New Orleans, US Justice Department move to end police department’s consent decree

Associated Press/Report for America

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans and the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion Friday in federal court to take steps to end long-standing federal oversight of the city’s police department. The city and the federal government had agreed to a reform pact for the New Orleans Police Department known as a consent decree in 2013, two years after a Department of Justice investigation found evidence of racial bias and misconduct from the city’s police. If U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan approves the motion, the city and its police department will have two more years under federal oversight to show they are complying with reform measures enacted during the consent decree before it is lifted.