Reforming the New Orleans Police Department is a lot like rebuilding a home after Katrina, said Mary Howell, 60, a civil rights attorney in New Orleans for more than 30 years.

“We learned that it’s not enough to hose down the exterior of your house,” she said. “It’s that kind of deep gutting and cleaning that we need here.”

Now the new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, is seeking a similar transformation of the department.

While New Orleans experienced a 12 percent decrease in the overall crime rate in 2009, the police department has come under national scrutiny in the killing of two unarmed men and the injuring of four others on the Danziger Bridge, just days after Hurricane Katrina. Five officers have pleaded guilty in a cover-up of the incident, and a federal investigation is continuing.

Mona Sexton, 42, holds a photograph of her 24-year-old son, Kenneth, who was brutally beaten two blocks from her home after being stopped by the police. (Taylar Barrington/NYT Institute)

Even police officers themselves now say the department has lost the confidence of many in New Orleans.

“We don’t have the constant trust between the public and police,” said Henry Dean, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, a union that represents 1,232 of NOPD’s 1,457 members.

Two-thirds of New Orleans residents are unsatisfied with the city’s police department and a majority feel the police are incompetent, according to a 2009 survey by the New Orleans Crime Coalition, a group of community organizations working to reform the local criminal justice system and to reduce violent crime in the city.

Kamau Foderingham is one of those dissatisfied city residents. Foderingham said that he waited more than 20 minutes for police officers to arrive after a shooting outside his house in February.

Two bullets entered his Uptown home just five feet from where he was sitting, and another entered his neighbors’ home.

It took officers 25 minutes to respond to the incident, he said, even though it took place only a few blocks from their district stationhouse. “Three people could have been dead that day,” Foderingham said.

In early May, Landrieu invited the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the police department. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Landrieu wrote that the department had been described as one of the worst in the country. The Justice Department began an investigation May 17.

For Dean, the mayor’s invitation was a tactical one and avoided the hostile connotations of a takeover of the department. This way, he said, the Justice Department is able to begin its investigation into the police force, while the NOPD is able to maintain control.

“I don’t want somebody to come in and tell me how to do my job,” Dean said. “When you lose control, you’ve lost everything.”

In an effort to increase public trust and confidence within the police force, Landrieu has ordered the department to hand over documents requested by the city’s independent police monitor.

“The police department has a long history of being very secretive and very closed with regards to just the most basic data,” Howell said. This frustration, she added, has led to an increase in the number of community monitoring organizations.

William Winchester, 44, a staunch critic of the department, said things had gotten so far out of control on the streets that it wasn’t easy to tell who the good guys were. Winchester said he has been an advocate for victims of police abuse since he was 16 years old, when an officer hit him with a billyclub.

“I decided then it would be my last experience unchecked,” he said. Now he roams downtown New Orleans handing out pamphlets and DVDs that advise citizens of their rights. He said on several occasions, people have called him for help after violent clashes with police officers.

During a drive through the 7th Ward – the area bounded roughly by North Broad Street, and Esplanade and Elysian Fields Avenues — Winchester pointed out the homes of people he knows who have been victims of police brutality.

In a small yellow home is Mona Sexton, 42, who said her 24-year-old son, Kenneth, was brutally beaten two blocks from her home after being stopped by the police.

Next door a 22-year-old paraplegic, who would give his name only as Tator, said police officers harass him by pulling him out of his wheelchair. He said he feared that if he gave his name, he would face more harassment.

People in the community are scared, said Winchester.

“Cops do things and if society doesn’t stop it, it becomes an unwritten law,” he said, adding that misconduct typically happens in communities that “can’t afford to fight back.”

Winchester does not believe Landrieu’s administration will put an end to police brutality, especially in impoverished communities. The promises Landrieu has made, he said, are similar to the unmet goals set by former Mayor Ray Nagin.

“We can’t go through all these years and keep thinking, ‘Well one day somebody is going to stop it,’” Winchester said. “How many lives are going to be lost before that day ever arrives?”

In more affluent communities, like those around Magazine Street, few people talked about violent encounters with the police. Still, their frustration with the department ran deep.

Henry Dean, the president of the New Orleans Fraternal Order of Police, adresses the concerns of police relationships with the local community. "We don

“No one really views them as a go-to, most people see them as the opposite of help,” said Holly Brown, 25, an undergraduate student at the University of New Orleans. “Even when you are in the right, I feel like you don’t get the benefit of the doubt from them.”

After her car window was broken, she called an officer who, she said, left the scene without even offering her any assistance.

For Reserve Police Officer Andre Menzies the tense relationship the police force has with the community is a result of the Danziger shootings and negative media attention.

“Danziger brought the New Orleans department to its knees because everybody believed in what had happened,” he said. “I think that tore the community from us.”

For Menzies, the NOPD is the number one police force in the country, especially with its ability to manage a constant influx of travelers, more than 1 million at Mardi Gras alone.

As an outsider, the Justice Department will examine the New Orleans’s department for any patterns or practice of misconduct and enforce regulations to eliminate them.

“Our goal is to fix the problem, not the blame,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.

“People are weary,” Howell said. “And very hopeful at the same time.”

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