New Orleans PD Hiring 50-75 Civilians to “Reduce Some of the Workload” Belonging to Existing Officers

I have a bad feeling about this…

The New Orleans Police Department will be hiring 50-75 civilians to help relieve some of the pressure on existing officers. Why? Well… a lot of them are quitting because… you know… half the country pretty much told them to go jump off somewhere.

From the Daily Caller:

New Orleans, Louisiana, is adding dozens of civilian employees to its police department amid an ongoing staffing crisis, according to police.

The New Orleans Police Department is hiring 50 to 75 civilians amid a staffing crisis to reduce the workload on officers and decrease the police response time, NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said in a Thursday press conference. Civilians will respond to calls that do not require police presence and answer the phones and take some of the workload from administrative police officers, and some civilians will be trained to take over detective work, according to Ferguson.

The department has determined that several categories of calls to police will no longer require actual police officers to respond and can be dealt with by civilians, including medical calls, loose animals, auto accidents on private property, forgery calls and some theft, according to WDSU 6.

New Orleans was the murder capital of the U.S. for the first half of 2022, with homicides up 46% from the prior year and 141% from 2019, according to WDSU 6.

“The goal of all of this is to make our officers feel safe so that they can make our citizens and visitors feel safe,” Ferguson said. “This is also to reduce some of the workload currently placed on our patrol and district personnel. But more importantly this is designed to reduce response time and address the backlogs in which we have in some of our districts.”

New Orleans is a hole. Is anyone denying that at this point? They literally just took the crown from St. Louis for murder capital of the country.

So… is hiring a bunch of randos to go pick up evidence from crime scenes and respond to medical calls really the best move? With homicide rates at their current level, I don’t envision this ending well for anyone…

Of course, this whole thing kinda hinges on the fact that someone will actually apply for the position. I have the sneaking suspicion these openings aren’t going to be as coveted as the NOPD hopes they will be…

While I feel the tiniest bit sorry for New Orleans (because I went there pre-covid and think the WWII museum is AWESOME), they’re living with the consequences of their own actions. When you have Democrat leaders (like their lovely mayor) that support defunding the police, you can’t turn around and wonder why crime rates are sky-high.

Police in general aren’t the issue. It’s the quality of officer training (of course, there has to be room for a small margin of error here, but on the whole that’s where the root of the issue lies).

That makes this story all the more ironic. The underlying problem is poorly trained personnel, and what solution is the city offering? Hire more poorly trained personnel (just without the badge this time).

Sounds great…

Another great example of how Dem policies turn once-great cities into flaming piles of garbage. Junk policies that don’t really affect the leaders themselves, of course. Why fly coach when you can fly first-class, am I right?

A couple of confederate statues got torn down, though… because that was gonna fix everything, remember? How are we doing now, NOLA?