Families of relatives killed by NOPD officers gather to remember
Jasmine Groves stood Saturday on a 9th Ward street where her mother was shot and killed nearly two decades ago by a hit man acting on the orders of a crooked New Orleans cop. Clutching a tambourine, she joined the beat of the Red Hawk Hunters, the Mardi Gras Indian tribe her mother was a part of before she was executed.
...Jasmine Groves joins the Red Hawk Hunters at the Lower 9th Ward corner where her mother was shot and killed in 1994. Katherine Sayre / The Times-Picayune, NOLA.com
"She's living through us," Groves said of her mother. "We're going to keep her alive."
Kim Groves, then 32, had filed a police brutality complaint against Len Davis, a veteran cop who ran a drug racket with police colleagues. The complaint incensed Davis, and he wanted her dead. His cohort, Paul Hardy, carried out the slaying on Oct. 14, 1994, one of the most infamous killings involving New Orleans police...
...Some families have seen former police officers sent to prison for the killings. In Kim Groves' case, Davis is on death row and Hardy is serving life in prison...
...The NOPD is preparing to enter into a historic, four-year consent decree with the federal government that will overhaul the way the agency operates, taking aim at a long history of civil rights abuses, corruption and faulty oversight...
New Orleans PD hit rock bottom later on when Annette Frank murdered her own partner and several other people at the restaurant she worked at (she and her accomplice are currently on death row). The city finally realized they needed to clean the force up and there has been progress made. Hopefully something like this never reoccurs.
It is my understanding that NOPD tends to look for recruits outside the greater New Orleans area. I once talked to an officer who was from up north somewhere who stayed at a motel in Slidell during his time in whatever training academy NOLA has/uses.
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up in the general area, it was well understood that the NOPD was near as dangerous as the street criminals.
BC the NOPD had its issues with manpower. Thankfully there are heading in the right direction. They nave upped their standards for hiring and during a recent academy they found our several of the cadets had previous undiscovered criminal issues. He fired them all.
DeleteAgain, not where they need to be but steps in the right direction.