Remi Braden, Public Relations, Responds

Below is a response to one of many emails I sent out, this one from Remi Braden, Public Relations Director, NOPD;

 Sir,

    Thank you for your concern in this matter, and for calling it to my office's  attention.  It's certainly something that needs to be addressed.  I asked one of  my officers to pull the case for me, so I could review it and find out what  happened.

       First, I need to make it clear that my office doesn't determine which  crimes are put on crime maps or which incidents receive press releases.  I'm a  civilian, and the officers who work in this office are not investigators.  We  work at Police Headquarters.  Officers in the districts and homicide detectives  email us or call us about cases that need to be relayed to the media and the  public, and then we get that information out.  This office is also not in charge  of the crime maps.  Again- officers in the districts get the info about cases to  our tech people, who update these maps on a daily basis.

       When reading through this report, I saw that near the bottom, it reads:   "if any subjects (attackers) are located, they should be charged with violation  of Louisiana revised statue 14:64.4, relative to Second Degree Robbery instead  of 14:65- relative to Simple Robbery."  My officers explained to me that "Second  Degree Robbery" refers to a robbery in which the victim was robbed and  physically harmed.

        So apparently, the supervisor who read this initial report disagreed with  the officer's classification, and upgraded it.  I'll ask the tech people to  upgrade its classification on the Crime Map.  I'm guessing they made an error  so - thank you for pointing it out to us.

       You say you've been subscribing to Nolaready for more than a year (thank  you for that), so I'm sure you're aware that the department reports every  murder, rape, armed robbery...even purse snatching, through Nolaready.

   Unfortunately- occasionally- (as in this case) we'll get something wrong.  I  apologize for that, and assure you that we're trying to get better.

       Again- thank you for taking the time to write us about this.  I'm certain  the officer who wrote the initial report will be asked why he classified this  crime as he did.
   Remi
   Remi Braden  Director, Public Affairs
  New Orleans Police Department
  715 S. Broad St. New Orleans, La.  70119
  (O)- (504) 658-5858  (C)-  (504) 220-4092