Tag: new orleans

Ex-Cop Accused of Plotting to Kill Black People in Mass Shooting at New Orleans Jazz Fest QUIETLY RELEASED After Grand Jury Refuses to Indict — Law Enforcement NOT Aware of His Release

A former police officer accused of planning a racially motivated mass shooting at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest) was quietly released from custody in June after a grand jury declined to indict him.

Christopher Gillum, 45, a former Chapel Hill police officer, had been held without bond following his dramatic April 22 arrest in Destin, Florida.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, authorities claimed he was heading to Louisiana to carry out a mass shooting targeting Black people at a large festival, widely understood to be the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest), which draws hundreds of thousands, and then commit “suicide by cop.”

A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Gillum on a state “terrorizing” charge that carried a potential 15-year sentence. He was released shortly afterward.

His attorney, Dylan Utley, confirmed Gillum faces no charges in any other jurisdiction. The release went completely unreported until AP broke the story this week.

According to a statement from Lester Duhe, spokesperson for Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, Gillum’s family has taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state.” He is not facing additional criminal charges.

Duhe pointed to major jurisdictional problems that sank the case: “The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina. The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.”

Keep reading

New Orleans Becomes First Major U.S. City To Let AI Answer 911

New Orleans is testing just how much Americans are willing to trust artificial intelligence when the stakes are considerably higher than writing an email or ordering dinner, according to the New York Post.

The city has begun allowing an AI system to field certain 911 calls, apparently making it the first major U.S. municipality to put a bot directly between emergency callers and human operators.

The idea is largely about volume. New Orleans’ emergency communications center receives more than 1,000 calls on a typical day, and officials believe automation can clear some of the clutter while dispatchers concentrate on genuine emergencies.

The technology isn’t supposed to take over the entire 911 operation. Instead, it can deal with situations that appear redundant or relatively routine when human operators are tied up. A flood of calls about the same already-reported car accident, for example, could potentially be filtered through the automated system rather than occupying multiple dispatchers.

The Post writes that city officials insist humans remain at the center of the operation. But skeptics say emergency calls are precisely the kind of messy, unpredictable interactions computers may struggle to interpret.

Keep reading

La.: New Orleans 911 turns to AI call triage amid staffing shortages

New Orleans is among the first major American municipalities to integrate an AI voice agent into its 911 emergency call workflow as a limited triage tool.

Overseen by the Orleans Parish Communication District (OPCD), the system — known as AI Emergency Call Triage and powered by software from Carbyne — has been in use on the 911 line since approximately 2023. This is following development work that began around 2022, the department added.

A separate AI agent for the city’s non-emergency 311 service was planned and began rolling out later, around spring 2026.

OPCD reportedly handles more than 1,000 emergency calls per day. The AI tool was designed to reduce workload pressure on human dispatchers during high-volume periods, particularly by filtering redundant reports of the same incident. It functions strictly as a triage layer rather than a replacement for human operators.

Under current protocol, the AI agent activates primarily when all human call-takers are busy and an incoming call originates within roughly 200 meters of a previously reported incident (most commonly a traffic collision). The system asks whether the caller is reporting that known incident.

If the caller confirms they are, the AI can provide reassurance or updates that help is already on the way. If the caller indicates a different or new emergency, or requests a human, the call is immediately routed to an available dispatcher. All calls remain logged and recorded.

OPCD Executive Director Karl Fasold has since defended the limited deployment, noting that 911 centers nationwide face staffing shortages and budget constraints. Filtering duplicate calls during major incidents frees human staff to focus on life-threatening or novel emergencies, he argued.

While other cities, including Atlanta and Seattle, have similarly adopted AI tools for supporting functions such as precise caller location, real-time translation, or dispatcher prompts, New Orleans stands out for using a conversational AI agent that can directly field a narrow subset of active 911 calls under the specific conditions described above.

However, public-safety advocates have voiced growing concern through the media, questioning how well the AI handles panicking callers, heavy accents, ambient noise, or covert distress calls like domestic violence. Critics also cite cybersecurity vulnerabilities and the risk of hallucinated or inaccurate responses during fast-moving crises.

“I was a 911 dispatcher for 11 years and this is the worst idea you could possibly think of,” warned one online critic and alleged former dispatcher. “You have scenarios where the person can’t speak well [or have strong accents] — or if they’re in a domestic situation and they pretend to call for pizza or something — you have to be able to determine how someone feels or pick up on what they aren’t saying.”

Nonetheless, OPCD officials maintain that the tool operates under strict conditions and oversight, has performed reliably in its limited role, with early monitoring showing no false positives or negatives in audited periods, and is not used for other categories of 911 calls.

Keep reading

New Orleans Kangaroo Court Issues ARREST WARRANT for Louisiana AG Liz Murrill After Grand Jury Indicts Her on 16 Felony Counts for Defending State Law Against Rogue Local Officials

They are doing it again, folks. The radical left has completely weaponized the justice system, and this time, they are coming after one of the strongest conservative fighters in the country.

A grand jury in Orleans Parish, deep in Democrat-controlled New Orleans, handed down a 16-count felony indictment against Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on Thursday, minutes after the charges were returned. An arrest warrant was issued with bond set at a staggering $400,000, NOLA reported.

Murrill, a Republican, now faces eight counts of malfeasance in office and eight counts of public intimidation and retaliation. The charges stem from May 13 letters she sent to New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno (D), District Attorney Jason Williams (D), and five City Council members.

In those letters, Murrill warned the officials that their attempts to circumvent a new state law merging the city’s separate civil and criminal court clerks’ offices could trigger serious consequences under Louisiana’s “usurper laws,” including potential removal from office by Governor Jeff Landry. She also made clear that any interim clerk installed in defiance of state law risked imprisonment.

The Louisiana Legislature, working with Governor Jeff Landry, passed a law to consolidate the long-fragmented Orleans Parish court clerk system. The goal was to fix chronic problems in one of the most dysfunctional and crime-plagued court systems in America. Under the new law, Civil Clerk Chelsea Richard Napoleon assumed duties over the combined office.

Newly elected Criminal Court Clerk Calvin Duncan was blocked from taking office. In response, the Democrat-led New Orleans City Council passed resolutions to install their own interim clerk (retired Judge Calvin Johnson) and call a special election — directly challenging state authority.

AG Murrill did what any responsible Attorney General should do: she sent formal legal warnings citing the usurper statutes and demanding compliance with state law.

Keep reading

New Evidence Emerges Against Indicted Democrat Mayor of New Orleans in Corruption Case

A superseding federal indictment has unveiled new evidence against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat already facing corruption allegations, and former NOPD officer Jeffrey Vappie. 

Prosecutors now claim the two engaged in a years-long fraud scheme that misused city funds to conceal their romantic relationship and bankroll luxury travel.

According to the filing, Cantrell and Vappie exchanged more than 15,000 WhatsApp messages, photos, and audio clips in just eight months. 

During that period, they coordinated at least 14 domestic and international trips, racking up more than $70,000 in travel expenses billed to the city.

Vappie allegedly claimed on-duty hours during the trips, while serving on Cantrell’s executive protection detail, even though prosecutors say much of the travel was personal.

The indictment goes further, alleging that Cantrell and Vappie used WhatsApp not just for personal communication but also to intimidate subordinates, harass a private citizen, delete records, and mislead investigators. 

Federal prosecutors say the pair attempted to obstruct justice by concealing evidence and offering false testimony to a federal grand jury.

Cantrell herself is accused of abusing her office to protect Vappie from scrutiny. 

Prosecutors allege she pressured then-Interim NOPD Superintendent Michelle Woodfork to halt an internal probe into Vappie, despite findings that raised concerns. 

Cantrell also allegedly demanded Vappie’s reassignment to her security detail, even after red flags had been raised, and concealed responsive WhatsApp records from a grand jury subpoena.

The 18-count indictment represents an escalation of a case that has dogged Cantrell for months, combining allegations of fraud, obstruction, and misuse of public funds. 

While Vappie previously entered a not-guilty plea, Cantrell has consistently denied wrongdoing and accused her critics of political motivation.

Still, the mounting evidence paints a damaging picture for the city’s top official. 

The indictment details patterns of excessive travel, manipulation of police resources, and alleged efforts to sidestep accountability. 

For residents of New Orleans, the charges revive long-standing concerns about corruption in City Hall and misuse of taxpayer money.

Cantrell, who first took office in 2018, has faced growing criticism in recent years over crime, public safety, and fiscal management.

 This latest legal development adds to those pressures, with prosecutors signaling they intend to make the mayor’s conduct central to the corruption case.

If convicted, Cantrell could face severe penalties, and the scandal could reshape the political landscape in New Orleans, where faith in city leadership has already eroded.

Keep reading

Democrat Mayor Caught in Fraud—And She’s Not Alone

Corruption in Democrat-run cities is sadly familiar, but the federal indictment of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is historic and deeply troubling.

A grand jury has charged Cantrell with dozens of felony counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. 

This marks the first time in New Orleans’ history that a sitting mayor has faced criminal prosecution, an unprecedented low point for a city already plagued by crime and mismanagement.

The indictment paints a picture of systematic abuse of office. At the center of the case is Cantrell’s relationship with Jeffrey Paul Vappie, a member of her executive protection unit who prosecutors say developed an “intimate and personal relationship” with her in late 2021. 

According to federal prosecutors, Cantrell and Vappie knowingly devised a scheme to defraud the city, with Vappie falsely claiming to be “on duty” while accompanying the mayor on at least 14 trips outside Louisiana, including international travel. 

These trips, totaling over $70,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses, were not legitimate city business—they were personal excursions disguised as official duties.

The indictment goes further, charging Cantrell with a dozen counts of wire fraud. Prosecutors allege she obtained money and property “by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises.” 

In plain terms, Cantrell is accused of using her office to enrich herself and those close to her at the expense of the taxpayers. 

If an ordinary citizen stole $70,000 from the government, they would face years in prison. The law should not bend simply because the accused sits in city hall.

Equally alarming are the obstruction-related charges. Prosecutors allege that Cantrell conspired to obstruct justice, made false statements, and even delivered a false declaration before a grand jury. 

These are not minor lapses—they are serious felonies aimed at concealing misconduct and undermining the justice system itself. A public official who lies under oath not only betrays the people but attacks the very foundation of accountability in government.

Keep reading

‘How does this happen?’ Power outages plunge major U.S. city into darkness after months of warnings

New Orleans was plunged into darkness on Sunday afternoon when the region’s grid operator cut off power to reduce usage, a “last resort” measure to prevent a large-scale blackout, according to Nola.com, a local news outlet.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), a major electrical grid operator, directed the energy company Entergy to reduce power with only three minutes’ notice to prevent a blackout, affecting nearly 100,000 customers, according to Nola.com. Power was fully restored after several hours, though concerns about the power grid’s reliability remain as President Donald Trump’s administration, energy policy experts and multiple North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) reports have signaled that MISO is at an elevated risk for blackouts due in part to phasing out coal-fired power plants.

“The forced outages were directed by MISO as a last resort, and done in order to prevent a more extensive, prolonged power outage that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid,” Entergy said in a Sunday statement.

Keep reading

New Orleans Police Secretly Used Prohibited Facial Recognition Surveillance for Years

The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) secretly received real-time, AI-generated alerts from 200 facial recognition cameras throughout the city for two years, despite a city ordinance barring generalized surveillance of the public.

“Police increasingly use facial recognition software to identify unknown culprits from still images, usually taken by surveillance cameras at or near the scene of a crime,” an exposé by The Washington Post explains. However, “New Orleans police took this technology a step further,” automatically alerting officers with real-time updates of names and locations of possible matches of wanted suspects from a private network of cameras through a mobile app. 

“This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about,” Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology project, told the Post. “This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone—for that matter, everyone—as we go about our lives walking around in public.” According to Wessler, New Orleans is the first known instance in which a major American city has used artificial intelligence to identify people through live footage for the purpose of making arrests.

The use of these automatic alerts may have violated a city ordinance meant to protect the public’s privacy from a generalized surveillance tool and prevent wrongful arrests due to software errors. 

Passed in 2022 in response to New Orleans’ post-pandemic crime wave, the Surveillance Technology and Data Protection Ordinance removed a previous prohibition on surveillance technology in criminal investigations to increase public safety. Mayor LaToya Cantrell said at the time that the NOPD needed “every tool available at their disposal” to keep the city’s “residents, businesses and visitors safe.” However, the ordinance stopped short of allowing the NOPD to utilize a “face surveillance system”—defined as “any computer software or application that performs face surveillance”—while limiting data collection to “only the minimum amount of personal information needed to fulfill a narrow well-defined purpose.”  

While violent crime in New Orleans has declined since 2022, so have the crime rates in most major American cities that do not use real-time facial recognition surveillance systems. 

Anne Kirkpatrick, superintendent of the NOPD since September 2023, paused the automatic alerts in April after learning about potential legal problems with using the system. Records obtained by the Post reveal that Kirkpatrick sent an email to Project NOLA, the nonprofit that provides the NOPD with facial recognition services, on April 8 stating “that the automated alerts must be turned off until she is ‘sure that the use of the app meets all the requirements of the law and policies.'” The network of cameras remains in place. 

While automatic pings of potential suspect matches to NOPD officers are paused, Kirkpatrick maintains that facial recognition technology is essential to law enforcement. On May 16, 10 inmates escaped from the New Orleans jail, prompting a manhunt (five inmates remain at large). Facial recognition is credited with the capture of two of the escaped inmates. Kirkpatrick told WVUE, the local Fox affiliate, that such a situation is “the exact reason facial recognition technology is so critical and well within our boundaries of the ordinance here.” Bryan Lagarde, Project NOLA’s executive director, confirmed that NOPD is not currently using real-time, AI-generated alerts but is still utilizing facial recognition technology and footage from 5,000 cameras across New Orleans to track and apprehend the escapees. Lagarde described to WVUE an instance in which officers narrowly missed an inmate by a matter of minutes, insinuating that automated alerts might be necessary to protect public safety, despite the cost to privacy. 

Keep reading

Whistleblower: FBI’s New Orleans Boss Stayed On Vacation after New Year’s Terrorist Attack

Apparently the second-deadliest foreign-inspired terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11 wasn’t enough for the boss of the New Orleans FBI field office to end his vacation early.

Early on New Year’s Day, 42-year-old Army veteran Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans’s famed French Quarter—killing 14 people who were celebrating the New Year. Police fatally shot Jabbar in a following firefight, and authorities later determined that the incident was inspired by the foreign terrorist organization ISIS.

Despite that, New Orleans FBI Special Agent in Charge Lyonel Myrthil took several more days to return to the office, according to a whistleblower working with the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

“Myrthil vacationed in Europe from late December to early January, which included New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Sugar Bowl and took multiple days to return to New Orleans after the terrorist attack on January 1,” Grassley said in a Tuesday letter to FBI Acting Director Brian Driscol and Acting Attorney General James McHenry.

“The FBI failed to note this in any of the joint briefings it provided to Congress and must provide more information.”

Keep reading

REVEALED: Top FBI Leader in New Orleans Was on Vacation Over New Year’s Despite Known Vulnerabilities on Bourbon Street – And Left DEI Special Agent with Nose Ring in Charge

According to the Oversight Project, the top FBI leader in New Orleans was on vacation in Italy over New Year’s despite known vulnerabilities on Bourbon Street, leaving the DEI hire with a nose ring in charge.

According to the Oversight Project, top FBI brass Lyonel Myrthil was in Italy which is why they left Special Agent Alethea Duncan in charge to brief the public after the terror attack.

In a carefully worded statement, the FBI confirmed to the Oversight Project that Lyonel Myrthil was “en route to a family vacation out of the country” when the terrorist attack occurred.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate didn’t even know Lyonel Myrthil was out of the country. Abbate deployed a senior counterterrorism official from FBI HQ to New Orleans hours after the terror attack.

Keep reading