16 June 2025
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
A local group pushing for the establishment of a civilian review board to provide community oversight of the New Orleans Police Department is stepping up its efforts to bring accountability to local law enforcement.
New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police (NOCOP) held a rally against police terror last month to mark the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The May 25 protest, which began at City Hall with comments from speakers before proceeding to the federal building downtown, was part of a nationwide day of protest sponsored under the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
The rally also served as a response to a flurry of executive actions taken by the Trump administration that protestors believe violate Constitutional freedoms, corrode American democracy and represent a national move toward the establishment of a police state.
In particular, the Trump administration moved to end all federal investigations into alleged corruption and internal crime within local police departments across the country, including ending the longtime federal consent decree placed on the NOPD designed to bring accountability and the elimination of unconstitutional policing methods and actions taken by the NOPD.
“People are worried about NOPD being taken off the leash,” said NOCOP media chair Antonia Mar of the possible end of the consent decree.
She added that because the federal government is abdicating and spurning its duty to follow and enforce the law with equity, justice, fairness and a lack of prejudice, groups like NOCOP are needed to counter the dismaying federal actions and inactions.
“We can’t trust the Trump government to do it, so we have to do something here locally,” she said.
The protest was also endorsed by numerous other local grassroots organizations, including Union Migrante, Eyes on Surveillance, Students for Democratic Society, Women Overcoming Neglect, New Orleans United Front, New Orleans Stop Helping Israel’s Ports, Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Indivisible New Orleans.
In addition to the parade last month, NOCOP took part in the local “No Kings” pro-democracy, anti-Trump protest on June 14 that was one of dozens of similarly themed, loosely coordinated rallies and actions across the country. The staging of the “No Kings” events was called to coincide with the military parade in Washington, D.C., scheduled for Trump’s birthday.
NOCOP organizers and members now turn their attention to the group’s first fundraiser, which is slated for the Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, June 19. The event will take place from 3-10 p.m. at Cafe Instanbul, 2372 St. Claude Ave., and will feature vendors, local artists and crafters, food and music.
The event will raise funds to rent a physical space for the organization’s operations, as well as text-banking, data management services and basic supplies for tabling and canvassing. It will also hopefully generate funds for traveling to conferences and other events outside of the local area.
The fundraiser and the efforts it’s designed to pay for will center on NOCOP’s primary goal – the creation of a Community Police Accountability Council (CPAC) to allow citizens to have oversight of the oft-troubled NOPD.
Mar said that even before this year’s dubious and possibly unconstitutional steps taken by the federal government to institutionalize bigotry and racism in American law enforcement, police departments across the country had become more brazen with their biased policing.
“We are seeing upward trends of racial violence [by police], but seeing less and less oversight of the police,” she said.
Mar added, however, that such negative movement by police has brought more dedicated, widespread protests against racist, corrupt policing.
This article originally published in the June 16, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.