Around midnight at one of New Orleans’ main service stations, a woman who said she witnessed a rape told a 911 dispatcher she saw someone who could help. “Actually, there’s an officer in front of me right now,” the woman told the dispatcher, who asked her to get the officer’s attention. The caller told the officer a woman was rushing around a nearby corner, according to audio of the 911 call obtained by Nola.com and the nonprofit newsroom the Lens. The victim was unconscious, he said. But her cry for help was reportedly lost. While still on the phone with the emergency operator, she can be heard telling the officer what she saw — but he doesn’t respond. The woman grew increasingly anxious, expressing her frustration to the 911 dispatcher. “I mean, this officer isn’t even moving — he’s still parked here,” the woman told the dispatcher. Within minutes, the woman said, the assailant had fled. The woman, who was visiting the area on vacation, shared the experience in tweets that garnered national attention, sparking a wave of backlash against the city’s law enforcement officials. New Orleans Police Chief Sean Ferguson said Thursday that an investigation was immediately launched. The officer accused of ignoring the woman’s claims on July 26 was not a member of the New Orleans Police Department but rather a deputy constable of the Second Precinct, Ferguson said, reporting that the deputy had been suspended. Constables are peace officers in Louisiana with full powers of arrest under state law. Their duties include handling evictions, asset forfeitures and subpoenas. They are trained police officers who wear a badge, carry a gun and are assigned a police radio, according to local news station WWL. The police chief explained Thursday the difference between his department and the city’s sheriff’s office. “Unfortunately, some of our uniforms are similar in nature,” Ferguson said. The unnamed deputy constable, who has more than three decades of experience and no criminal record, has been suspended indefinitely without pay while an internal investigation continues, Nola.com reported. On the night of the alleged rape, he was working an off-duty security detail for a movie being shot in the city’s French Quarter, a historic area filled with boutiques, antique shops, galleries and jazz bars. The woman who called 911 said she was at the corner of Royal and Toulouse streets when she saw a rape in progress. In the more than five-minute conversation with the emergency dispatcher, first obtained by Fakos, the caller sounds increasingly frustrated as she frantically tries to get help. A woman was raped on a train, according to police. Passengers watched and did not call 911. The shooter fled after the woman on the 911 call approached the deputy constable, but before New Orleans Police Department officers arrived at 11:24 p.m., three minutes after the emergency call was logged into the system, Ferguson said. “He’s gone. This … cop is still a block away,” the caller told the dispatcher, referring to the deputy constable, “and this girl was raped on the street corner. There’s a cop a block away.” The woman also claimed that he saw two more police officers pass the scene. A spokesperson for the New Orleans Police Department told Nola.com earlier this week that the alleged victim was “not ready to participate in the investigative process.” Ferguson said Thursday that the alleged attack remains under investigation. The chief defended his department’s response, saying a review showed “our officers responded quickly and responded appropriately.” “In our review of the evidence … we did see a vehicle go by, but we can’t prove or disprove that our officer could actually see anything going on at that intersection,” Ferguson said. Hours after the alleged crime, the 911 caller posted what she had seen in a Twitter thread that was shared about 18,000 times and garnered over 50,000 likes. I just saw a woman passed out on the corner of Toulouse & Royal in New Orleans. Two @NOPDNews officers drove by but ignored the situation. I called 911 and got a third officer down. The officer chose not to respond and maintained his position at the next corner. — Cuter Looter (@IndianaCoco) July 27, 2022 The story resonated deeply in a community struggling with a spike in crime amid severe law enforcement understaffing. But after much ire directed at the New Orleans Police Department, its investigation concluded that the question of the deputy’s response falls within the city’s Second Circuit Court. Constable Edwin Shorty, who oversees that office, told Nola.com that the allegations against the deputy are “out of character with the majority of people in law enforcement.” “We’re all shocked that someone could receive this type of complaint and not respond in a timely manner,” Shorty said.
