Replies

Another problem with this black-on-white attack is the NOPD handling of the calland investigation:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2013/08/nopd_opens_internal_investigat_1.html

‘Acknowledging “an error was made,” New Orleans police have opened an internal investigation into an officer and dispatcher who handled the report of the beating of a man and woman in the French Quarter during the weekend.

New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Remi Braden on Wednesday confirmed the investigation, saying: “An error was made. We are investigating to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Officials are working to find the breakdown in the department’s response to the Saturday morning attack, which left Donald Mehrtens III, 27, of Metairie, with a shattered jaw and his 19-year-old companion with a cut and swollen lip.

NOPD on Tuesday released video of the three suspects who surrounded Mehrtens near the intersection of Iberville and Dauphine streets about 6 a.m. after verbally harassing the two. The men punched the woman in the mouth and struck Mehrtens several times.

“They fanned out around him and attacked him from behind,” said Mehrtens’ father, Donald Mehrtens Jr., 52, who has since taken the Police Department to task for their initial mishandling of the crime.

Relatives have said an officer who arrived at the scene just after Mehrtens was loaded into an ambulance didn’t speak with either victim or take a report. Donald Mehrtens Jr. said no one from NOPD contacted his son about the incident until Monday. A second officer dispatched on the day of the attack to investigate the incident categorized it as “unfounded,” despite Mehrtens’ grievous injuries.

“Why didn’t he follow it up at the hospital?” Donald Mehrtens Jr. asked of the second officer.

Kenneth Choina, 48, the father of the woman who was attacked, furiously voiced many of the same concerns. “If he (the first officer) would have taken notes or anything when he showed up, they probably could have found these guys walking around the Quarter still,” Choina said. “I just want somebody to answer to me, as her father, why wasn’t a report made right then and there?”

Braden said the first NOPD officer on the scene was actually off the clock. He pulled over on the way home after noticing the ambulance, she said. Paramedics told him the victim was being treated and would shortly be transported to a hospital, she said.

The officer checked in with dispatchers about the call, radioing in a “Code 4,” a signal that Braden said removes the urgency at the scene. But Braden said the first officer told the dispatcher another officer was needed to take a report.

That second officer was dispatched, but he first handled more urgent calls, including a residential burglar alarm and a fight, Braden said. The second officer finally got to Mehrtens’ attack about 8:40 a.m.

But the officer went to the scene of the beating, not the hospital. Why he did so is part of the investigation, Braden said. With the victims and witnesses no longer at Iberville and Dauphine, the second officer called the incident “unfounded.” “This is what we are investigating,” said Braden who noted that the department spent Tuesday pulling records and probing the matter.

Donald Mehrtens Jr. said the detective who eventually contacted them about the incident finally got the ball rolling. “Since then, they’ve done what I would expect them to do, which is conduct a good investigation,” he said.

Although the first officer to arrive at the scene was off-duty, Donald Mehrtens Jr. said he is still dissatisfied with the course of events. That officer could have taken the time to make sure the incident was handled correctly.

“To me, there was a flavor of not caring: protect and punch the clock,” Donald Mehrtens Jr. said.

His son was recovering Wednesday after surgeons inserted three plates to repair his broken jaw. The elder Mehrtens said it was never his intention to whip up a media circus, but he was incensed after viewing the disturbing surveillance video footage of his son’s attack.

“My whole goal is to get the police to do their job and to catch these guys,” he said.’