Are State Fire Marshal deputies in violation of the law by wearing firearms while on duty?
That’s a fair question.
Many, if not most deputy fire marshals would prefer not to wear a weapon. Some whom we talked with are downright resentful that they are required to go through Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) certification to be qualified to be armed agents. It’s not the training they object to so much as the requirement that they carry a weapon.
But the fact remains that they are required to do just that.
But there may be legitimate questions as to the actual legality of such a requirement.
In 2009, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning wanted a bill introduced that would redefine and expand the authority of deputy fire marshals, a move opposed by command level brass at Louisiana State Police (LSP) who found the proposal to be inappropriate, based on the mission of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal (LOSFM).
In a March 16, 2009, email to State Police command and on which LSP’s Office of Legal Affairs was copied, Browning wrote, “I wanted to follow up on the legislation on full police powers for our investigators. Currently, they have powers to carry firearms and (to) make arrests for the arson crimes and I have the authority to commission them. Arson is now, more than ever, a bi-product of so many other crimes and our folks regularly uncover other crimes and times where their ability to charge with other crimes might help the arson investigation.
“Our people need full powers while conducting a (sic) arson investigation. This can be accomplished with adding to the fire marshal’s act or by your commissioning authority,” he wrote. “I have no preference. I just know they need this ability. You (sic) consideration in this matter is appreciated.”
Browning even prevailed upon then-State Rep. Karen St. Germain of Plaquemine (now Commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles) to draft a bill to redefine the role of deputy fire marshals. From what we can determine it appears that despite Browning’s pleas to expand the agency’s law enforcement authority the bill received no support from Gov. Bobby Jindal (likely at the urging of then-State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson) and was never filed.
Why would a person who trained to be a boiler inspector be required to pack heat?
The same goes for nursing home, child care facilities, and hospital inspectors.
Ditto those who inspect carnival rides.
Likewise, for jail, public school and other public building inspectors.
The fact is, the only conceivable area in which a deputy fire marshal might need to be armed is in the area of explosives and arson investigations, according to highly-placed LSP officials who insist there is little or no need for the creation of yet another police agency to augment LSP, Department of Public Service (DPS) officers, sheriffs’ departments, campus and local police departments.
Yet, just a couple of years ago, there they were: Armed deputy fire marshals patrolling the New Orleans French Quarter during Mardi Gras.
In order for Browning to get around the objections of LSP, he instituted cross-training whereby all deputy fire marshals, no matter their specialized training, must be qualified to inspect any type building, any carnival ride, any boiler, any jail, or any night club—and to be arson investigators to boot. That proposal, coinciding as it did with Jindal’s obsession with downsizing and consolidation of state government, tempered the governor’s initial reluctance to go along with Browning.
But in reality, the issue was never about improving response or streamlining the agency at all. It was about improving retirement benefits.
By allowing deputies—all deputies (and virtually all employees would ultimately be designated as deputies)—to become POST-certified and to carry weapons, it qualified employees (even clerical, if they wore a gun, as some now do), to have their jobs upgraded to hazardous duty as are state police and DPS police.
What that means is employees can now qualify to retire at 100 percent of their average salary for their top three years more than a decade earlier than State Civil Service employees. Here’s how it works:
State classified employees under Civil Service accrue retirement at 2.5 percent per year at a rate based on the average of their three highest earning years (excluding overtime) multiplied by years of service. So, a classified employee whose highest three-year average earnings are $50,000 must work 40 years to retire at 100 percent of his salary ($50,000 X 2.5 percent = $1,250 X 40 years = $50,000. Based on that same formula, if he worked 30 years, he would retire at $37,500). (This equation, of course, works for any pay level, not just $50,000.)
But hazardous duty employees accrue retirement at 3.5 percent of the average of their three highest years. That means the same three-year average pay of $50,000 would accrue retirement at a rate of 3.5 percent, or $1,750 per year, allowing him to retire at 100 percent of salary in just over 28 years.
Accordingly, Chief Deputy Fire Marshal Brant Thompson surmised that if deputies achieved POST certification, then they were fully imbued with general law enforcement authority and not the limited law enforcement authority laid out in state statutes. “That assumption is absolutely not true,” according to one long time law enforcement official familiar with how officers are commissioned. “Just because an individual has POST certification doesn’t empower that person to enforce all laws. That authority flows from the law or via the person issuing the commission. I’m not sure who commissions deputy marshals; I suspect it is Browning rather than the Superintendent of State Police.
“I know that when the LSP Colonel (Superintendent) issues a commission to campus police, for example, the commission makes it clear that law enforcement authority is limited to crimes occurring on the campus,” the former law enforcement officer said.
Browning is nothing if not determined in his quest to acquire full law enforcement authority for his marshals. The debate that began in 2009 has continued into 2016, at least. Gene Cicardo, who was appointed chief legal counsel for DPS upon the death of Frank Blackburn last September, was drawn into the dispute and wrote a memorandum to Edmonson and Deputy Superintendent Charles Dupuy that left Browning upset and unhappy, according to sources.
The contents of that memorandum are not known, but LouisianaVoice has made a public records request to LSP for that document.
Cicardo has since returned to private practice in Alexandria.
Meanwhile, we have armed boiler inspectors, carnival ride inspectors, nursing home inspectors and, conceivably, even State Fire Marshal Office clerical employees (aka Executive Management Officers) patrolling for criminal elements in the New Orleans French Quarter during Mardi Gras.
What could possibly go wrong?
Louisiana Voice 
Little too late, The scumbag Butch Browning is too busy taking care of Butch to pay attention to what Corrupt Carruth and the rest of the Thompson Klan are Doing.
Brant Thompson has told me to my face that “he’s not worried about Tom or LAVoice.” And it doesn’t seem like Idiot Edwards is, either. You should’ve been at the last staff meeting with these men–true morons who think a badge and gun make them law enforcement officers! But every arson case ends up a whoodunit, who’s on first, when’s lunch around here, fiasco.
Keep them on their slick toes, Tom, file those public records requests. That’s the only way they’ll wise up and stop stealing from the taxpayers.
Great investigative work, Tom. Can’t wait to see the bald head idiots inspirational email this week. Probably an ode to Thompson for helping push through “cross training”.
Brant- here’s a question, name a code from NFPA 101 (you know, since you’re our chief deputy”) HA! More clowns running our office than Barnum Bailey.
Let us not forget it was Edmonson and Dupuy that saved Blunder- some Butch on many occasions from his demise! Hint, OIG investigation with several years ago, when Butch actually retired and was resurrected by Edmonson and Crew!
How about the famous Fire Marshal Cat Fish Fry during the last Governors Election?
Drain The Swamp!
Just what we need.
Inexperienced people like Trevor Santos, Chad Robichaux, Nick Heinen, and Stacy Rand wearing GUNS and “patrolling” the worst crime ridden city in the world.
How about instead of sending these people to police academies, Brant Thompson and Butch Browning signs off on training for boiler inspectors and healthcare/hospital inspectors and code enforcement.
Complete idiots. Can’t wait to see the fire marshal’s office crumble.
I work for the SFM in the Baton Rouge District and I’m embarassed to admit it.
They have promoted complete morons with a lack of education – most of the supervisors have barely graduated high school – majors, assistant chiefs, captains, etc.
Most of these “deputies” have worked in jails and as transport officers, and have no experience in the fire service. Fire chiefs are falling for the Browning/Thompson garbage and think they’re getting professional, educated, experienced investigators and inspectors – but they are really getting inexperienced, unqualified people like Chad Robichaux, Trevor Santos, Dean Smith, and Chris Anderson – the biggest group of bufoons in the state.
They’re given these nice cars and guns and think they’re the police. Far from it.
Then they threaten rank and file deputies with insubordination when things don’t go a certain way.
The pay is just the tip of the iceberg. Keep digging and you’ll find much more!
They do more than threaten deputies. They have ruined many careers of deputies because we did not ” go with the program”.
They do it to receive supplemental pay – $500 per month.
There is no supplemental pay for state law enforcement officers–only municipal and parish officers. The state decided in the late 70s or early 80s that it could not supplement the salaries of state employees. Salary supplements were incorporated into the State Police pay structure around 1979 or 1980.