Nov 22, 2016
Beyond The NatGeo Report on Policing in Gretna (Part 1)
“I’m just checking to see if you’d be available for a story on Gretna, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans which has one of the highest arrest rates in America.”
That’s the email I received in late July from a supervising producer at Nat Geo’s rebooted show, Explorer. I had signed on to be a correspondent for this series several months prior, and this would be my first assignment.
Last night, the story aired. Today I hosted a Facebook Live conversation about it. Right now, I’m choosing to write more about the experience because it moved me so much, and because a 12-minute video cannot possibly capture what we saw.
Exactly one month after that July email, I would spend nearly a week in Gretna in the company of renown criminologists and anonymous citizens with court dates, a defensive mayor and a proud police chief, grateful elder white men at a coffee shop, an angry neighbor, a peace-loving nun, a dashiki-wearing bishop, and a veteran bounty hunter named “Tat-2.”
But before all that could happen, I had to get to Gretna. On the Delta Airlines flight, I watched the first two episodes of Underground, a TV series about the Underground Railroad of America’s slave past. It was not a conscious decision. It was simply the next show in my bottomless queue of shows to watch, but it would prove both useful and overwhelming as an emotional backdrop to my experience.
Nat Geo had been drawn to the story of policing in Gretna by a headline on a June 2016 Fusion article titled, “Gretna, Louisiana: The arrest capital of the United States.”
The article revealed two alarming pieces of data. First, in a town with a population of 18,000, Gretna had arrested nearly 6,000 people in 2014, and while one-third of Gretna’s residents are black, two-thirds of those arrested there are. Second, the city had generated 16 percent of its budget (or $5.77 million) from fines, fees, and forfeitures such as traffic tickets, court fees, and the like. This latter fact made Gretna more dependent on such revenues than Ferguson, Missouri and put the city in the top 20 (or bottom 20 depending on your moral stance on unofficial taxation) for American municipalities’ share of revenue from such sources.
It all looked rather suspect and dire and racist and wrong.
But the truth, to the extent that we could approach it, was like any good Facebook relationship: complicated.
It was the opposite of Southern HospitalityTM.
“Where are you from!? I’m a local! Do you work for Gretna!?” This is what my cameraman Victor and I heard from the angry and fast-walking, arm-waving woman who had emerged from a building, accusing us of “filming in front of my business.”
Nevermind that Victor’s camera was pointed directly away from her building… at me… across the street. Nevermind that there is no such thing as a film crew that “works for Gretna.” Despite our opposite intentions, this animated and agitated woman would now be in our story, prolonging our last shot of the afternoon. Trailing close behind her were two probably-teenage girls, one of whom wore a “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirt. So this is how it was going to go down, I thought.
The unnamed woman hurled accusations in the form of questions, never pausing to hear an answer. “We love the police!” “I’m a local!” “Are yall local?” “Why are you filming in front of my business?” “Who do you work for?”
I did manage to explain that I had received a parking ticket and had just paid it at the Park Gretna offices across from her building.
“You got a parking ticket?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I said.
“Really? Where at? Where did you get the parking ticket at?” she cross examined.
“Right at Common Ground [the coffee shop two blocks away],” I testified.
“When, today?”
“Yesterday.”
“What time?”
“Why do you need to know that?”
Her prosecutorial stream was briefly interrupted when Victor managed to interject an answer and let her know we were with National Geographic. She didn’t know what to make of that. I suspect the name “National Geographic” conjured images of giraffes and mountains and deep sea creatures, and such images broke her pre-formed idea of enemy intruders sent to malign her definitely-not-racist town. She stopped talking (which was the closest we would come to experiencing decency from her).
“Yall should talk to me!” “Yall should talk to locals!” “You don’t want to talk to locals!”
We might have had she slowed her verbal assault a bit, but she had answered any questions we might have asked long before we arrived. She would leave us for a few moments then return with fresh, indignant exclamations about how we should be talking to locals and how she gets tickets all the time and how great the police are. If this was how the citizens reacted, as self-deputized detectives, I would hate to encounter the police.
I urged Victor to walk away. It was after 4pm, and we hadn’t eaten lunch, and I was not going to be able to take much more of this. We drove across the Crescent City Bridge back to New Orleans, and we ate at Pascal’s Manale off of plates filled with best BBQ shrimp I’ve ever had, and we felt better. Food can help.
He was born in Gretna. His mother was born in Gretna. His grandmother moved to Gretna when she was 26 years old.
Bishop James Nelson Brown drove us through a spatial and temporal tour of Greta, pointing out his childhood home, the house in which he was married, the churches he had led.
“This is White Gretna,” he said, pointing out the elevated roadway (locally referred to as The High Rise) that divided this city decades ago. “We were not allowed to come back here other than to clean house or do work or deliver. You were not allowed back here.”
Bishop Brown loves Gretna. He praised its schools, its people, and even its police. “They are like Johnny on the spot!” he said of the police force’s record response time to 911 calls (reportedly under a minute). He said he wouldn’t live anywhere else.
But he also told another story of Gretna. The story of being pulled over while sitting at a red light. Of an officer who ripped off his license plate holder (issued by the dealer) and claimed it obstructed his plates. Of the fine he was forced to pay even after explaining to the judge that all Toyotas ship this way. And of the humiliation of such a moment. Of being treated as a criminal by the town you loved for doing absolutely nothing wrong. And of the countless stories his parishioners have shared of similar encounters but with even less happy endings.
Of fines unable to be paid by the poorest of Gretna for whom $140 might represent one quarter of the rent due. Of missed court dates owing to those unpaid fines which triggered more fines. Of missed court fees which triggered more fines which triggered warrants. Of police stops for license plates which turned up outstanding warrants for unpaid fines for missed court dates for unpaid fines for license plates.
But only, it seemed, for black people.
“Don’t mess with Gretna” is what Bishop Brown tells black people coming to visit the city he loves and chooses to remain in. He goes so far as to warn family members to avoid certain streets where the police are known to ticket speeders going just one mile per hour over the speed limit.
His advice is backed up by internet posts from Twitter to Yelp to the comments section of the New Orleans Times Picayune. Don’t mess with Gretna.
I’ll continue my behind-the-scenes musings and correspondent extras on this story in the coming days. I’ve realized there are too many characters, interactions, and information to cram into a single post. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.
