Louisiana Voice

If you ever need an object lesson on how administrative retribution can be meted out in the form of selective discipline on subordinates with targets on their backs, then I would suggest you attend, like I did on Monday, a 13-hour exercise in attorney grandstanding, administrative pseudo-indignation, and all-too-obvious lessons on what happens when you cross your boss – even if you are doing your job by the book.

Baton Rouge Police Sergeant John Dauthier was busted down to corporal and suspended for 60 days before the Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board voted almost at the stroke of midnight to restore his rank and to shorten his suspension to 39 days in direct contradiction to the wishes of the Internal Affairs commander Orscini Beard, Deputy Chief of Police Myron Daniels and Chief Murphy Paul, aka “SAN DIEGO PAUL.”

Dauthier called the outcome a victory but nonetheless indicated he will appeal the 39-day suspension which was approved following a 4-1 vote by the board. No word on whether or not Paul and Co. will appeal.

The vote followed a marathon session during which BRPD attorney Jim Raines of the Baton Rouge law firm Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, appeared be keeping the meter running by constantly asking the same questions and making the same points often, frequently, over and over, repeatedly and ad nauseam. To say he was redundant would be to say he was repeating himself and saying the same thing over and over in an attempt to trick adverse witnesses into contradicting themselves – an old lawyer trick often employed when there’s no valid argument to fall back on.

At one point, with Raines attempting to ask the same question for the umpteenth time, board attorney Floyd Falcon was moved to cut him off with a terse, “Asked and answered. Move on.”

At one juncture during the seemingly interminable session, Raines attempted to match wits with Dauthier – and came up embarrassingly short as Dauthier more than held his own.

So, just why did it seem that Paul, Daniels and Beard seem so determined to break Dauthier?

Well, it seems that Dauthier previously had filed formal complaints against all three, the basis of which was not immediately known – but not a particularly wise thing to do to someone who learned at the feet of Mike Edmonson about ways to game the system.

And while Paul did not appear at Monday’s hearing and though Beard denied any undue influence from the other two, it seems pretty obvious the three had talked and wanted to make an example of Dauthier: file your complaint and pay the price.

But perhaps it would be appropriate to discuss why Dauthier found himself in his predicament.

It seems back last February, BRPD received a call about an elderly man being found unresponsive on the floor of his home in North Baton Rouge. Dauthier, a supervisor, embarked to the scene but was notified by a subordinate already at the scene that he need not bother because the man, later identified as Arthur Brady, was being transported to a hospital.

Dauthier, however, instructed the two officers already at the scene to remain and that he still needed to come to the home and determine for certain that the man was the not the victim of foul play – a determination he described repeatedly under Raines’ relentless but boring cross-examination as routine and necessary under departmental policy. He said Brady’s brother indicated the door was unlocked, no one else was in the dwelling and that he (Dauthier) should leave the door unlocked because Brady’s daughter was on her way.

At the scene, the two officers, Brady’s brother and EMS personnel indicated the man lived alone in a nearby trailer. As Dauthier approached what he said he believed to be an unoccupied residence, he was suddenly confronted by an irate pregnant woman, Mikia Smith, who demanded to know why he was on her porch.

Video was shown and admitted into evidence that plainly showed Smith, who was black verbally attacking Dauthier, who is white. Unlike recent incidents between black victims and white police officers, Dauthier never threatened the woman, never cursed, nor was anyone shot or tased. Instead, as Smith attempted to close the door in his face, Dauthier, with assistance from one of the other officers, blocked the door, took her arm and pulled her outside onto her porch.

She claimed the officers threw her across the porch railing as they cuffed her hands behind her but Dauthier insisted she leaned over the railing as she attempted to pull from officers’ grip.

When she was restrained, Dauthier guided her to a chair on the porch and another officer draped a blanked around her shoulders to protect her from the February cold. Dauthier was shown on the video exercising self-restraint as he attempted to explain that he was obligated to “sweep” the dwelling to be certain that the man had not been abused. Smith insisted that only she and her grandmother lived in the trailer so, after several minutes, Dauthier left to obtain additional information a neighbor.

It was only then that he learned that Brady actually lived across the street from Smith, not in a trailer but in a run-down house. He returned and began explaining to Smith that there had been a “terrible mistake” brought about by “incorrect information” made available to him but that he was the supervisor and “I am fully responsible because I’m in charge here.”

He then took out a pen and paper and began writing. “This is my name, my badge number and the phone number for Internal Affairs if you wish to file a complaint.” In all, he apologized no fewer than seven times and called the incident an “unfortunate misunderstanding” at least six times, appearing genuinely contrite during the entire exchange.

Following that encounter, he huddled with the other two officers, one of whom was in training, and said, “She (Smith) is pissed and she has every right to be pissed.” But he was clear in telling the other that there was going to be no effort to gloss over the incident. “We messed up and I’ll take full responsibility,” he said.

The biggest criticism he received from board members was that as he was explaining the miscommunication to Smith and as one of the officers started to remove the cuffs, he stopped the officer and said, “I want her to hear my explanation.” Never raising his voice, he nevertheless kept her restrained another four minutes as he wrote his name, badge number and explained what had happened. He appeared to agree with board members that he should not have kept her restrained once the facts about Brady’s correct address emerged.

Former ATF and DEA agent Lloyd Grafton of Ruston, retained by Dauthier as an expert on procedure, testified that Dauthier had violated no procedural methods in attempting to defuse what could have been a volatile situation.

Despite Grafton’s credentials, which included a Ph.D. in criminal studies, Raines attempted to engage him by challenging his opinions but Grafton held his ground and refused to concede any of his points. He contradicted Raines’ contention that Dauthier had entered Smith’s home illegally, saying there was never a “search” conducted of her home and that Dauthier was within his rights to reach in and remove her because “he didn’t know if there was someone else in that residence with a gun and he was acting on the information available to him at the time.”

Nine persons from the audience spoke with seven of those, mostly BRPD retirees, supporting Dauthier, as opposed to one who opposed him and one other, a retired police officer, who simply accused Beard of having himself violated the rights of suspects during his time on the streets as a Baton Rouge police officer.

Dauthier’s biggest endorsement came from retired BRPD Capt. Don Kelly, a veteran of 32 years in the department, who called the department’s punishment an “unwarranted action against a good police officer.” He said if he were chief, he would issue a letter of commendation for the manner in which Dauthier handled himself and that he would make the video of the encounter “mandatory viewing” for the entire department as a “textbook example” of how best to defuse a tense situation.

Brent Arceneaux, who has been with BRPD for 18 years, also spoke in support of Dauthier, saying, “I was warned not to come here. I have everything to lose. Remember my face because I’ll probably be appearing before you myself someday.”

Among other things, Dauthier was being punished for being late in filing his report on the incident, for a warrantless search (there was no search conducted), for use of force, for conduct unbecoming an officer (one critic who spoke noted that there had been an officer who got into a barroom fight and received only a one-day suspension) and for not disciplining one of the other officers for failing to have her body camera on her person. “You got me on that one,” Dauthier acknowledged to Raines.

Dauthier noted that part of the investigative report which recommended no action on one of the charges had been redacted by Beard and “Sustained” inserted in its place. While Dauthier implied that the change was made at Paul’s behest, Beard denied that there had been any undue influence exerted from higher up – a claim that few in the room appeared to believe.

It’s interesting to note that while Baton Rouge has the sixth-highest murder rate in that nation, behind only St. Louis, Baltimore, Birmingham, Detroit and Dayton, Ohio. Baton Rouge’s murder rate is higher than such places as nearby New Orleans, (7^th highest), Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta, Shreveport (25^th), Chicago, Oakland, Dallas, or Houston.

Despite that abysmal distinction, Paul still seems to have sufficient time to devote to a shaky quest to single out for punishment the one officer who refused to lose his cool in a standoff situation and who appeared to do everything in his power to calm an irate homeowner and to even admit fault and instruct her how to file a complaint – not against the department, but against him personally.

Where I come from, that’s called accepting responsibility. And in the wake of the embarrassments of the George Floyd and Ronald Greene deaths, that’s a damned welcome – and refreshing – change.