booked with battery in two separate cases in which motorists accused him of brutality during traffic stops. Around the same time, he also was suspended for getting into a fight with a fellow officer.
While the battery charges were handled as misdemeanors in Municipal Court, one led to a conviction that ultimately cost Maurice his job.
In that case, he was accused of pulling over a local radio personality and smashing his face into the hood of a police car.
Far more serious cases of police wrongdoing among NOPD officers – including cases of murder, rape and robbery that drew national headlines – ultimately led the 2012 consent decree that remains in place today.
That federal oversight, which also brought body cameras to the department, has made brutality complaints in the present-day NOPD relatively rare.
In the recent case against Maurice, he was freed after posting a $10,000 bail. His defense attorneys Jeffrey Hufft and Cristy Guzman declined to comment.
