After a national search, we chose Richard Pennington, a career police officer from Washington D.C. to head the NOPD. Under Chief Pennington, 600 police officers were arrested, fired, disciplined or resigned while under investigation. Dozens of officers went to jail and two went to Death Row.

The administration provided the NOPD with one of the nation's first juvenile curfews. Too many teenagers had died in late night and early morning shootings. We said that children should be home at night, working on homework, not running the streets looking for trouble. With the implementation of the juvenile curfew, murders of teenagers dropped by more than 60 percent and overall juvenile crime continues to decline on an average of 5 percent a year. Murders in 1994 were at an all-time high, with 26 percent of these crimes being committed in three public housing developments (Desire, Florida and BW Cooper). As a result, Community Oriented Policing (COPS) was implemented. Police substations were staffed and operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in housing developments and neighborhoods where violence was common.

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