The Perdido Institute

Privacy and accountability for New Orleans

Police Accountability

Oversight only works when complaints are filed, documented, and followed. We file complaints based on records, publish them, and report what the oversight bodies do with them. We also help residents file their own.

How we work

We start with documents: emails, flight logs, and reports obtained under the Louisiana Public Records Act. When a record shows an officer violating the law or NOPD policy, we file a complaint with all three oversight bodies at once:

  • NOPD Public Integrity Bureau (PIB), the department’s internal unit that investigates complaints against officers.
  • Office of the Independent Police Monitor (OIPM), the civilian oversight office that monitors NOPD’s complaint investigations and discipline.
  • Office of Inspector General (OIG), the city’s independent watchdog for fraud, waste, and abuse.

We track each complaint by its case number, publish the complaint and the evidence behind it, and report the outcome.

What we have found

  • More than 70 complaints over NOPD’s use of facial recognition through Project NOLA, each tied to a specific email in which an officer asked a private network to identify or track a person.
  • A complaint about undocumented drone flights, based on NOPD’s own flight logs, that the Public Integrity Bureau closed without an investigation.
  • NOPD Public Affairs blocking and limiting public comments on the department’s official social media accounts. We have filed complaints and escalated them to the Independent Police Monitor and the Inspector General.

File a complaint with our help

If an NOPD officer violated the law or department policy, we will help you write the complaint, send it to the right offices, and track it. Send us:

  • The date, time, and location.
  • Officer names or badge numbers, if you have them.
  • What happened, in your own words.
  • Any video, photos, documents, or witnesses.
  • The item number, if a police report was taken.

We are volunteers, not lawyers, and we do not give legal advice. If you were injured or arrested, talk to a lawyer before you file anything.

Contact us

File directly

You can also file on your own. We recommend sending every complaint to all three offices: [email protected] (PIB), [email protected] (Independent Police Monitor), and [email protected] (Inspector General). Ask for a case tracking number and keep a copy of what you sent.