by Richard A. Webster

Josh Wexler, a 30-year-old piano player, said he saw a New Orleans police officer run a stop sign and strike a pedestrian with his car in the French Quarter at 12:45 p.m. Jan. 29.

When the pedestrian raised his hands as if to say, “What are you doing?” the officer rushed out of his vehicle and “angrily” grabbed the startled man, Wexler said.

The officer in question, William Torres, reportedly forced the pedestrian to place his hands on the hood of his squad car and reached for his handcuffs as if to arrest him.

Wexler, who was driving behind the police officer, decided to intervene.

He got out of his vehicle and told the officer he saw him run the stop sign and hit the pedestrian. Wexler told Torres he had no right to arrest the man.

At this point, Torres reportedly allowed the pedestrian to go free, directed his attention to Wexler and asked, “Do you want a ticket?”

“A ticket for what?” Wexler said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“It’s a simple question. Yes or no. Do you want a ticket?” Torres reportedly responded.

Wexler said he told the officer he had nothing more to say and walked back to his car where he wrote down Torres’ name and badge number.

Torres followed him.

“You want to write down my name? I'll show you I can write too. Give me your license, insurance, and registration. I know who to harass,” Torres reportedly said.

Wexler provided Torres with the information but refused to answer further questions.

“If you don’t answer my questions, you are going to jail,” Torres reportedly threatened.

Eventually, Torres wrote Wexler a ticket for failure to wear a seat belt and left the scene.

A woman who works in the area at the time of the incident verified Wexler’s account to CityBusiness but refused to provide her name for fear of police retaliation.

The encounter left Wexler as stunned as the pedestrian. He said he believed Torres attempted to intimidate both of them in an attempt to cover up his own wrongdoing.

Wexler said his first impulse was to file a complaint with the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau, but he doubted the independence and effectiveness of the unit. If the police department can’t be trusted to treat citizens with respect, how can it be trusted to investigate allegations of abuse against its own officers, Wexler said.

Even his attorney, Sam Dalton, tried to discourage him from filing a report.

“I’ve seen what happens when people bring complaints,” Dalton said. “The police try to intimidate them from continuing their protests. It’s a very uncomfortable situation. One thing I know is that this officer won’t be punished.”

Despite his misgivings and fears of police retaliation, Wexler filed a complaint with the PIB and sent a letter to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro alerting him of the incident.

“It appears to me that a New Orleans Police Officer (sic) should not be allowed to cover up such an event by filing a false report, giving a false ticket and detaining a citizen without cause,” Wexler wrote to Cannizzaro. “I am bringing this to your attention in the hopes that the new district attorney’s office will do what is necessary to see that this type of police behavior does not reoccur.”

The NOPD declined repeated requests for comment.

Incidents such as this tarnish not only the reputation of the police department but of the entire criminal justice system and discourage witnesses and victims from participating in court cases, Cannizzaro said.

“We’ve had some very serious cases where we had to go back and do some damage control to bring witnesses around because there were problems with the way they were treated when they had the initial encounter with the police officers,” Cannizzaro said. “It’s important to make sure we treat witnesses and victims with dignity and respect. I preach that to our assistants — treat them like you’d want a family member to be treated.”

If police officers commit criminal acts when dealing with the public, the DA’s office will not hesitate to prosecute them, Cannizzaro said.

“I’ve had that discussion with (Superintendent Warren Riley) and he is fully supportive. He’s not interested in keeping people on that force who don’t want to go out there and do the right thing and help this community. There have been a large number of officers fired under Warren Riley’s administration, and he quite candidly thinks there are going to be more firings that will happen in the future because he thinks this is a reoccurring problem.”

The majority of reports filed with the PIB are “he said/she said” situations pitting an officer’s word against a citizen’s, said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission. Unless a witness is willing to come forward, it is difficult to determine guilt. But that shouldn’t discourage a citizen from filing a complaint, he said.

Citizen complaints against an officer, even if they remain unresolved, become a permanent part of his record. If an officer accumulates a significant number of complaints that illustrate a clear pattern of negative behavior it can result in increased supervision or additional training, Goyeneche said.

“I know citizens feel frustrated when they file these complaints and nothing comes from it. But even if the officer isn’t disciplined, I still think it’s valuable and important and significant for citizens who feel they were mistreated if for no other reason than it creates a track record on officers who may have behavioral issues,” Goyeneche said.

But police officers should not be condemned as corrupt simply because someone filed a report against them, said Jim Gallagher, legislative chairman of the New Orleans Fraternal Order of Police.

“Police officers are citizens of the United States and just like everybody else they have due process rights,” Gallagher said. “If there is no evidence against an officer, should he be disciplined anyway? There’s no question that it has become a standard defense attorney tactic to have their clients make a complaint against an officer. It’s part of an accepted strategy now.”

Police who work in special tactical units designed to prevent crime often use aggressive techniques that may invite citizen complaints, but it doesn’t mean they are acting unprofessionally, Gallagher said.

“Perfectly innocent citizens will be stopped in high-crime areas by these proactive aggressive units and citizens don’t like being stopped for nothing so they will make complaints. This is the nature of their work.”

The public perception remains, however, that the NOPD is incapable of policing itself, and that is why the city created an independent police monitor, Goyeneche said.

One of the monitor’s tasks will be to audit the PIB’s internal investigations to ensure citizen complaints are handled effectively and officers are held accountable.

The monitor will be part of the Inspector General’s Office. It is in the initial planning stages and is not expected to be operational for several months.

But the PIB and independent police monitor can only do so much, Goyeneche said. It is up to the NOPD to instill in its officers the need to treat the public with respect at all times. A bank teller or a cab driver can afford to have a bad day, he said, but a police officer cannot.

“The NOPD is a paramilitary organization and it has to be drilled into their heads that they don’t have the luxury of taking out their frustrations on citizens, because those citizens will tell their story and it will have a ripple effect throughout the community,” Goyeneche said. “This is where training and discipline comes in.”

For the NOPD to be successful, it has to have the trust of the community so people feel comfortable reporting crimes and acting as witnesses. But when people feel abused by the police, as Wexler alleges, it destroys that trust, Goyeneche said.

“You can’t condemn an entire department by a few isolated examples of police misconduct. But they’re indicative of the public’s perception of law enforcement,” he said. “The NOPD is trying to develop a better relationship with the community and (incidents like Wexler’s) don’t foster that image. People won’t cooperate with the police if they feel they can’t trust them. They’ll say, ‘What’s the point?’”

And that’s exactly what Dalton said when Wexler asked if he should file a complaint: “What’s the point?”

“I don’t know where the police leaders are or what they’re doing, but they certainly aren’t doing anything to improve the public behavior of the police,” Dalton said. “And I don’t think the independent police monitor will make a difference. There’s a hidden undercurrent of behavior in the police department that demands they protect each other. They never learn. In order to get the respect of the citizens, they have to give respect.”

Wexler said he struggled with his decision to file a report with the PIB. After the incident, he said that every time a police car appeared in his rearview mirror he feared the worst. But in the end, he decided it was important to take a stand despite the risks.

When he told people what happened, he said the reaction was mixed. Some were shocked an officer would act in such an unlawful and brazen manner in the middle of the French Quarter during broad daylight. Others were unimpressed and said they heard of similar stories of police officers bullying citizens and acting as if they were above the law.

“I think it’s symptomatic at least in certain districts of a really poorly run police department with no accountability,” Wexler said. “I think that a portion of the crime in this city is a direct result of cops not having much interest in engaging with criminals, but (they) find it easier to cruise around doing what they want to do and harassing citizens who get in their way.”

Looking back on the experience, Wexler said he doesn’t regret intervening but would think twice about doing it again.

“Sam (Dalton, his attorney) said if something like this happens again to keep driving. But I wasn’t really thinking about the repercussions when it happened.”


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