If the murders of two transgender women killed last month in New Orleans are solved, then they will be solved by a New Orleans Police Department that has historically had a needlessly hostile and adversarial relationship with transgender people. We should all hope that the strained relationship between the Police Department and transgender residents doesn't complicate the investigation into the deaths of Chyna Gibson and Ciara McElveen, and we should hope that it doesn't discourage cooperation from those who have long felt antagonized by the police.

Police departments shouldn't practice discrimination because discrimination is wrong, period. But in addition to it being wrong, discrimination also doubles as a bad crime-fighting strategy. Police shouldn't treat any group in such a way that its members hesitate to go to the police with information. But that's always the risk when police departments don't treat everybody with a basic level of courtesy and respect.

The New Orleans Police Department is making a demonstrable effort to repair the damage that it has caused. Superintendent Michael Harrison recently tapped Sgt. Frank Robinson to serve as the department's liaison to the LGBT community. In a press release issued March 1, Robinson, a 15-year veteran of the police force, is quoted as saying, "In the past, there was a lot of concerns within the LGBT community ... that the NOPD was very insensitive to their needs. I can bridge that gap to bring us together."

Apparently Robertson, who is both a police officer and a part of the LGBT community, had already had some success bridging the gap. He recorded a YouTube video asking that the transgender victim of a videotaped attack or anybody who witnessed that attack contact the police. The victim of that attack later came forward.

But we shouldn't be so naive that we think that the appointment of the liaison or a video that the liaison records will bring an instant end to the strife that has characterized the department's relationship with transgender people.

Friday at 3 p.m. at First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans a meeting has been scheduled where members of the LGBT community, the New Orleans City Council and police officials can all gather and talk.

There is obviously much to talk about: not just the recent violence that cost Gibson and McElveen their lives or the violence that prompted Sgt. Robertson to record a video seeking witnesses after another transgender woman was attacked. But it's also necessary to talk about the longstanding grievances that LGBT residents have with the New Orleans police.

A summary of the department's systematic hostility was included in a 2011 report released by the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. The authors of that report said transgender residents were among the many minority groups who said that the New Orleans Police Department harassed them. And according to that report, "Many members of NOPD echoed these concerns."

"In particular," the report said, "transgender women complained that NOPD officers improperly target and arrest them for prostitution, sometimes fabricating evidence of solicitation for compensation."

The consent decree that the city reached with the federal government to reform its Police Department includes promises to treat transgender residents and transgender suspects with the same courtesy and respect that everybody and every suspect is due.

Among the promises NOPD made is this one: "NOPD agrees that officers shall not construe sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression as reasonable suspicion or probable cause that an individual is or has engaged in any crime, and that officers shall not request identification from or otherwise initiate a contact solely on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression."

But two years after the city entered into the consent decree, transgender residents were making the same allegations against the Police Department. BreakOUT!, a LGBT group that seeks to "end the criminalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth" got 86 responses in a survey it conducted among its members. Half of the transgender members who responded said they'd been called a slur by a New Orleans police officer. A greater number - 59 percent - said they'd been asked for a sexual favor by a New Orleans police officer. When asked if they felt targeted by police, 84 percent said "yes." And 64 percent of the transgender respondents said they'd encountered police who assumed they were in the sex trade.

The report includes a testimonial from a transgender woman who reports calling the police after a robbery. But "the officers saw that I was transgender and refused to investigate the crime, accusing me of being a sex worker." Many of the members of BreakOut! reported not being taken seriously by the police.

That's a way of discouraging people from calling the police, which, in turn, can only complicate the department's mission as crime fighters.

Jarvis DeBerry is deputy opinions editor for NOLA.COM | The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com or at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.