Expert: 3rd-party investigation of Cantrell bodyguard potentially complicates matter

The New Orleans Police Department is hiring a law firm to investigate whether any rules were broken when Jeffrey Vappie, a police officer on Mayor LaToya Cantrell's bodyguard team, dined with the mayor at a French Quarter restaurant.

The third-party investigation is meant to avoid the appearance of impropriety, after the federal police monitor criticized an NOPD Public Integrity Bureau investigation of Vappie and his time sheets during previous duty on the mayor's executive protection team.

That investigation was called a "witch hunt" by the mayor herself while it was still underway.

But hiring a law firm to do an independent investigation has its own set of complications, according to former New Orleans Police Chief Ronal Serpas.

"Understanding the webs and weaves and the dodging and the moving that goes on inside of a police department culture, I hope that they bring in someone who can help them understand policies, procedures, practices, expectations, civil service rules, civil service guidance, prior court guidance on investigations," Serpas told WWL's Newell Normand.

"If an external investigators doesn't avail themselves of experts of this type of work, I think they're going to have some issues they don't fully understand," Serpas said.

Serpas said if the investigation finds any wrongdoing, the investigators in this case cannot take any action against Officer Vappie, they can only present their findings to NOPD Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick.

"And then the superintendent would have to try to find a way to weave that into the existing NOPD policies on how to enact discipline," Serpas said, "and then you're off to the races in civil service hearings."

Serpas said civil service hearings can take a long time, and in this instance, would mean requiring even more time of the law firm the NOPD is hiring. Serpas pointed out to Newell that it would mean a lot more hours being billed to the city.