Page 7 - 2021 ABLE Conference Brochure

PRESIDENT
Walter Powers, Jr. (504) 421-4571
1 ., VICE PRESIDENT Christopher Landry
(504) 338-7563
2nd VICE PRESIDENT Willie Jenkins
(504) 975-2032
SECRETARY-TREASURER
James Gallagher
(504) 442-4050
ji m6411@fopno.info
RECORDING SECRETARY
Ross Bourgeois (504) 915-8411
CONDUCTOR
Robert E. Lampard, Jr. (504) 722-1446
INNER GUARD
Lucian Sunseri (504) 259-6973
CHAPLAIN
Peter Menkiewicz (504) 628-6988
TRUSTEES
David Lentz
(985) 649-5741 Michael Sarver
(504) 915-5471 Ray Byrd
(504) 453-9889 Robert O'Brien
(985) 503-9962
PAST PRESIDENT
Henry Dean
(504) 415-5398
STATE TRUSTEE
William Roth
(504} 443-2128
FOP LODGE ATTORNEY
Claude Schlesinger
(504) 529-4141 cas@gustebarnett.com
FOP EMPLOYEE/ REP SPOKESPERSON
Donovan Livaccari (504) 905-8280 dlivaccari@gmail.com
CRESCENT CITY LODGE No. 2
715 BROAD ST. • NEW ORLEANS, LA 70119
(MAILING ADDRESS: P. 0. BOX 24154 • NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 70184)
August 10, 2021
Dear Active Bystandership Conference Attendee:
With more than 2,100 local lodges and more than 350,000 members in the United States, the Fraternal Order of Police is the largest professional police organization in the country. The FOP has worked tirelessly since its founding in 1915 to promote the interests of law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. The 2,000 plus members of the Crescent City Lodge of the FOP are proud to be active contributors to the FOP's national mission, to the New Orleans Police Department's EPIC program, and now to the national ABLE Project.TM
The FOP Crescent City Lodge has played a key role in EPIC, the predecessor to ABLE, from its earliest stages. An active FOP Board member, Jacob "Jake" Lundy, served on the working group that developed the EPIC concept. Jake then went on to become the Department's first EPIC coordinator, helping to develop the course curriculum, teaching veterans and recruits peer intervention strategies and even producing the EPIC training video. The two current Academy EPIC instructors are both FOP members, Officer Janssen Valencia and Officer Terry Bean.
Virtually 100% of the Department's current force have had active bystandership training where they have learned the principles of effective intervention, the inhibitors to intervention, and effective tactics and strategies to overcome those inhibitors. And more recently, the NOPD has played a critical role in bringing all that we have learned from EPIC to a national audience through the Georgetown University Law Center's ABLE Project. Multiple members of the NOPD sit on the ABLE Project Board of Advisors, and the NOPD is in the process of upgrading our excellent EPIC curriculum to the further improved, national ABLE curriculum.
While it is difficult to measure the full impact active bystandership training has had (because where an intervention succeeds, by definition, there is nothing to show for it), we know from anecdotes that those who have been introduced to EPIC and ABLE are more likely to intervene to prevent mistakes and misconduct - and more likely to accept an intervention by another. Simply put, the skills we all have gained though our active bystandership training make us far more capable, and far more willing, to step in for our brothers and sisters in need. Those skills also make us more understanding and accepting when they do the same for us.
While the men and women of the NOPD are proud to say that "Ethical Policing Is Courageous," we think ethical policing is also contagious. The Crescent City Lodge of the FOP is proud to play an active part in promoting peer intervention through our support of the national ABLE Project, and of the many men and women within the FOP and the NOPD more generally who are helping make ABLE a national best practice.
Sgt Walter Powers Jr., Ret.
President
Fraternal Order of Police, Crescent City Lodge #2
6. | Fourth Annual Law Enforcement Active Bystandership Conference