Aggrostats

An incident on Conti Street involving troopers and an NOPD officer on the Sunday of Mardi Gras weekend was brought to the attention of the committee chairman, and he invited Colonel Edmonson to discuss the State Police disciplinary process in general and share what he knew about the Conti Street incident in particular.

A summary of his prepared remarks appears below:

· We thank the committee for the opportunity to speak about the administration of our internal affairs investigations.

· You have my personal assurances that our agency has a thorough, fair and transparent internal investigative process. I have absolute confidence in the objectiveness of my investigators.

· We have never hesitated to review the actions of our personnel either when complaints are filed or, as in this case, when we unilaterally initiated an investigation. Within 24 hours of the incident in question I had met with State Police commanders and members of the NOPD 8^th District and ordered a State Police investigation.

· As you know because this matter remains under investigation, we cannot talk about the specifics of the inquiry at this point. To do so would be unfair to all parties.

· Unfortunately none of us here today know precisely what happened—the video permits us to see some of what happened but we cannot hear what commands were made and because of the positioning of the camera there are things we cannot see.

· We are in the process of interviewing all the officers involved and have reached out to everyone else who was there that evening.

· I do believe, based on a preliminary review, that our officers did not engage these young men based on their race, rather they were approached based on how young they appeared to be.

· There is no culture of abuse or misuse of force in State Police—the officers involved have more than 80 years of cumulative law enforcement experience and none have ever had a complaint alleging misuse of force filed against them. Not one. Ever.

· Working in conjunction with NOPD officers during the course of the Mardi Gras detail our plainclothes officers were focused on illegal possession of firearms, street crimes and juvenile curfew violations.

· We took 22 weapons off the street in the French Quarter from Friday through Mardi Gras day and made more than 100 juvenile checks, 22 resulting in curfew violations.

· We will not rush to judgment in this investigation; we will seek to learn the facts and base our final decision on what those facts reveal.

· We have a proud history of assisting the City of New Orleans and partnering with the Police Department during special events throughout the year and have done so regularly since the 1970’s. We are proud to make the city safer for its residents and those who come to visit.