History

Bernard Drouillard is the current superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department and has held office since being promoted from deputy superintendent of the Public Integrity Bureau in 2010. He was appointed to that position in 2006 by Ray Nagin and managed to not only outlast but profit from the corrupt ex-mayor’s tenure for precisely three reasons: he knows when to keep his head down, he knows which way the political winds usually blow, and he knows the way things are done in this city.

Drouillard generally prefers to delegate much of the NOPD’s administration to his subordinates and believes that his primary role is to serve as oversight on behalf of the mayor’s office and other politicians. So long as the NOPD acts in accordance with these wills, Drouillard is content to let the deputy superintendents and district commanders run their own shows—however they choose. All he requires is that published crime statistics remain at acceptable levels (New Orleans’ standards being what they are) and nothing too untoward winds up in the Times-Picayune. An enterprising police commander can lead a lucrative career under these terms—and Drouillard has good instincts for selecting men and women who will “make the most” of their new positions.

The NOPD’s superintendent spends much of his own time either golfing at the New Orleans Country Club in Bywater or attending press conferences. He earned his undergraduate’s degree in divinity and once aspired to become a pastor, but still enjoys public speaking and “spreading the good word.” Although Drouillard comes from an old and Creole-descended family of no small means, he still seems to have been considerably enriched by his position and lives comfortably with his wife and three children in a walled estate along St. Charles Avenue.

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