Nick Congemi was disappointed.

When the 16-year Kenner police chief emerged from retirement to take over the scandal-riddled Causeway Police Department two months ago, the lawman immediately noticed several kinks in the department’s armor.

Procedures, such as a mandatory roll call, uniform gun policy and yearly training seminars, were absent. Racial profiling, from his perspective, existed. Computers in police cruisers, used to look up criminal backgrounds of those stopped, hadn’t worked in three years. And even though he inherited a stellar workforce he likens to a “paramilitary operation,” officers had no direct leadership with only seven ranking sergeants and nobody higher dolling out orders.

Pictured, Nick Congemi, retired Kenner police chief, is working to shake off the Causeway police department'€™s negative image after failing to cite the Mandeville Mayor who crashed into a toll booth gate.

“When I got here I was so disappointed with the way some of the things were ran,” he said. He knew a lot was going to change.

He wasted no time getting to work.

Congemi arrived in July to shake the department’s negative public image, achieved when officers failed to administer a field sobriety test to Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price two months earlier. Driving an SUV, Price was accused of busting down a toll booth gate and continuing for three miles without his headlights on. When stopped Price admitted to “drinking a few beers,” but a ticket for the toll booth damage was only written weeks later after the event dominated newspaper headlines. Three policemen, including then Police Chief Felix Loicano, eventually resigned in the fallout.

Congemi doesn’t shy away from the topic. In fact, he voluntarily offers an insider look.

The officers who stopped Price likely thought if “they cited him we probably would have just as much problems anyways,” Congemi said. “If they did something they felt it would impact funding for our organization, that it would have created more problems for the Causeway. It was a flip of the coin. They thought someone with his affiliation with strong public officials would harm the Causeway. It’s not pretty, but that’s the gritty and down to earth observation.”

Now things are different. Congemi won’t tolerate that mind set, he said.

“We don’t tolerate that any longer,” he said. “I tell the officers ‘just do your job and let the chips falls where they may.’ If that means we get fired, so be it. I’d rather leave with dignity than disgrace.”

LAWMAN LURED

TO BADGE

It’s that kind of sentiment that Causeway administrators wanted when they asked Congemi to apply for the position when Loicano resigned. Already 18 months into retirement from being Kenner’s police chief, Congemi was reluctant to end his free days renovating his Katrina flooded home in Kenner and spending time on his 5-acre Independence farm.

His song soon changed.

After hesitating to turn in an application and days later also reluctant to head to an interview, he thought of his days as Kenner police chief. The badge called him back. Without hesitation, he accepted the job. The consummate lawman returned to work.

“For six months (during retirement) I woke up the morning, and you didn’t know if you want to shave. You didn’t know what to wear. You didn’t know what to do,” he said. “But law enforcement is in my blood.”

Now, he’s churning in 12-hour days at times, working to improve a department that, despite public perception, is among the top in the country, he said.

“Nobody can do what we do,” he said, referring to officers who make the 24-mile stretch of roadway the safest in the nation and who, like two months ago, proved it can clean a five-vehicle accident from the roadway in three hours, better than nearly any other agency statewide. “It’s amazing what these guys accomplish. There is no other (police force) like it.”

In fact, Congemi is so busy writing new policies and getting to know officers he’s yet to decorate his Southshore office. In an adjacent conference room several plastic tubs of his knickknacks, tucked in bubble wrap and stuffed in Styrofoam noodles, are yet to be removed. Some items include a glass encased Zulu coconut, a 1992 picture of Congemi and actor Steven Segal and “God’s greatest car,” a 1955 baby blue Chevrolet model car. He has managed to hang an apostolic blessing from John Paul II on the wall already.

The rest, he said, can wait.

For now, “I want to restore confidence in our organization,” he said. “I’m hoping as an outsider coming in I can give a different perspective on how unique this organization is and how good they are” despite the negative publicity.

He’s had at least one roadblock. This week Causeway Police Officer Terrell Brumfield resigned after he was stopped and ticketed crossing the bridge at 112 mph last week on way to a 3:30 a.m. roll call.

“If we do it to one of our own, we’ll surely do it to someone else,” he said.

And then Sgt. Curt Franz, demoted in the wake of the Price scandal, has been promoted to lieutenant after he showcased exceptional leadership in the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike, Congemi said.

“He was demoted because he conducted the investigation and the report was not detailed enough” Congemi said. “But to me he’s turned out to be an honest and forthright man. It was obvious he had to be a ranking official here. He should not be relegated to sergeant.”

JUST STARTING

As Congemi sits in his Southshore office rattling off new policies — frequently glancing to a flat screen monitor of a live video cast of Causeway traffic, he said improvements have just started.

For example, the Causeway Police Department previously had no uniform gun policy. Officers, out of their own pockets, bought and were licensed to carry whatever weapon they saw fit, anything from a .38 special revolver, 9mm and .40-caliber guns. Now Congemi has implemented a policy for all officers to carry the same gun, a .40-caliber, so they’re familiar with each other’s weapons in case of emergencies.

“Officers having revolvers are very foreign in law enforcement,” he said. “There were deep safety concerns here. I was really disappointed.”

Congemi also instituted a new mandatory roll call for every officer every day, the same new roll call officer Brumfield was racing to when stopped and ticketed.

Before Congemi’s arrival only one roll call was performed a week with officers often bypassing ranking sergeants, without face to face contact, to head to their posts on the bridge.

“I was disappointed,” he said again. “There was no central point to meet when you showed up for work. How do you inspect uniforms? Cars? How do you know somebody doesn’t show up to work drunk?”

He also killed a policy that he likened to racial profiling. When any police department nationwide opts not to adopt a racial profiling procedure, like the Causeway Police Department, the federal government requires officers to keep race statistics of every stop they make, including helping someone change a blown tire.

“I find that offensive if an officer asks your race when he’s helping you change a tire,” he said. “That’s very intrusive, and I find that racial profiling in itself.”

But more importantly, officers will now have mandatory training once a year. In year’s past, once an officer was hired — and no rookie officers were ever hired — no training seminars were required.

“Not many agencies in the world do train again,” he said. “But how do you expect (an officer) will know the same information he learned years ago?”

Congemi is also in the process of fixing the Causeway Police cruiser’s computers, originally tied to a national crime database to check backgrounds of those stopped but inoperable for three years.

And he’s working to send out a quarterly new publication to all residents with toll tags.

“To the casual observer they look at this as just another roadway,” he said. “But many lessons can be learned from this organization.”

Congemi stopped and smiled. He’s back in the fray of law enforcement.

“I just enjoy it so much,” he said. “I’m very happy about what’s taking part in my life. There’s nothing I’d rather do.”

Today, he’s no longer disappointed.