NOPD disputes red light camera records; FOX 8 review still finds overtime shifts with no logged reviews

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The NOPD says the public records the city provided to FOX 8 do not capture the full scope of work officers were paid overtime to do reviewing red light camera tickets. A preliminary FOX 8 review that adjusts for a time difference the department cited still finds hundreds of those overtime shifts with no logged reviews.

The department’s explanation comes after NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick criticized FOX 8’s investigation in a video she posted on YouTube last Friday, after the investigation aired. The NOPD still refuses to sit down and answer FOX 8’s questions until its audit, which was spurred directly by FOX 8’s reporting, is complete.

Last week, Chief Anne Kirkpatrick announced it stopped issuing red light camera tickets while it reviews multiple officers who were paid overtime to do that work. That followed FOX 8’s “Idle Time” investigation. FOX 8 has asked the NOPD multiple times for answers about its months-long investigation.

NOPD disputes the public records

FOX 8 did not name or show the officers in this report, a change from earlier stories published this month. The NOPD asked FOX 8 to do that Thursday evening, but that is not why FOX 8 made the change.

Hours before Thursday’s report aired, an NOPD spokesperson told FOX 8 that the records the city provided through FOX 8’s public records request “don’t capture the full scope of work performed” and “present an incomplete and, in some instances, misleading narrative.”

The NOPD said additional records document activity not reflected in the data FOX 8 received through its public records request. The request asked for “all traffic camera ticket affidavits and any associated review records including reviewer identification, date, and timestamp of review for all tickets reviewed” during 2025.

The NOPD says those records were not inaccurate or improperly withheld, but it has not provided FOX 8 with the additional information or said what activity those additional documents may show.

Out of fairness, FOX 8 withheld naming the 15 officers previously named in its reporting because the NOPD claims there are additional records not reflected in the data FOX 8 was provided.

Hours before this report aired, the NOPD told FOX 8 the vendor’s timestamps were recorded in Arizona time, even though the documents the city provided do not state that. The NOPD says that time difference made some assignments appear to overlap.

However, FOX 8 did a preliminary review adjusting for the time change and still found at least hundreds of red light camera overtime shifts with no logged reviews, including at least a dozen for each of the 15 officers FOX 8 previously named.

Across all shifts FOX 8 analyzed, initial findings still show that as much as 77% of the more than 6,000 hours of overtime paid to those officers had no logged review activity, again according to the data the city provided.

What the original analysis found

An extensive FOX 8 analysis of public records obtained from the city and NOPD through public records requests found at least 15 officers, some of them among the highest paid on the force, logged overtime reviewing automated traffic tickets but showed questionable review patterns.

The analysis is similar to what Louisiana State Police and New Orleans Inspector General investigators found while conducting a payroll fraud investigation into Senior Police Officer Brandon Coleman. Coleman was arrested in August and charged with 350 counts linked to payroll fraud and theft.

FOX 8 compared NOPD timesheets with timestamp data the city provided from Vera Mobility, the company that operates the traffic camera program.

Our analysis found that 15 officers were each paid overtime for at least 12 separate “red light camera review” shifts in 2025, but the public records the city provided show zero reviews logged during those overtime hours.

The 15 officers logged 1,242 red light review shifts, but nearly half of those overtime shifts, 610, show zero review activity, according to documents the city provided to FOX 8.

Our initial analysis of public records the city provided also found about 87% of the more than 6,000 hours of overtime those 15 officers were paid for had zero activity in the review system.

Kirkpatrick criticizes FOX 8 in YouTube video

Last Friday, after our investigation aired, Kirkpatrick posted a YouTube video criticizing FOX 8’s reporting.

“I wanted to personally address the most recent media coverage associated with the red light camera situation,” Kirkpatrick said in the YouTube clip.

“I was deeply disappointed when I had asked the media outlets not to name officers before there were completed investigations or looking into concerns. And that’s exactly what they did,” Kirkpatrick said in the YouTube clip.

FOX 8 never received any request to withhold officers’ names from Kirkpatrick or anyone else within the department or the city before our investigations aired.

“I do think it’s a curious tactic to say that a public media organization should not report public records unless it was approved by the police department,” Ronal Serpas, who was the Superintendent of the NOPD from 2010 to 2014, said. “Having been a police chief for 14 years, I would have loved to have had that ability to tell the media. No, don’t report this until I’m ready for you to report it.”

“The casual observer could say that it was actually directed at the media that you don’t have a right to do anything that I asked you not to do. Some could see it that way. Some could see it as an apologetic memo to the officers to keep them on your side,” Serpas said.

“I am sorry that happened to you,” Kirkpatrick said in the YouTube clip. “I am sorry that that affects you personally, your morale, your families, and how it spills over to the morale of this department. This chief has proven that I will hold all of us, myself, accountable. But that doesn’t mean that you do not have my support.”

“I am a big fan of Chief Kirkpatrick, so let me say that, but this is not her best moment,” Skip Gallagher, an NOPD watchdog, said. “It really seems like you’re defending officers that maybe you shouldn’t be defending. And it worries me that you’re doing that.”

NOPD asks for the database and methodology

“If it was me, contact the person that has the data and sit down with them,” Gallagher said.

That is what the NOPD did Wednesday, the day before this report aired, and a week after FOX 8 aired its investigation. In an email, NOPD spokesperson Reese Harper wrote: “Superintendent Kirkpatrick would like to review the database and methodology supporting your findings.” The email also noted: “As previously stated, we are not participating in on-camera interviews while our internal audit continues.”

FOX 8 offered to share its findings with the department ahead of any interview, well before the investigation aired, but the department would not sit down with FOX 8. Last week, Kirkpatrick would not answer questions despite multiple requests.

Serpas said a police chief normally would not ask for a media outlet’s investigation methodology.

“As a chief, I would have never asked you for how you found what you found. I mean, it’s my responsibility to find what I find,” Serpas said. “I don’t know why you would need anybody else’s methodology to do your own payroll fraud investigation anywhere in America.”

In Part One of our “Idle Time” investigation, FOX 8 explained its methodology: “We followed the same method state and OIG investigators used. We obtained hundreds of thousands of lines of data through public records requests, data provided by the city from the company Vera Mobility that operates the review program, all linked to more than 170,000 tickets issued last year. Then we compared it to officers with ‘red light camera review overtime’ or ‘3R’ shifts.”

“It doesn’t take any sort of difficult evaluation,” Gallagher said. “There needs to be a financial accounting of where that money is being spent and what is being spent on.”

Kirkpatrick offers an example for shifts without reviews

In her YouTube clip, Kirkpatrick offered an example for shifts without reviews.

“One of the issues that was raised is that we had officers who were getting overtime. But there was no review activity was going on. That would be correct, because we pay the overtime to move the vehicles with the cameras on the vehicles. They have to be calibrated. They have to be checked on at different intervals during that overtime period. So no, not every officer is reviewing a ticket. That’s just one example,” Kirkpatrick said in the YouTube clip.

“Sounds a bit more like trying to disprove what you said, as opposed to trying to prove what they should find on their own,” Serpas said.

FOX 8 went back to the public records and found the city stopped using those vehicles in August 2025. FOX 8’s review identified 102 shifts after August 1st with zero review activity.

Serpas questioned the superintendent’s message, noting it was made before her department’s internal review was complete.

“It all boils down to one thing. The chief of police works for a mayor. This is really a mayor decision whether or not that kind of a video is appropriate to the public,” Serpas said.

Serpas: Findings erode public confidence

FOX 8 has reported for nearly a year on potential lapses in supervisory oversight, from its “Unchecked Overtime” series, which found four NOPD officers at home while timesheets show they were on the clock, to its current “Idle Time” investigation. Serpas believes the findings only erode the public’s confidence in NOPD.

“I think there’s no question left that with supervision breakdowns of this magnitude going on now for the last 12, 13 months, you have to ask yourself what other things are not being supervised,” Serpas said. “Well, payroll is very simple. Payroll is like one of the easiest jobs that boss has, so it affects the department’s reputation in any community where this would be going on. Because the question would be, if there’s this much error in something as simple and as straightforward as payroll, then how do we have confidence that all of the other, more complex supervisory responsibilities are being done?”

Kirkpatrick promised an internal audit and says that once the ticket review program resumes, there will be oversight. Serpas believes FOX 8’s findings demand immediate action from the top.

“Many organizations across the country at this point would have said, we’re conducting a criminal investigation,” Serpas said. “I think a mayor would say, ‘yeah, it’s time for me to take this out of there. I got to find this out. I have to be confident as the mayor that there’s no questions, that this is being investigated properly.’ The numbers of officers who were sergeants and a lieutenant, the amount of money. And most importantly, are all those tickets going to actually be sent to citizens to pay for when there’s this much of a cloud of controversy over how that approval process was done?” Serpas said.

No guidance for drivers

“It affects so many people. How many people in the city of New Orleans have had red light tickets?” Gallagher said.

While the NOPD reviews its program, neither the city of New Orleans nor the NOPD has offered any guidance to drivers who were issued tickets. Meanwhile, Kirkpatrick promises accountability and support for her officers.

“I will deal with anyone who abuses any or violates our policies, or even hold people criminally responsible if need to, but that was not necessary and for putting everybody out there like that I’m just sorry,” Kirkpatrick said in the YouTube clip.

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