Federal police oversight in New Orleans is being run by an official with significant conflicts of interest. David L. Douglass, currently paid by the city of New Orleans to oversee the consent decree under the direction of the Department of Justice (DOJ), founded Effective Law Enforcement for All (ELEFA), where he added several former NOPD leaders to his payroll - the very people he used to oversee. This is in direct violation of paragraph 464 of the consent decree, which prohibits monitors from accepting employment or providing consulting services that present a conflict of interest.
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Since 2013, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has been under federal oversight by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through a consent decree, a process active in at least 14 US cities nationwide. The individuals responsible for this oversight are known as "monitors."
Douglass, a deputy monitor in New Orleans and founder of Effective Law Enforcement for All has added several former NOPD leaders to his payroll at ELEFA, in direct violation of paragraph 464 of the consent decree, which prohibits monitors from accepting employment or providing consulting services that would present a conflict of interest with their responsibilities:
Former NOPD leaders on ELEFA’s payroll/leadership team:
We uncovered this corruption while pressing the consent decree monitors to act against District Attorney Jason Williams' predictive policing program. We sent multiple emails to the consent decree monitors informing them that RTM, the District Attorney’s predictive policing software partner, on its website explicitly describes RTM "as a measure of spatial vulnerability to crime, [that] outperforms event-dependent methods (I.e. recent past exposures, such as hot spots or near repeats) as a predictive analytic."
Despite clear evidence of law-breaking, our attempts to get answers via email hit a brick wall. Determined to break through this wall of silence, we confronted Douglass at his public forum in July 2024. It was here we uncovered the existence of ELEFA. When pressed about the blatantly illegal predictive policing program, Douglass's response was shockingly dismissive - he admitted to not even reading our communications. Adding insult to injury, he made empty promises to follow up, which he has predictably failed to honor. This pattern of evasion and disregard is unacceptable for a public official.
After stripping New Orleanian taxpayers of millions of dollars, Douglass is now attempting to garner public and community support for rubber-stamping NOPD's compliance with the consent decree, despite little data to back up full compliance.
This maneuver allows him to focus on his new lucrative contract overseeing Minneapolis PD’s consent decree, worth up to $1.5 million annually, following the George Floyd murder. Given Douglass's track record in New Orleans, it's highly likely that after draining Minneapolis of funds, his organization will rubber-stamp that department as "reformed" before moving to the next city, perpetuating this cycle of ponzi police reform exploitation across the country.
The deep state is a concern regardless of political affiliation, and New Orleans, a Democrat-run city, exemplifies the bipartisan nature of these issues. The revolving door between the monitors and those being monitored raises serious questions. How many more members of ELEFA or similar organizations are former NOPD or DOJ officials? This revolving door suggests a broader, systemic problem within police oversight.
