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by Gordon Russell, The Times-Picayune | The Advocate

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The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office has determined that the actions of a deputy captured on video last year, in which he grabbed a woman by the hair and slammed her to the ground, were “both reasonable and acceptable.”

The incident involved JPSO Deputy Julio Alvarado, a 17-year veteran, and Shantel Arnold, 34, a Black woman who is under 5 feet tall. It drew national attention after the brief video clip was covered by ProPublica, WWNO and The Times-Picayune | The Advocate.

State Sen. Gary Carter, a Democrat from New Orleans who is representing Arnold, said in a statement that the incident reflects the JPSO’s “well-documented history” of using excessive force against people of color. Carter, who said he is filing a federal civil rights lawsuit on Arnold’s behalf in the next few days, called on Sheriff Joe Lopinto to take stronger action.

“My hope is that Sheriff Lopinto sees Shantel Arnold’s federal complaint as an opportunity to turn the page on the dark history of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office,” Carter said, “and implement policies and procedures meant to protect all the people of Jefferson Parish, including women, African-Americans, and people of color, like Shantel Arnold.”

Lopinto, in an interview, strongly defended his handling of the case.

The incident occured after the deputy responded to reports of a street fight in River Ridge. Lopinto asserted that Arnold admitted “she pulled away” when Alvarado sought to detain her, and that resistance justifies the deputy’s actions. Arnold previously told investigators that she told the deputy she had just been assaulted, and then continued walking.

Deputy Julio Alvarado (The Times-Picayune | The Advocate)

“The reality is fights don’t look good,” Lopinto said. “Fights don’t ever look good. This is what happens in real life every day. We’re not looking for trouble. Trouble happened and we showed up.”

He noted that Arnold, who said she lost several plaits in the scuffle with Alvarado, did not initially file a complaint but is now “looking for a paycheck.” Lopinto also said the anonymously posted video was “selectively edited” to show only the part of the incident that cast the JPSO in an unflattering light. He suggested that footage of what happened before and after the 15-second clip — if it existed — would present a more nuanced picture. Sheriff’s deputies are not allowed to speak with the media. Arnold’s attorney declined to discuss the details of the case outside the courts.

Two former law enforcement officials who teach or testify in trials on police use of force were less enthusiastic about how Alvarado handled the situation after they viewed the video clip and read the JPSO report on the incident.

W. Lloyd Grafton, a former member of the Louisiana State Police Commission, said he believes the video “unquestionably” shows excessive force.

“He’s a huge man; she’s a tiny girl,” Grafton said. “He’s handling her like a rag doll.”

Joseph Giacalone, a former sergeant in the New York Police Department who teaches a course in the use of force at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was less critical of Alvarado’s actions in the moment.

“It doesn’t say anywhere that police can use force, but they can’t pull hair,” he said.

Still, Giacalone criticized how the JPSO handled the matter, suggesting it might have been defused by the earlier arrival of a ranking officer or by body camera footage, which the Sheriff’s Office was not then collecting.

“Bodycams could have avoided a lot of this,” Giacalone said. “Police departments shouldn’t leave it up to the public to provide things that you should be providing.”

The bystander-shot video sparked an internal investigation, which led the JPSO to suspend Alvarado without pay for a week and put him on probation for a year.

The punishment was not imposed over Alvarado’s treatment of Arnold, but over his failure to file a report about an incident involving the use of force — in which he handcuffed Arnold but did not arrest her and then called for an ambulance. Alvarado’s superiors were not aware of the matter until a day later, when the video went viral, the report says.

Shortly after the video surfaced, Lopinto announced his office would conduct an internal probe, even though Arnold did not file a formal complaint. The report says Sgt. David Cañas, the lead investigator for the JPSO, interviewed six people: Alvarado and two colleagues, both of whom arrived on the scene after the use of force occurred, plus Arnold, her uncle and her stepfather.

Cañas’ report leans heavily on Alvarado’s account. Because Jefferson Parish deputies did not use body cameras at the time of the incident — they have since begun a limited rollout — the only video evidence of the encounter is the bystander-shot footage.

The report says the deputy responded to a melee involving roughly 20 juveniles. When he got there, it says, Alvarado was told that Arnold “had attempted to initiate a confrontation with a number of juveniles” and then fled. Arnold has said she was beaten up by the youths.

Alvarado had served Arnold with an arrest warrant a week earlier in connection with a car burglary, for which she eventually pleaded guilty. The deputy also said Arnold “is known to carry a concealed knife.”

The report says Alvarado spotted Arnold walking toward her family’s home.

He jumped out of his squad car and said, “Shantel, what’s going on?” the report says. Arnold, according to Alvarado, replied: “If you touch me, I’m going to f--- you up.”

Alvarado claims that Arnold, who is missing an eye and weighs less than 100 pounds, then put down a daiquiri cup she was holding, balled up her fists and began advancing toward him. Arnold and two witnesses told investigators she hadn’t instigated a confrontation.

Alvarado, the report says, “made the decision to accomplish two goals at once — first, to remove Shantel Arnold from the roadway for her safety by seating her on the ground until he was able to summon a medical unit, and second, to terminate her aggressive advance towards him.”

The report says the deputy tried to grab Arnold’s wrists, but they were slippery, and Arnold “was defiant and pulled away.” Alvarado claims this struggle went on for about three minutes before the video begins.

The video shows Alvarado holding Arnold by the wrist; she is lying on her back on the pavement. The deputy then grabs Arnold’s arm with his other hand and jerks her upward, lifting her entire body off the ground.

For a couple of seconds, the two disappear behind a parked car. When they come back into view, Alvarado is holding Arnold by the braids, and he appears to slam her into the pavement. He finally tugs hard, spinning her body around and flipping her onto her stomach, and he puts a knee on her back.

At that point, a second deputy, Manuel Estrada, arrived at the scene and handcuffed Arnold. They called an ambulance, and she was taken to East Jefferson General Hospital.

Citing medical records, the report says Arnold’s injuries — a busted lip and an abrasion on the arm — were minor. It blames the injuries on the juveniles who fought with her, although Arnold told investigators it was the deputy who caused her injuries. The report said that Arnold thought she had lost consciousness but that she refused a CT scan.

Alvarado has been named in at least nine lawsuits alleging excessive use of force during his tenure. That’s more than any other active JPSO deputy, according to a review by ProPublica and WWNO. Two of those suits were settled. One is still pending, and the others were dismissed.

Alvarado was demoted from sergeant to deputy in early 2020; Lopinto declined to specify why but said it was not a use-of-force issue.

While lawsuits are merely allegations, Giacalone, the former NYPD sergeant, said a pattern of such suits is a red flag. “When you have an officer with nine complaints, and then this video shows up, how long before you do something about it?” he asked.

Lopinto countered that Alvarado’s record simply reflects that he works a busy, high-crime beat. “It’s not like he’s getting a complaint every month,” the sheriff said.

It’s not a case of favoritism, Lopinto added, saying he hardly knows Alvarado.

For his investigation, Cañas went back to Richard Street in River Ridge to interview Arnold, her uncle, Tony Givens, and her stepfather, Lionel Gray, who both witnessed the incident.

Cañas wrote that Gray and Givens gave statements that “were so generalized that they possessed a ‘rehearsed’ tone.” The report adds that both “appear to purposely omit the moments prior to the onset of the video for fear that information would portray the culpable actions of Shantel Arnold.” Arnold’s lawyer said the courts should determine the credibility of witnesses.

Ultimately, the report’s conclusion that Alvarado used force in a way that was “reasonable and acceptable” is attributed to Sgt. Michael Pizzolato, the defensive tactics instructor at the JPSO’s training academy.

Pizzolato, according to the report, said the deputy’s decision to grab Arnold by the hair was acceptable because of his belief that Arnold was intoxicated and because her skin was slippery.

“The use of her hair was considered leverage to direct Shantel Arnold to her stomach allowing Deputy Alvarado to gain control of her movements and to ultimately affix handcuffs to her wrists and subdue her actions,” the report concludes.

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The biggest private policing company in St. Louis is a who’s who of city police commanders, supervisors and lower-ranking officers.

Among the roughly 200 St. Louis police officers whose names appeared earlier this year on an internal list of officers who had sought and received approval from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to moonlight for The City’s Finest were four of the six district commanders who hold the rank of captain. The list, obtained by ProPublica through a public records request, also included two of the department’s highest-ranking officers, Maj. Ryan Cousins, who oversees the department’s murder, rape and arson investigations, and Maj. Shawn Dace, who oversees South Patrol, which includes two districts. It’s not clear if all of those officers currently work for The City’s Finest.

Dace and the four captains, through the department, declined to comment.

Many of the city’s wealthier — and predominantly white — neighborhoods hire off-duty city police officers from companies like The City’s Finest to supplement patrols by the department, an arrangement that creates disparities in how the city is protected. That many top officers moonlight for a private company that exists to shore up the department’s crime-fighting shortcomings suggests deep troubles, experts said.

Peter Joy, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said there would be less demand for The City’s Finest and other companies if the police department was more effective.

“If there was less crime in those areas, The City’s Finest would have less business,” said Joy, an expert in legal ethics and criminal justice. “So, there appears to me to be a conflict of interest.”

Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina’s law school who has studied moonlighting by police, said officers’ dual roles can lead to real and perceived conflicts of interest.

“If you do your job as a public officer too well, you’re going to put your security company out of business,” said Stoughton, a former police officer. “I’m not saying that’s actually going to happen. But it certainly creates this perception.

“The question in the public’s mind is: Who are you actually doing this for right now?”

Because the organizational chart at The City’s Finest is independent of the police department’s command structure, high-ranking officers on the police force sometimes must take direction from their departmental subordinates while working at The City’s Finest. The chief operating officer for The City’s Finest, for instance, is a city lieutenant, yet several higher ranking command officers are under him at the company.

“I’ve got commanders that work every day in different contract areas, and they're like some of the best officers out there,” said Charles “Rob” Betts, who owns The City’s Finest. “They do great, great work and they’re very professional. It’s a good thing, and I think it encourages the other officers that work there. When they see a commander working side by side, it builds morale.”

Betts said he likes to assign leadership roles in his company to commanders “because they’re already in a supervisory role and they understand the importance of that supervisory role.” But some lower ranking officers also have leadership positions. “I have some that I just like their work ethic and they do great work.”

Betts said he had never received a complaint about a commander working for his company.

“I haven’t seen any unethical behavior and I wouldn’t want to be part of it,” he said.

Nate Lindsey, a former official with a taxing district in the Dutchtown neighborhood in the south section of the city, said the department has a culture that views policing almost as a private enterprise.

“Private companies,” he said, “are setting the agenda for what law enforcement looks like in the city of St. Louis.”

Too many police commanders, Lindsey added, are “out there doing secondary gigs as opposed to, say, spending their evenings answering emails to people that they serve within their actual district.”

But Jay Schroeder, the president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, the police union, said the department’s command staff was, in his mind, simply trying to supplement incomes that lag behind those at other area departments. Police captains in St. Louis earn about $88,000 a year, while police captains in neighboring St. Louis County earn about $110,000, according to published payroll data.

Unlike patrol officers and sergeants, command officers in the city are not eligible for overtime. “These guys have tuition to pay and kids in college and all that stuff,” Schroeder said, “and they’re just trying to make ends meet like everybody else.”

Heather Taylor, the city’s deputy director of public safety, was making about $74,000 when she retired in 2020 as a sergeant after 20 years with the department. She makes about $99,000 in her new role, which she said she needed to shoulder heavy health care costs for her family.

“I couldn’t imagine right now being a sergeant and dealing with issues that I’m dealing with now with the pay that I was being paid,” she said. “I think that the story that probably will be missed within this story is why would any officers need to work secondaries as much as our officers work?”

The city declined to comment otherwise on the prevalence of police commanders working for private policing companies.

Some of the department’s highest-ranking officers sometimes spend their off hours performing tasks that their subordinates would typically do at their day jobs, essentially providing white-glove service to paying customers.

Documents obtained by ProPublica through an open records request show that Cousins sent emails to coordinate The City’s Finest’s response to such issues as a car abandoned on the street and a golf cart theft, trivial matters compared with the sorts of crimes he tries to solve for the police department.

At the time of the emails, Cousins was commander of South Patrol, an area that includes two of the city’s six police districts but does not include Soulard, where he worked for The City’s Finest as a project manager. It’s not clear who Cousins was on the clock for when he sent the emails. The department would not release data showing when he was working for the city.

Cousins said in an email that the department allowed him to work for a second employer and that his responsibilities for the company included scheduling officers for patrol, patrolling himself, attending Soulard meetings and advising officers for the company and the police department about ongoing crime issues.

He said that it was important to address even the smallest concerns residents bring because if they are left unaddressed they can lead to bigger problems. “Should I have allowed those concerns to languish and wait for someone to later address the issues instead of providing a timely response because it’s not as important as a robbery or a homicide?” he asked.

Capt. Michael Mueller served for more than four years as the commander of the department’s Fifth District, which straddles the Delmar Boulevard divide to include the upscale Central West End and several higher-crime neighborhoods to the north. That means he was responsible for making decisions about how to deploy resources across an area with massive disparities in wealth.

At the same time, he walked a foot patrol in the Central West End for The City’s Finest.

The Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis (Michael Thomas for ProPublica)

The neighborhood official who has managed Mueller’s patrols for The City’s Finest said that he doesn’t see any conflict. “He’s not working secondary for us because he’s the captain of a district,” said Jim Whyte, a retired city police officer who is executive director of the Central West End Neighborhood Security Initiative, which oversees The City’s Finest patrols. “We don’t care if we’re hiring a patrolman or a colonel; we’re hiring a police officer that has the powers of arrest that can enforce statutes and ordinances.”

On one occasion, in February 2020, Whyte — who is not a police department employee — suggested in an email that Mueller make an arrest in a trespassing case. A man had repeatedly gone into a cosmetics store in the Central West End where an employee had a restraining order against him. In an email to a police officer copied to Mueller, Whyte wrote: “I will pass that along to the secondary officers. Actually Captain Mueller will likely apprehend him quicker than anyone else.”

Whyte said that protecting the business and its employee from the trespassing suspect was important to the health of the neighborhood and “we don’t get the police response on trespassing.”

Mueller was recently transferred to another police district; he did not respond to a request for comment.

Stoughton, the law professor who has studied police moonlighting, said that a police officer who works as a privately hired officer in the same district where he is in command could have divided loyalties. As a commander, he might want to commit more of the police department’s resources to the area where he draws a second paycheck. But he also might want to hold back resources because his private employer’s business depends on a need for more policing there.

Campbell Security and Service Group, a smaller private policing company that competes with The City’s Finest for contracts, also employs senior command staff from the city. It works in a handful of neighborhoods.

Among the 60 city officers who have sought and been granted permission to work for Campbell are Interim Chief Michael Sack, Bureau of Professional Standards commander Maj. Eric Larson and three district commanders. One of those district commanders, Capt. Christi Marks, said she had not worked for Campbell in about five years. The others, through the police department, declined to comment.

Corby Campbell, the company’s owner, said senior department officials on his payroll worked both as private patrol officers and as consultants. “It can be anything from just a simple question to an idea, like, ‘What do you think?’” he said. “There are no time frames, it could be nothing for a month or two and I might have something I want to run by them.”

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For the funeral industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant flush times. Revenues have surged at Service Corporation International, the largest such chain in the U.S., with more than 1,500 funeral homes and 400 cemeteries. And “COVID impact,” according to a recent investor fact sheet, helped SCI more than double its earnings per share between 2019 and 2021.

Prices for funerals have always been steep. Funeral homes charged a median of $7,848 for a viewing and burial last year, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, and $6,970 for a cremation. Those costs don’t include the charges from cemeteries, which can add thousands more. ProPublica recently investigated one cemetery whose charges could run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

The federal government has done little to regulate the industry. Thirty-eight years ago, the Federal Trade Commission tiptoed into this realm, mandating that funeral homes disclose their prices. But cemeteries, some of which are overseen by states, were exempted from those rules. For two years now, the FTC has been conducting a rare review of its rules and examining a wide series of proposals, including extending its rules to cemeteries, requiring that prices be posted online, and disclosing that embalming is not legally required. Presented with a series of questions about the status and timing of the process, an FTC spokesperson would say only “the review is ongoing.”

Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, the only national consumer organization that monitors the funeral industry, has been advocating for changes to the FTC’s Funeral Rule for decades. Regardless of what the agency decides, Slocum wants consumers to know their rights, as well as have a few tips at their disposal when preparing to put a loved one to rest.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Many people might be surprised to know that at least part of the death industry is regulated. What is regulated and what isn’t?

Let’s talk about the federal [rules] because that’s most important to the basics of what people need to know. There’s something called the Funeral Rule, a regulation from the Federal Trade Commission, which gives consumers particular rights, and they would be very wise to exercise these rights.

One, they have a right to get price quotes by phone.

Number two, when they go to a funeral home in person to talk about a funeral arrangement, they have a right to a printed, itemized price list — think of it just like a menu at a restaurant.

Number three, they have a right to pick and choose item by item. Funeral homes are not allowed to offer you only a package. They will try to offer you a package and they will often say, “You save money if you buy everything together in a bundle.” But just like all bundles, you have to take a look and see, is this actually something I would have spent money on, on its own? Am I really saving money? Or am I just getting a bunch of things that I wouldn’t have picked anyway?

What are the first steps to take after a loved one’s death?

Number one, remember that death is not an emergency. When death occurs, by definition, that means the emergency is now over. The worst thing that can happen has already happened. The person isn’t going to get any deader, to put it plainly.

Get on the phone and call at least five different funeral homes within a 20- to 30-mile radius of where the dead person is. Get price quotes. Take the time to at least look it over and compare some of the prices before you commit to having the funeral home remove the body. If the person dies at a hospital, which is more common, you have more options. Ask the hospital if the body can stay in the morgue for a couple of days while you make a considered decision about which funeral home to call.

Two, take stock of your budget. You need to know that figure. Decide ahead of time what you can comfortably afford. And for God’s sake, please don’t do this: “Oh, money is no object. It’s my mother. She deserves the best,” and then three months from now, you’ve got a $15,000 bill that you can’t pay.

What happens when you comparison shop?

Anytime you pick five or six funeral homes, all within the same city or region, and you canvass them, you will find that there’s a price difference of thousands of dollars for exactly the same service all within a service area available to you. And you will not know this because the vast majority of people will say, “Oh, well, we just use our family’s funeral home.” And I will ask them, “Why is that the one you always go to?”

The bottom line is nobody has a family car dealer, nobody has a family utility company, nobody has a family anything else. They compare prices and services. The problem here is that because this is the death transaction, and it’s a transaction we’re only going to sign a check for on average once in our lives, we don’t have practice with it. And because it is the most emotional business transaction we will ever encounter, many make the mistake of thinking of the funeral home in the same emotional category that their church lives in. That’s a mistake. Your funeral home is not your minister. Your undertaker is not your counselor. Your undertaker is your car dealer for death. And I do not mean that in an insulting way. I mean it in a straightforward business way.

How did it come to be that funeral homes are governed by some federal regulation, but cemeteries aren’t?

The cemetery regulation is so poor that I consider it an unregulated industry, even if it is technically regulated under state law.

Cemeteries before the 20th century were never considered a capitalistic, profit-making venture. They were, either by law or by community consensus, conceived of as doing a public good, something closer to what the church does. So they were seen as nonprofit community service entities that weren’t subject to regular business regulation. That changed in the 20th century when it did become possible in many parts of the country to run a for-profit cemetery.

But the regulations never caught up. The same kinds of deceptive practices that were documented that led to the Funeral Rule have always been going on at cemeteries.

I think there’s very little chance that the FTC is going to bring cemeteries under the funeral rule this time around. We’ve tried many times. There are complicated reasons for it. One of the reasons is that many cemeteries in many states are organized under nonprofit corporation law. The FTC does not have jurisdiction over that, which is an actual genuine, systemic problem.

What kind of deceptive cemetery practices are you referring to?

The same things as what funeral homes did before the law changed. The FTC rule doesn’t apply to cemeteries, so they don’t have to give out a printed price list. They don’t have to let you pick a la carte. Many cemeteries get up to nonsense games, like if you don’t want to buy that cemetery’s headstone, they get sore that they’re not getting that profit out of you. So if you go to a third-party monument dealer, the cemetery will tack on what they will call an “inspection fee” that just happens to be the exact difference in cost that they lost if you didn’t buy their stone.

What has changed now for the FTC to consider amending the Funeral Rule and what needs to happen for some of these proposals to be implemented?

Well, the FTC needs to act. It’s been two years since the FTC announced that they were reviewing the rule, and a review means considering changes. I don’t have a lot of inside knowledge, but what I can say is in communicating with the staff, I believe that they are taking this issue seriously. I believe that they are seriously considering updating the rule to mandate online pricing for funeral homes.

The current federal regulations entitle you to a paper price list if you show up in person at the funeral home. We believe that funeral homes should have to post their prices on their website. But until they do, you are probably going to have to telephone shop.

Do many funeral homes post their prices online, even though it’s not legally required at this point?

We, the Funeral Consumers Alliance and our partner organization, Consumer Federation of America, have done two surveys on the rate of online price posting. We did one in 2018, sampling 25 cities. We found only 16% of funeral homes posted their price lists online. We just did a new version of the survey, which was greatly expanded to a sample size of 1,046 funeral homes in 35 different states, and we only found 18% of them posting their prices. So no, most funeral homes hide their prices online.

Do you think the industry’s profits from COVID-19 will affect the FTC’s decision?

I think our perception and reaction to COVID has played roles in most things. One of the things that was really unfortunate for funeral consumers is that COVID was exactly the period when an online price list would have been most helpful to grieving families and we didn’t have it. People were afraid to go into businesses in person, or there were actually state-based restrictions about transacting business in person. So a lot of people were making arrangements over the phone or in some long-distance way.

The big corporations, which own hundreds of funeral homes and cemeteries across the country, are opposing changes to the rule — what’s their stated reason? What’s your take?

Things like, “We believe that this is a very personal transaction, and we believe it’s most appropriate for the price discussion to be had in the traditional manner, and consumers aren’t shopping for price anyway, so there’s no need for this.” That’s what they say. It’s not complicated. It’s simply that they don’t want to be regulated. From my point of view, they have a very weak case. First of all, requiring online posting of price lists literally costs the funeral industry $0. Do you know what it costs them? It costs them the time it takes to click that button that says “upload PDF.”

ProPublica asked SCI to comment on the FTC’s rules and Slocum’s characterizations of the company’s position. In a statement, an SCI spokesperson acknowledged that “we oppose additional federal regulations.” The company asserted that “the Funeral Rule has worked well at the federal level” and that “our industry is primarily regulated at the state level, and additional regulation at the federal level is unnecessary.” It emphasized the importance of “having a personal conversation with a licensed funeral director, who acts as the consumer advocate” and said that its research shows consumers believe “price is the least important consideration when comparing service quality, reputation, convenience of location and price.” It also stated that SCI’s pricing is “competitive and reasonable.”

Asked about its profits, SCI said, “As the largest provider of funeral, cemetery and cremation services in North America, we served many families who lost loved ones in the pandemic. The growth was driven by elevated COVID-19 mortality, which resulted in an increase in both funeral services performed and burials in our cemeteries.” The statement added that “we had to scale to serve our communities, often when other funeral homes were overwhelmed and simply could not do so.”

More broadly, how have multibillion-dollar conglomerates like SCI changed the funeral industry?

Here’s the reality: They still only have about 12% of the funeral homes in this country. And that’s been pretty steady over 20 to 30 years. In some cities, places like Seattle, many cities in Florida, where there’s a heavy concentration of elderly people, then SCI has a much greater percentage of the market share. That is true. In those places, SCI particularly tends to be the highest-priced funeral home in any market. So if it matters to you, find out who owns your local funeral home. Just because it still says McGillicuddy on the sign doesn’t mean Mr. McGillicuddy still owns it.

Are there practical things that consumers can do to bring the cost of a funeral down?

The most cost-effective thing is to choose a funeral home that already has reasonable prices. Your choice of funeral home is the No. 1 driver of cost. Once you choose a funeral home, look carefully at their offerings and see how much of it you can afford that’s within your budget. Remember that you can shop a la carte. So if your budget says $2,000, you need to face reality. $2,000 is not going to buy you a traditional funeral with embalming, public viewing of the body, metal casket, graveyard burial. You are not going to get that for $2,000 anywhere in the United States. That means your choice is going to be something like simple cremation, even if that’s not your favorite. People have to be realistic.

Is price negotiation ever an option? How would that work?

Yes, just the same way you would do it with any other business that you were negotiating with. They don’t have to haggle with you, but you have the right to do so. We get people who are like, “Well, the funeral home has already picked up the body and we do like this funeral home, but they’re more expensive than another one we found in town, we simply can’t afford it.” And my suggestion is talk to the funeral director and say, “Listen, you’ve taken good care of us before, we appreciate that you came to pick our grandmother up, but we literally cannot afford your price on this direct burial. We would love to give you our business. Can you meet your competitor’s price? We realize you don’t have to lower your prices. But we would like to do business with you. If you can’t lower your prices, we’ll have to have her body removed to a different place.”

And that’s OK to do?

Well, why wouldn’t it be OK? Here’s what I hear underneath this, and I think you’re channeling it correctly from people: What people are doing is asking for permission. But you’re not breaking a social rule. You’re not being cheap. I know what people are thinking: “I don’t want to do that. It’s gauche. It means I don’t care about my mother.” Stop that. That’s nonsense talk. If you showed how much you loved your mother by how much you spent on her funeral, you’d go bankrupt. Love cannot be expressed by money.

Lastly, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about navigating this process?

Most of what people think they are required to purchase is not true. For example, many people think embalming is legally required if you’re going to view the body. That is not true in any U.S. state. It’s also not true that embalming is required as a condition of being buried in the ground. These are in-house funeral home policies, not laws. So there’s very little that you are legally required to purchase. Basically, the only thing that has to happen, when a person dies, in order to satisfy the laws, there has to be a death certificate signed by a doctor, the body has to be buried, cremated or donated to anatomical science within a certain period of time, and that’s literally all that is required. Everything else is optional.

Go into this transaction knowing that although it’s emotional, you are a consumer, you get to decide what you put in your cart. You’re not obliged to buy these things. These are choices and you should make choices that fit your family’s budget and your family’s emotional preferences.