NEW ORLEANS — There are still a lot of questions about how the NOPD handled the investigation into the car crash involving former White House adviser Cedric Richmond and his son.
Richmond ran his two-seater Mercedes off the road on Claiborne Avenue in April, and while police noted slurred speech from him at the scene, Richmond was never tested for DWI. The lead investigator, Senior Police Officer Mark Miranda, never determined what caused the former Congressman to crash.
A closer look at the timeline of the NOPD’s handling of the incident on the night of April 23 provides a window on how the investigation unfolded.
8:42 p.m.
Surveillance video from a city of New Orleans, real-time crime camera shows Richmond veering off the road, hitting a tree with no other cars around.
8:46 p.m.
911 call logs document the first call to emergency services about the crash.
“A car going up Claiborne Avenue just hit a tree. He may need EMS,” the caller tells 911, “When I turned around, I saw the car had hit a tree…Some people just came and they got him out the vehicle and he’s sittin’ right here on the corner curb.”
The call taker marks it as an accident with injuries on the incident log obtained by WWLTV through a public records request.
9:00 p.m.
Less than 20 minutes after the crash happened, an NOPD dispatcher noted that the city’s real-time crime camera network had captured video footage of the crash.
Officer Miranda would later note in his crash report that he used the footage to confirm no other cars were around when Richmond hit the tree.
9:01 p.m.
Officer Miranda walks around to the back of the New Orleans EMS ambulance to talk with Cedric Richmond. The move was captured on Miranda’s department-issued body worn camera. In the video, a New Orleans EMS Emergency Medical Technician comes up to Miranda and tells him Richmond wants him to “come grab his ID out of his pocket.” That’s when Miranda approaches the back of the ambulance and the video stops.
City attorneys did not release video of Miranda’s conversation with Richmond, but they did release an audio recording of it.
When the video resumes, Miranda gets in his unit to work on the crash report.
The body camera footage shows a number of people at the scene, but their names and their statements are not formally documented in the crash report.
An unidentified man asks Miranda, "Ike Spears just called me. They say they have a tow truck. Do you have to tow it?"
Miranda responds that the NOPD has to tow it. Spears is a high-profile New Orleans attorney and political advisor to Richmond.
9:22 p.m.
Dispatch records note a towing company is called by NOPD to remove the car from the scene.
9:56 p.m.
The body worn camera time stamp indicates Officer Miranda left the crash scene just before 10pm.
10:01 p.m.
The video indicates Miranda pulled up on the Emergency ramp at University Medical Center a short time after leaving the scene. The hospital is just a few blocks away from where the crash happened.
12:43 p.m.
Two hours and 43 minutes after Miranda arrived at UMC, dispatch noted a status check on Miranda, but he didn’t respond.
1:12 a.m.
The dispatch records indicate Miranda radioed in that he was still at UMC working on the Richmond crash investigation.
1:43 a.m.
The records indicate dispatchers marked the incident closed.
Based on the timeline laid out in police records, anywhere from 1 to 4 hours and 42 minutes passed between the time officer Miranda first spoke with Richmond, noting his slurred speech in the ambulance, to Miranda’s second conversation with Richmond at the hospital when the officer noted Richmond's speech was no longer slurred.
Officer Miranda described Richmond in the crash report as being in "…a dazed, disoriented state," noting that Richmond told him, “He could not remember any details regarding the crash."
The incident records do not document a call to the NOPD’s DWI Unit, and a spokesperson for the NOPD confirms that call was never made.
Miranda said he didn't have the reasonable suspicion to investigate Richmond for DWI because he did not detect the odor of alcohol on Richmond's breath or in the car, which police body camera video shows had its roof ripped off.
“I think it would give any officer enough reason to call a supervisor and ask for advice, to call for a DWI specialist to ask for advice,” said former NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas, who is now a consultant and Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Loyola University New Orleans.
Serpas was one of a number of policing experts WWL-TV and the Times Picayune spoke with about the Richmond crash investigation. Many of those experts said officers have a lot of discretion in situations like the one involving Richmond.
Former Covington Police Chief Tim Lentz said the facts of the case indicate Miranda had more than just reasonable suspicion to investigate.
“He's got all a probable cause in the world,” Lentz said.
Probable cause is a higher standard of proof involving objective circumstances and evidence that is needed for police to move forward with a criminal investigation. It is required for police to get search warrants, for example. Reasonable suspicion is a step below that when it appears to the investigating officer that a crime may have been committed.
The records WWL-TV received from the city of New Orleans did not document a call from Miranda to his supervisor, but the NOPD said Miranda did, in fact, contact his lieutenant, Lt. Salvatore Caronna.
“This single-vehicle crash with injury was not considered to be a major incident. As such, Lt. Caronna was not required to notify any higher rank and did not do so. Officer Miranda contacted Lt. Caronna as a higher rank to ensure that he was conducting his initial investigation accordingly,” the NOPD said in a statement.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell backed the NOPD’s handling of the crash after WWL-TV and the Times Picayune first reported on it.
“What I know is my officers responded according to policy and procedure, and that's what I'll say about it," said Cantrell. "I'm not about being biased."
Serpas said he thinks there should be an internal investigation into it in order to determine if, in fact, they did follow policy.
“Given what I know and what I've read as the superintendent, I would require an investigation of the conduct to ensure that it, in fact, was complete, because I think there's too many questions to know if it was,” Serpas said.
Several of the experts said the NOPD and Officer Miranda had a duty to do more to fully investigate the crash in order to determine what caused it.
“There is still evidence probably out there. There's probably a chip in that car that will tell me exactly how fast was going. There's probably hospital records that show if he was intoxicated or not. Did he have drugs in his system? Those records are available. It could still be done,” Lentz said.
The NOPD said the department’s policy is only to pull the car’s crash recording chip in crashes where someone dies and again, the department’s spokesperson said Miranda determined he didn’t even have the reasonable suspicion to ask Richmond if he had been drinking, so they did not get a warrant for his hospital records.