NEW ORLEANS — Mayor LaToya Cantrell used her 5th Amendment right not to incriminate herself to avoid answering questions Friday during a closed-door Civil Service Commission hearing about police promotions, according to multiple people in attendance.
Later in the evidentiary hearing, which was not published on the commission’s website ahead of time, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick testified that Cantrell had expressed concerns about bias in the captains’ promotion process when Lt. Sabrina Richardson was not promoted back to her previous rank of captain.
Based on the scores on a civil service test used to promote NOPD rank based on merit, Richardson ranked third on the potential promotion list. But Richardson’s rank dropped to 8th under a process started during the Cantrell administration in which the NOPD’s top brass reviews the rankings and takes an officer’s disciplinary history into consideration…