Responding to criticism of apparent gaps in the city’s security preparations prior to last week’s terror attack on Bourbon Street, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick on Wednesday (Jan. 8) defended herself and her department, saying she will not heed calls for her resignation from the job she’s held for a little more than a year.
“I will not resign,” she said before a joint meeting of the council’s public works and criminal justice committees. “This is indeed a time of high emotions. This is also a time for clear-minded, steady and stable leadership.”
Kirkpatrick’s remarks followed calls for her resignation from prominent national media pundits over the past week, including Jeanine Pirro of Fox News, who blamed the attack, which killed 14 and injured dozens of others, on Kirkpatrick’s “ineptitude.”
Kirkpatrick, who largely declined to answer detailed questions on the attack, tried to focus on what the department plans to do to bolster security going forward.
To that end, she said the NOPD will bring on consultant and former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton to assess the city’s security vulnerabilities and recommend how to fix them.
“Over the weekend, as I was having my own time of grieving, asking God how I can go forward and who the right person is, the name came to me: New York City’s Bill Bratton,” Kirkpatrick said. “He personally answered my call, and he did agree.”
Bratton twice served as New York City Police Commissioner, the first time from 1994 to 1996 and the second time from 2014 to 2016. He also served as chief of police in Los Angeles from 2002 to 2009.
Wednesday marked the first time the council has met since the New Year’s morning attack on Bourbon Street. The meeting is not part of an official council investigation first announced last week. The council is expected to vote to authorize that investigation in an upcoming meeting.
Instead, Councilmember Oliver Thomas, who chairs the two committees that met jointly on Wednesday, said he hoped it would be a “fact-finding mission” to address security measures in the wake of the attack, especially concerning what barriers are available to limit sidewalk and roadway access.
Thomas, who is widely rumored to be considering a run for mayor later this year, used the meeting to lambast Kirkpatrick. In 2023, Thomas was the only councilmember to vote against Kirkpatrick’s confirmation after Mayor LaToya Cantrell passed over interim superintendent Michelle Woodfork for the job.
Among the first questions Thomas raised was whether any reports were available regarding the current state of the city’s safety assets, such as vehicle-blocking barriers, like the sets of bollards along French Quarter streets, including Bourbon Street, that the city installed during Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration. Those bollards, which city officials have said did not work properly, are being replaced and were not available on New Year’s Day.
The timing of the bollard construction project has come under scrutiny following the attack, as has the failure of the city to set up other types of barriers, including steel Archer barriers that can be used to block both roads and sidewalks from traffic. The city had such barriers available, but in a media appearance last week, Kirkpatrick told reporters that she wasn’t aware of them.
On Wednesday, Kirkpatrick referred Thomas’ questions to the city’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, which, she said, is responsible for those assets.
Thomas continued to press Kirkpatrick on whether she was aware of previous reports about the condition of bollards, but Kirkpatrick rebuffed him.
“Mr. Chair, I thought you said this is not an investigation,” she said.
Kirkpatrick was not alone in facing scrutiny. Department of Public Works Director Rick Hathaway was also present to face questions about the bollards. Like Kirkpatrick, he referred councilmembers to the Office of Homeland Security. Thomas said he invited Collin Arnold, director of the office, to the meeting. But Arnold did not attend.
“There’s one department that’s missing here,” Moreno said. “And that department is the Department of Homeland Security.”
Public voices concerns: Pedestrian safety and the shadow of 9/11
Emotions sometimes ran high as members of the public addressed the council about the New Year’s Day attack. Many raised concerns over the safety of pedestrians and cyclists in the city.
“What makes me so angry and so upset standing here is that this very same thing could have happened by accident,” Nellie Catzen, the executive director of the Committee for Better New Orleans, said. “I know because I survived an incident very similar to that, and it wasn’t the first to happen in New Orleans.”
Catzen was referencing a 2019 incident in which a Dodge Charger ran into a dozen people riding their bikes on Esplanade, killing two people.
“We have the equipment; we have the money; we have the plans,” Catzen said. “Why aren’t we doing it?”
Resident Fischer Shaffer referenced a petition on Change.org calling on the city to “pedestrianize” Bourbon Street and Royal Street in the French Quarter, noting that the petition had over 3,000 signatures.
“Is it time to rethink who can drive a vehicle in that space?” Shaffer asked.
But some raised concerns over the continuing fallout of the attack: how it might impact policing in the city, whether there would be any oversight on the distribution of funds for victims, and even Kirkpatrick’s recent announcement of hiring Bratton.
Bratton’s tenure as head of the NYPD was marked by his proactive approach to policing. He has been one of the nation’s most prominent proponents of so-called “broken windows” policing, which targets minor crimes like vandalism and theft based on the notion that visible signs of disorder encourage more serious crimes. Bratton has also advocated for “stop and frisk,” a program in New York City where officers would detain people on the street to question and search them, which was found unconstitutional a decade ago.
“Bill Bratton and ‘broken windows’ [policing] in New York City, that’s not what we need here,” Bruce Reilly, the deputy director of Voters Organized to Educate, said.
Toni Jones, an activist with New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police, lambasted city officials’ references to the post-9/11 responses as inspiration.
“The post-9/11 period was marked by civil rights violations,” Jones said. “They expressed further concerns over the state troopers currently patrolling the city. “I’m worried that the 100 militant police on our street are here on behalf of the government to occupy, not protect.”