NEW ORLEANS — In one of the biggest hiring decisions in recent city history, six semi-finalists vying to be the next permanent Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department will be interviewed by a panel of 18 “stakeholders” during marathon assessment meetings Thursday and Friday.
The city has acknowledged that interim Chief Michelle Woodfork, who has led the department since late December, is one of the semi-finalists. Here is the complete list.
- Michelle Woodfork, Interim Chief, NOPD
- Jarad Phelps, Prince William County, VA
- Deputy Chief of Police in Prince William County
- Went to the FBI Academy
- Thedrick Andres, chief, Henderson County, Nevada
- Police Chief Henderson Police Department.
- 31 years of law enforcement experience in corrections and municipal policing with Louisiana State Penitentiary, New Orleans Police Department, Arlington (TX) Police Department and currently,
- Graduate of the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Leadership Development Program,
- Member of IACP
- DeShawn Beaufort, Philadelphia Chief of Detectives
- 22 years of experience in law enforcement, patrol and investigations with the Philadelphia Police Department, including - Commanding Officer assigned to one of the highest crime areas in the city.
- Current Inspector at Philadelphia Police Department
- David Franklin, former Chief of Staff, Albuquerque, NM Police
- 27 years of supervisory-level experience
- Former Chief of Staff, Albuquerque Police
- Anne Kirkpatrick, Oakland, Ca. Former Police Chief
- In law enforcement since 1982.
- Served in eight departments, four of them as Chief of Police - most recently Former Chief of Police of Oakland, CA.
- Graduate of the FBI National Academy, The FBI National Executive Institute and the FBI's Law Enforcement Executive Development School
- Licensed attorney.
The search process, directed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police under a $90,000 contract with the city, is expected to produce a short list for Mayor LaToya Cantrell to determine her choice to the lead the department.
But in a new wrinkle, Cantrell’s choice will then have to get approval from a majority of the City Council under the first-ever use of a confirmation process approved by voters in November.
The choice of a new chief comes at a critical time of persistent crime, a decade-long federal consent decree and a police force depleted to its lowest number of officers in modern history.
The IACP search drew 33 candidates, considered to be a very low number for the high-profile big city police chief’s job that will come with a salary expected to top $300,000 a year.
The modest number of applicants could reflect the ongoing burdens of the consent decree and the fact that Cantrell is in the middle of her second term in office and sometimes at odds with the City Council, former NOPD Superintendent and IACP member Ronal Serpas said.
“That’s an incredibly low number which would demonstrate that people are making decisions to not engage in the process,” Serpas said. “There are 18,000 police departments, almost 100 of them are major cities…I don’t think anybody can look at the relationship of the New Orleans Council and the New Orleans mayor as being a bunch of friends all working in the same direction around crime.”
“I think also, and this has nothing to do with Mayor Cantrell personally, she’s in the second half of her last term,” Serpas noted.
The next step in the process will unfold over a full day Thursday and half day Friday when the candidates make presentations and answer questions posed by the 18 stakeholders.
The panelists, according to City Hall, are divided into internal stakeholders from the administration and external stakeholders from segments of the community.
The internal stakeholders:
- Donesia Turner, city attorney
- Roman Nelson, New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent
- Clifton Davis, chief of staff and executive counsel
- Gilbert Montano, CAO
- John Thomas, head of homeland security
- Tenisha Stevens, criminal justice coordinator
- Christina Hamilton, assistant CAO human resources
The external stakeholders:
- Sunni LeBoeuf, former city Attorney under Mayor Cantrell
- Paul Flower, president of Woodward Construction
- Col. Lamar Davis, Louisiana State Police Superintendent
- Donovan Livaccari, attorney Fraternal Order of Police
- Pastor Fred Luter, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church
- James Cook, general manager Sheraton New Orleans
- James “Jay” Lapeyre, New Orleans business leader, President of Laitram LLC
- Eric Hessler, Police Association of New Orleans
- Paul Mitchell, Black Organization of Police
- Louis Colin, former NOPD officer and New Orleans McDonald’s franchise owner
The panel has been somewhat fluid, with representatives from PANO and BOP added at last week after they emailed City Hall to request participation.
Meanwhile, the Office of Independent Police Monitor criticized the panel for not including community members who “work with vulnerable populations who may be targeted by law enforcement, advocacy organizations who represent survivors of crime,” as well as the District Attorney and Public Defenders offices.
“This list is a missed opportunity and could have better represented and more meaningfully engaged the people of our city in this important selection,” Police Monitor Stella Cziment wrote.
The last two police chiefs – Michael Harrison and Shaun Ferguson –were in-house selections, bypassing any type of external search. But following the extreme challenges that have hit the NOPD since Cantrell hand-picked Ferguson as chief in January 2019, everyone from the City Council to the city’s Inspector General called for a national search.