NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- A New Orleans-area sheriff has dropped a plan for aggressive policing in black neighborhoods that threatened his alliance with the NAACP.
At a meeting Thursday night, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee announced the plan to have deputies stop, question and frisk anyone who looked suspicious. The next day, at a news conference with Danatus King, chairman of the New Orleans branch of the NAACP, Lee backed down, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.
"In October 2006, I thought the black community was ready to do what needed to be done," Lee said. "I'm here to say it's not going to happen. It's now off the table."
Jefferson Parish, like New Orleans, has seen a sharp rise in black-on-black crime as evacuees from Hurricane Katrina return. The NAACP had been working with Lee and other law enforcement officials and social agencies to quell the violence.
Lee angered leaders when he acknowledged that deputies would be specifically targeting black neighborhoods and black men.
