A group of men from the neighborhood gather at Lawrence Square Park for a game of pickup basketball. (April Buffington/NYT Institute)

Dirty money on the court, ranging from dollar bills to twenties. Basketball nets hanging halfway off the rim. Pigeons scavenging for food surround the yard and dead squirrels on the court’s sideline.

This is not your average professional basketball court or anything you’ve seen on television.

Then there are the players. A number of them are in basketball shorts and others wear jeans. There are baby faces and heads full of grey hair. Some of the hoopers play old style, others are flashier.

For some people, pickup basketball, a style of streetball that originated on the courts of New York City, is a way to drop a few pounds and for some it is a casual and enjoyable hobby. But for many, it’s a way of life. On courts throughout New Orleans, devoted players put their bodies on the line night after night, week after week and year after year. But it’s also a mental game.

“It’s so special to us,” said Jerrod Delmore, a 25-year-old ball player with tattoos covering his upper arms. “It shows we can get together as one. All the guys come out and ball together. Pickup is just special around here because it brings out the best in every single one of us.”

Opened in 1894, the court at Lawrence Square on Napoleon Avenue and Magazine Street in New Orleans has been where a spirited game can be seen every day. Over on LaSalle Street and Washington Avenue at Shakespeare Park the games are just as gritty.

“We all getting together to have a peaceful good old time and bonding with each other,” said another player, Dewan Williams, 43.“It looks like we are about to fight each other but we hugging after the game.”

A regular street ball player, Corey Williams, 34, said he has been playing pickup basketball since he was 7. Growing up in a single-parent home, Williams said he knew the consequences if he didn’t go down the right path, a trail that could have led to prison or death. So he went to basketball courts and was educated by the older and much wiser ball players who taught him how to become a leader. Pickup basketball became a brotherhood for him.

A group of men from the neighborhood met at Lawrence Square Park for a game of pickup basketball on May 23, 2010. (April Buffington/NYT Institute)

Since then Williams has tried to spend as much time as he can on the court, and now he leads by example as often as he can.

He said he gets an adrenaline rush there. During a recent game, Williams, who wore a white headband, was the most vocal on the court. “You’re not going to score!” he shouted.

“It’s my passion,” Williams said. “We came up under the older cats and now we all trying to follow everything they taught us. It’s our culture.”

A former high school basketball state champion in 1998, Richard Johnson, 31, has been on the street courts since playing organized basketball. But he no longer worries about accolades; instead, he cares about staying in shape. On the court, Johnson has the purest jump shot and can score with ease.

“It’s life and a luxury,” said Johnson, wearing red Jordan shorts. “One time you shine and the other time it keeps you out of trouble. Plus you have fun and stay exercised.”

Johnson loves the grittiness and toughness of pickup basketball. He believes if there is no blood then there is no foul.

“When you play with referees, there really isn’t no toughness,” Johnson said. “When you in the park, you got to have some heart.”

Pickup basketball has been able to keep people off the streets in New Orleans for decades because it offers them a positive environment to go to.

For 26-year-old Michael Major, the court is more of a second home. For the past two years, every Sunday he and a group of friends get together for street ball. Major, groomed with a thick beard and sporting sharp light blue and lime green Nike basketball shoes, also considers street basketball a brotherhood where the players can bond and relax with each other.

But it’s still competitive. The winners stay on the court and the losers have to wait to get picked up again.

“Nobody wants to lose,” Major said. “Nobody wants to sit on the sideline. If you lose you might have to go home for the day. You may not get another shot on the court.”
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Usually players start off with a game of 21 or hustle to get loose and wait for other players to arrive. True hoopers don’t rebound at full strength or run at full speed until the competition starts. Once the numbers of players increase, ballers are able to get a full game going. The intensity is high and no one is looking to head back to the sideline. Most of the players are actively using their voice. On the court people get use to the players saying phrases like, “Gimme that” or “Get that out of here.”

For many, their love for the game will never go away.

“This is the best kind of ball,” Christian Stevens, 28, said. “Everybody comes out and it doesn’t matter what neighborhood you’re from, you come out. That’s the beauty of New Orleans pickup basketball.”

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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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Four men who pleaded guilty to illegally sneaking into U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office were each sentenced to probation and fines in federal court on Wednesday.

Magistrate Daniel Knowles III sentenced Stan Dai, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan each to two years of probation, a $1,500 fine and 75 hours of community service. James O’Keefe, who was also involved in the incident, was sentenced to three years of probation, a $1,500 fine and 100 hours of community service.

In their plea agreement, the four men admitted to hatching a plan to pose as telephone repairmen on Jan. 25, enter Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building and tamper with the office phones. They planned to investigate complaints filed by constituents who had claimed they were not allowed to call and criticize the Democrat’s support of the health care reform bill, according to Dai.

Charged with entry by false pretenses onto real property of the United States, the defendants faced possible imprisonment and fines of up to $10,000, but Knowles reduced the charges, citing the defendants’ commendable academic records and family backgrounds. He encouraged them to use the incident as a learning opportunity of “where to draw the line.”

“I think you would agree that you drew the line at the wrong spot,” Knowles said. “Each of you has lost a little bit of your leeway in life.”

Eddie Castaing, an attorney for Basel, said his client’s “zeal just got away with him,” but that he and the other defendants would use this as motivation to succeed in their future endeavors.

“We’ll all be very proud of them to follow their careers,” Castaing said.

Flanagan’s attorney, Garrison Jordan, highlighted his client’s personal character and spotless record, saying he learned a “valuable lesson.”

“All in all, he’s a good person,” he said.

All four defendants read statements of apology. O’Keefe said that his “actions were misinterpreted.”

O’ Keefe received a heavier sentencing because of his past history as the videographer who brought a woman posing as prostitute into the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and secretly videotaped the encounter. The ACORN incident drew national attention and resulted in significant criticism of the community group for its handling of the staged meeting.

In a statement, Landrieu emphasized that she viewed the breach of her office as far more serious than a prank.

“Clearly they were up to no good,” Landrieu said. “These charges indicate that it was not merely an innocent prank. It was a blatant violation of the law that carries with it serious consequences.”

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Mayor Mitch Landrieu addresses the partnership to reform NOPD as (left to right) U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin, NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas, Lieut. Col. Jerry Sheed and the vice president of the City Council, Jackie Clarkson, looks on at the press conference held at City Hall on May 17, 2010. (April Buffington/NYT Institute)

The Department of Justice announced an investigation that is intended to lead to an overhaul of the New Orleans Police Department, which has been plagued by allegations of corruption, brutality and murder.

The investigation was prompted by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, inaugurated less than two weeks ago, who said the department had become known as one of the worst in the country. Landrieu said he expected the review to result in a consent decree that would commit any reforms to law.

The problems run so deep, the mayor said, that they have created a “culture of death on the streets of New Orleans.” And he said he called for federal help because local authorities would not be able to root out the problems on their own.

“The level of crime and violence in this city is, in fact, unnatural and unacceptable,” Landrieu said at a news conference Monday, “and my top priority is to make the streets of New Orleans safe.”

Even before Monday’s announcement, eight federal investigations were already under way concerning serious allegations of abuses by New Orleans police. The worst of them occurred in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including the shooting of six civilians at Danziger Bridge that that left two people dead. Four former city police officers have pleaded guilty to charges arising from the shooting and have admitted covering up the circumstances of the shootings.

Eloise Williams speaks about community concerns at the New Orleans town hall meeting at the Superdome. The meetings panel included newly elected Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, Ronal Serpas. (Taylar Barrington/NYT Institute)

The federal government has conducted similar overhauls in local police departments in a handful of jurisdictions, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Rarely are these efforts initiated at the request of local authorities, which, in New Orleans’ case, underscores the depths of this community’s distrust and discontentment.

Earlier this month, in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Mayor Landrieu said, “nothing short of a complete transformation is necessary,” adding, “our citizens are desperate for positive change.”

Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, agreed with the mayor’s dire assessment of the department. He said federal officials would investigate patterns of abuses by police officers, rather than individual instances, in order to identify reforms that would address systemic problems. The goal, he said, would be to reduce crime, protect the rule of law and restore public confidence in the police department.

At the news conference, authorities characterized this effort as amicable. When asked how officers would feel about the federal government looking over their shoulders, Police Chief Ronal Serpas, also new to his post, said honest, hard-working officers would welcome the investigation.

“The people who want to be a positive influence in their community,” Chief Serpas said, “they welcome this kind of stuff because they don’t want people to think of them as unprofessional.”

Hours after the mayor announced the federal review, he and Chief Serpas met with about four dozen community and religious leaders at the Superdome. Many of the residents expressed relief that the federal government was going to look into the police department’s activities.

But they worried they might not feel the effects of the review for months, if not years.

Eloise Williams, a 70-year-old New Orleans resident, was one of the most outspoken skeptics. She said at least three relatives had been killed in encounters with police since 1993. And she named each of the officers involved.

Williams, who held up photos of her lost loved ones, said Hurricane Katrina had a kind of Pandora’s Box effect on the police department, wreaking havoc onto an already fragile police department. And she suggested that the abuses that had already been made public have given just a small glimpse of an enormous problem.

“A whole lot of things are coming out on the police department,” she said.

At the town hall meeting Monday night, Serpas announced he would invite the public to look over the department’s shoulder as well by opening the department for tours. He also said officers would receive training on racial profiling.

The Justice Department has not established a timeline for the investigation. Perez said it would involve meetings with people inside and outside of the department. And he encouraged the public to send any criticism and ideas for reforms to community.nopd@usdoj.gov.

“We will accept nothing less than a police department that respects the constitutional right of every American,” Landrieu said. “I believe this is a great first step.”

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