NOPD officers reviewed red light camera tickets during paid details, against department policy, records show

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A FOX 8 investigation found a pattern of questionable red light camera ticket reviews by 15 New Orleans police officers, some of them among the highest paid on the force.

According to public records obtained by FOX 8 and analyzed during a months long investigation, five of the officers also logged reviews while working paid details, which the NOPD says is against department rules.

The findings follow the arrest of Senior Police Officer Brandon Coleman, who was charged with 350 felonies linked to payroll fraud and theft, tied to thousands of hours of overtime he claimed for reviewing red light camera tickets. State police and the New Orleans Inspector General say they found a similar pattern while investigating him.

FOX 8 replicated the process those investigators used, comparing hundreds of thousands of rows of data, obtained through public records requests and linked to more than 170,000 traffic camera tickets issued in 2025, with the timesheets of officers who logged overtime in the red-light camera review program.

The analysis found more than 1,200 traffic camera review overtime shifts logged in 2025 by these 15 officers:

• Lt. Avery Theard
• Sgt. Rodney Brown
• Sgt. Bernard Crowden
• Sgt. Mark Joseph
• Sgt. Shawn Summers
• Sgt. Kevin Thompson
• Senior Police Officer Michael Baldassaro
• Senior Police Officer Eric Carr
• Senior Police Officer Jeffrey Carradine
• Senior Police Officer Richard Chambers Jr.
• Senior Police Officer Danny Ellis
• Senior Police Officer Norbert Henry
• Senior Police Officer Stephen McGee
• Senior Police Officer Brandon Neal
• Senior Police Officer Colby Stewart

Digital timestamps obtained through the city from Vera Mobility, the company that runs the automated camera program, show zero reviews logged during 616 of the officers’ shifts, nearly half of the total.

FOX 8’s analysis shows 87% of the 6,274.6 hours of overtime the officers were paid for had zero activity in the review system.

Crime commission: ‘very, very similar’ to Coleman

Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche reviewed FOX 8’s findings.

“What you’ve documented to me is, on its face, I think very, very similar to Brandon Coleman,” Goyeneche said.

Goyeneche said supervisors should have been reviewing the same data FOX 8 analyzed.

“None of this happens if supervisors are doing their jobs, whether it’s one officer, or multiple officers,” he said. “And I think what FOX 8 has done is demonstrated that this extends beyond just one officer.”

Reviews logged during paid details

Senior Police Officer Norbert Henry was the 10th-highest-paid officer on the force in 2025, according to NOPD payroll records. He took home $243,896.12, including $117,056.71 from detail shifts alone. Between overtime, detail work and extra pay, he more than tripled his $68,058.90 base salary.

Police records show that during 30 separate detail shifts for Christian Brothers School working during school drop-off and pickup, digital timestamps show Henry was also reviewing more than 1,200 red light camera tickets.

NOPD spokesperson Reese Harper confirmed in an email that officers should not be reviewing traffic camera tickets while working paid details.

Ronal Serpas, a former NOPD superintendent who now consults police departments across the country, said the system demands attention.

“The red-light camera system requires you to act on every single one of them,” Serpas said.

He said officers working details while reviewing tickets points to a deeper problem.

“When officers are working pay details during their duty hours, when officers are doing these traffic citations, during their duty hours, that would give me the first clue that maybe there’s two chains of command that are not properly supervising and accounting for the hours that the officers work,” Serpas said.

Henry is not the only one. Four other officers in FOX 8’s analysis also have reviews logged during paid detail shifts, according to police records:

• Sgt. Rodney Brown reviewed 99 tickets on March 24, 2025, while working a detail for the Hyatt Regency New Orleans.
• Senior Police Officer Stephen McGee reviewed dozens of tickets on March 15, 2025, while working a detail for Leitz-Eagan Funeral Home.
• Senior Police Officer Brandon Neal reviewed 48 tickets on April 19, 2025, while working a detail for Big Fun Brass Band.
• Senior Police Officer Eric Carr reviewed traffic tickets while working at least three details, including one for a funeral home and another for a trucking company.

Goyeneche said the findings warrant a criminal investigation.

“I think that there is every reason for the police department to conduct a criminal investigation into this, not only the officers, but the supervisors that approved the use of this time,” he said.

Kirkpatrick: ‘facts have to be in context’

At a news conference Monday to address preliminary findings of FOX 8’s investigation, NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the department would conduct an internal administrative review of officers who collected overtime through the traffic camera program. She stopped short of calling it a criminal investigation.

“We know that some of you have the same data that we have, and we’re now looking at, does the fact associated with the timecards?” Kirkpatrick said. “Facts are not truth in of themselves. Facts have to be in context to get to the truth of the matter.”

FOX 8 pressed Kirkpatrick three times during the news conference for the facts and context of the review process, including how long it should take an officer to review a violation. Public data FOX 8 analyzed shows officers reviewing tickets in far fewer seconds than it takes to watch the full evidence video. FOX 8 asked how that is possible.

“It is possible,” Kirkpatrick said. “I want to be able to sit down with you when we were at the right time. I will invite you in and we will show you how the officers go through and do those checks. But it’s a fair question and I am not ready yet to sit down and do that for you.”

Requests for interviews

For nearly two months, FOX 8 has requested sit-down interviews with Mayor Helena Moreno, Chief Administrative Officer Joe Giarrusso or Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Michael Harrison to present its findings. It was not until last Wednesday that a spokesperson said Kirkpatrick would speak with FOX 8 and promised the department would schedule an interview.

On Monday, despite FOX 8’s continued offer to share its findings of potential wrongdoing within the department, Kirkpatrick did not answer all of our questions. When FOX 8 asked more, Reese Harper, the departments spokesperson, said Kirkpatrick did not have time.

“She doesn’t have time right now,” Harper said.

“I won’t be able to give you the proper answers in context, but I will follow up with you,” Kirkpatrick said.

Immediately after the news conference, and after Kirkpatrick said she would invite FOX 8 in to see how officers review tickets in person, the NOPD offered to share a screen recording of the review process instead. Days later, the NOPD emailed FOX 8 to say that, following guidance from legal counsel, it is holding off on providing the recording while its internal review continues.

Watchdog and former chief call for oversight

Skip Gallagher, an NOPD watchdog who has spent years reviewing department records, said it appears the department is not monitoring its own employees.

“Apparently it’s up to you and I to check this data. It’s up to someone else because it appears the NOPD is not capable of monitoring their own employees,” Gallagher said.

“There really has to be clear oversight within the NOPD,” Gallagher said. “That means supervising officers have to make sure that officers that they’re paying to do a job are where they’re supposed to be.”

Serpas said routine supervision would have caught the problem.

“Any sergeant or any lieutenant or any captain should have been producing these random samples of behavior of officers,” he said. “And there’s just no excuse for that.”

Millions in fines now in question

Serpas said the department’s review of overtime linked to millions of dollars in fines issued by officers last year puts the city in a difficult position.

“Should you just say, you know what, folks, we got this one wrong. We don’t have enough confidence. We’re not going to make you go through this. We’re going to reverse all these tickets and then let somebody explain,” Serpas said.

According to review records, the 15 officers alone issued $9,818,035 in fines in 2025. Coleman, who has been arrested, issued more than $5,158,365. Together, that is nearly $15 million in potential revenue for a city already strapped for cash, and that money is now potentially in limbo.

“It calls to question all of the tickets that were issued pursuant to this,” Goyeneche said. “There’ll certainly be litigation involving this, and the city could lose, you know, tens of millions of dollars in tickets because of the violations of departmental policies, rules and procedures.”

Unanswered questions

NOPD says officers working red light camera overtime may have had other assignments beyond reviewing citations. FOX 8 has asked for a list of those responsibilities, but the department has not provided one.

Earlier this week, Kirkpatrick announced the department was halting issuing tickets until it can conduct its own review of the officers collecting overtime through the red-light camera program.

The NOPD confirmed to FOX 8 that it suspended issuing those tickets on Oct. 21, one day after FOX 8 pressed the city for an interview to discuss its findings.

On Monday, FOX 8 asked the department to clarify when its internal review began. An NOPD spokesperson said the department is still working to verify that date.

FOX 8 has asked the city since early September what this means for the tens of thousands of tickets issued to drivers in 2025, but Mayor Moreno’s director of communications has yet to offer any answers.

What it means for drivers

Kirkpatrick has promised to restart the review program. She said that when it resumes, reviewers will gather in a central location with a supervisor in the room, and she promised oversight.

But NOPD confirmed to FOX 8 that the cameras are still collecting violation data, which could eventually be reviewed and issued as a ticket.

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