Common Ground Relief has never been a big fan of the NOPD. From the first days of the relief effort in Algiers Point, cops have been adversarial towards volunteers and organizers.

For a while, volunteers were doing "Copwatch," or videotaping and documenting police/citizen interactions, much to the chagrin of the officers, who occasionally saw fit to arrest the Copwatcher on some trumped-up charge or other. If the Copwatcher was black, then the attention of law enforcement was consistently more inclined to arrest first, and ask questions later.

Common Ground is still engaged in police accountability, offering legal assistance and documenting allegations of police harassment or brutality. On their website, Common Ground has posted a map of New Orleans overlaid with icons that marking various places throughout town where reported harassment or brutality has occurred. The map shows dozens of incidents, based on phone calls to the legal hotline, reports taken at the CG legal clinic, and some exit interviews with OPP inmates.

By the looks of the map, the worst places in town for police misconduct are the French Quarter -- particularly Bourbon Street -- and a section of Mid-City around the Courthouse. Over two dozen allegations of police theft, abuse, illegal searches, or abusive or inappropriate conduct are reported in that vicinity. On Bourbon Street, where officers famously beat up retired schoolteacher Robert Davis a month after Katrina, there are five reported beatings (one of which resulted in the death of the arrested suspect from being hit twice by a taser), and two police thefts.

Not all cops are bad, of course, even in New Orleans. Perhaps it's unfairly American to lump all cops into one big bucket (like our xenophobic tendency to see all Muslims as terrorists, or all black people as violent criminals), but the police are an institution of power, and you know what they say about power and corruption. The book of dirty cop tricks, if not written here, certainly has some chapters that local cops have researched thoroughly.

Secrecy pervades the police in New Orleans. Citizens, the media, and interested groups have called for more transparency and greater accountability from NOPD for a long time, and still, prying information from the cops is like squeezing blood from a stone. But things might be looking up as far as justice towards abusive cops is concerned. The Louisiana Supreme Court just upheld the death sentence for Antionette Frank, a cop who participated in the murders of another cop and two Vietnamese shop owners in 1995.

On the other hand, the notorious Danziger 7, seven cops who stand accused of murdering two men on the Danziger Bridge shortly after Katrina, are all out on bond and awaiting trial. When this case goes before a jury, it's a fair bet that the eyes of the nation will once more be on New Orleans, and the whatever the outcome, the town will still have abusive cops.