New Orleans Police Forced To Hire Civilians During Crime Surge
By Dillon Burroughs
The New Orleans Police Department has turned to hiring civilians to fill staffing needs as it faces ongoing violent crime in the city.
New Orleans mayoral candidate Laura Rodrigue shared the concern during an interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday.
“Resorting to hiring civilians to respond to crime scenes is alarming to the residents and should be alarming throughout the country,” Rodrigue said. “They came out and said that civilians will be responding to non-emergency calls that come in through 911.”
Rodrigue noted that more than 100 calls in the city for alleged rape were classified as non-emergency over the last year.
“The problem with that is within the last year, NOPD received over 100 calls for first-degree rape, first-degree rape being the most serious rape in Louisiana, carrying a mandatory life sentence, and they classified those as non-emergency,” she explained.