EDITORIAL: Clearing the New Orleans police's aorta of corruption
Times-Picayune (excerpt)

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said he won't wait for a federal consent decree to overhaul paid police details, and it's encouraging that this critical reform of the New Orleans Police Department is finally advancing. The private detail system has come under heavy fire from the U.S. Department of Justice, which called it an "aorta of corruption'' in a scathing report released in early 2011. Officers sometimes earn more working details than they get from their salaries, and that's especially true of those who act as intermediaries. They collect lucrative "coordination fees'' and also wield a lot of power since they have control over who gets extra work.