NEW ORLEANS — For the second time in a year, New Orleans Police Officer Jeffrey Vappie has been removed from Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s executive security detail.
The NOPD confirmed Wednesday that Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick administratively re-assigned Vappie pending the results of an internal investigation.
The probe was sparked by photographs of Vappie sitting across from the mayor on the balcony of a French Quarter restaurant on the late afternoon of Sun., April 7.
The non-profit Metropolitan Crime Commission submitted a formal letter of complaint based on the pictures and the city has since decided to let an outside agency handle the sensitive probe.
Vappie was given two letters of reprimand after last year’s internal investigation for his questionable hours and duties on the security detail.
Among the questions raised by the MCC in its recent complaint are whether Vappie had permission from a ranking supervisor to sit with the mayor, whether he was given preferential treatment over other officers on her security team, and whether he breached security protocol by his positioning at a balcony table with his back turned to entrance and exit doors.
“If he's seated at the table, he doesn’t know what's approaching the mayor from behind him,” MCC President Rafael Goyeneche said.
Through a public records request, WWL Louisiana confirmed that Vappie was on duty on April 7, as was another officer, Larry Dace.
An NOPD spokesperson confirmed that Vappie has been transferred to desk duty until the investigation is complete.
When Vappie was investigated last year, the probe was handled by the Public Integrity Bureau. PIB was slammed by the monitors overseeing the NOPD’s 12-year-old federal consent decree for straying from normal procedures during the probe, concerns that were echoed in a blistering ruling from U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan.
But Morgan stopped short of issuing sanctions against the NOPD after Kirkpatrick submitted a “remedial action plan” to improve PIB’s handling of such sensitive cases.
Independent Police Monitor Stella Cziment, who operates outside of the federal oversight, said that both the executive security detail and PIB should have learned lessons from the first Vappie probe.
“Supervision and adherence to policy should have increased in light of everything that was brought to the court's attention,” Cziment said.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.