A retired Louisiana State Trooper isn’t buying the radio silence reason for the body of Master Trooper Adam Gaubert’s body going undiscovered for 15 hours after being ambushed as he sat in his patrol unit doing paperwork.
Gaubert, a 19-year-veteran, was gunned down along with four other individuals, one of whom also died, in a shooting spree that covered three parishes. She was identified as Pamela Adair, 37, of Ascension Parish and was the half-sister of the suspected gunman, 31-year-old Matthew Mire. The other two, who received less severe wounds, were in Livingston Parish.
Surveillance video shows Mire drive up to Gauder’s vehicle around 2:30 a.m. Saturday as he sat behind a bank in Prairieville completing paperwork on an accident he had worked earlier. His body was not discovered until 5 p.m. by a fellow trooper who went looking for him.
State Police Superintendent Lamar Davis called the delay in finding Gaubert “ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE.” That much seems accurate, the retired trooper said.
Davis said the frantic search for Mire and the imposed radio silence created a “perfect storm” that allowed Gaubert’s murder to go unnoticed until Saturday evening. “There are some inconsistences, information we’re trying to gather,” Davis said He PROMISED LSP would make immediate changes to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.
But why weren’t those changes made years ago? It’s not like LSP supervisors haven’t failed in the past to keep up with the whereabouts of troopers in a timely manner.
In 2016, State Trooper RONNIE PICOU was finally terminated after LouisianaVoice revealed that he would often leave work after only a couple of hours on shift to either go home and sleep or to work at the construction company he owned.
In 2015, we wrote that Picou “habitually works the first two or three hours of his 12-hour night shift (or four-to-six hours of his 12-hour day shift) and then goes on radio silence for the remainder of his shift.”
Then, in 2018, it was REVEALED that Trooper Jimmy Rogers and three other troopers in Troop D (the same troop as Picou) were being paid for working Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (LACE) patrol that they in fact did not work. In fact, we wrote in 2016 the Rogers was falsifying records in connection with his LACE patrol. LACE is a cooperative program whereby local district attorneys pay state police for beefed-up patrol to catch traffic offenders.
So, how did Picou and Rogers get away with not working the hours they were supposed to work? A retired longtime state trooper explained it in a single word: laziness.
“LSP has a hard and fast regulation that when a trooper’s shift ends, he goes ’10-7.’ That means, ‘My shift’s over and I’m headed home.’ If that doesn’t happen, you better know the reason why. There’s also an unwritten policy that supervisors are supposed to check on the whereabouts of the troopers under their command every single hour,” said the retired trooper, whom I’ll call Joe. “There are plenty ways to check on troopers without resorting to radio,” he added.
“With Rogers and Picou, you had payroll fraud, which was bad enough,” he said. “In this case, you have a trooper who was murdered and no one knew where he was for 15 hours.”
Asked about Davis’s claim that Gaubert was not found for 15 hours partly because LSP was on radio silence during the manhunt for Mire, Joe was adamant, even angry, in his dismissal of that excuse.
“Bull F*****g S**t!” he practically shouted. That’s the most cowardly excuse I’ve ever heard! Every trooper has a cell phone, every trooper has a mobile data terminal (MDT) in his vehicle. That’s a laptop that every car is equipped with. His supervisors could have used those methods to try and communicate with him.
“Louisiana State Police has been doing this for years,” Joe said. “It’s pure laziness. Every single shift has at least two sergeants and one lieutenant whose job it is to keep up with the whereabouts and the well-being of troopers under their command.
“Police departments are paramilitary in their makeup. They even say they are paramilitary. They have the same rankings, the same chain of command and the same responsibilities to know where their people are at all times, to know they are safe, and to know what they need to do their jobs.
“Saturday night, you had three supervisors – at least – making more than $100,000 each who went home and went to bed without knowing where one of their men was,” said Joe. “Who knows? If they’d done their jobs, Adam Gaubert might still be alive. We’ll never know, will we?
“But I repeat, using radio silence as justification for not finding him for 15 hours is b***s**t.”
Louisiana Voice 
very interesting and I, for one, wish the mainstream media would have wondered more about this and asked the right questions – or any real follow up questions, for that matter. One over-arching question: Where does the buck stop for this? Where does the buck stop in any agency of government for anything? Maybe a better question might be, “Where and when does it start?”
I have never once commented on this site and probably never will again , but to this I say ” SHOW RESPECT ” let the deceased Trooper Adam Gaubert family grieve in peace and privacy PLEASE the Trooper is not even buried yet, and these type of comments are unacceptable at this time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Trooper has children let his children grieve in peace & privacy for their father . There is a right time and a right place for everything and now is not the right time or the right place. There is ample time to have inquiries, that’s going to happen there is protocol that will answer all the questions, but before the Trooper is even put to rest is not the right time SHOW RESPECT for this Trooper and his family he deserves respect he gave his life in the line of duty his family deserves privacy right now. Rest in peace Trooper Adam Gaubert our hearts are broken you will be missed .
donna1harris, I truly understand what you are saying. I didn’t know the Trooper and I don’t know any of his family, but I do believe that his family is entitled to a true explanation as to how this could happen. You say that this is not the time for such conversation. I believe it’s the right time. His family will be told the same b*****it that LSP has told the media. Then it will go away. This post by Tom puts it out there now. His family deserves some answers and truth.
Respect for this murdered Trooper and Veteran is why we have to ask this question. There is no excuse for what happened, or why it took 14 hours for LSP to find one of their own.
I’m a truck driver from DeRidder and we have satellite communication computers onboard called Omnitracs and if my company needs to find me or my truck in a split second, they can by typing in my truck OR trailer #, why in the hell does the LSP not already have these installed or do they? and did a dispatcher screw up by not keeping up where every trooper’s exact location is on the same shift that Trooper Gaubert was on and the following shift? THERE ARE NO EXCUSES for him to be not concerned about for 15 hrs. That is BS.
Very informative.
I am with Joe on this. Why are there not a location device on every car so we know where they are. Pretty sure I can guess why.
There are many unanswered questions and no doubt the LSP will investigate themselves. Why would someone park behind a bank rather than in front so people would see unit presence? How would you not notice a car pulling up in the dark? Were the units lights on ?
Aren’t the radio’s encoded so scanners cannot pick up radio traffic ? I seem to recall the state paying Motorola a small fortune for radio software that assured privacy (?) from scanners.
I agree. I have multiple family members that have served in LE. There definitely are location devices in each vehicle, and reporting protocols for officers in the field. Additionally, every cell phone in the country can be tracked by 911 and Law Enforcement. There are multiple ways he could have been located to determine if he was in the area of the crime, or if he didn’t report in as expected
The LSP Commander had an excellent opportunity to distance himself from the department’s previous controversial behavior. He failed when he offered that ridiculous “perfect storm” excuse. It’s absurd for him to think that we would believe that the top law enforcement agency in the state is incapable of doing more than one thing at a time.
All law enforcement departments are military organizations that are expected and required to develop procedures for situations like this… just like the military. There are so many things wrong with a 14 hour delay in his death discovery. Just like the military, somebody’s head has to roll for this. Master Trooper Gaubert deserved better.
This article is very distasteful if light of a great Trooper being just murdered. There are questions that must be answered but digging up old stuff on people not even involved. Have some respect for the man and his family.
It was a sensitive story, to be sure, but these points were brought up by a personal friend of Trooper Gaubert; they went through the State Police Academy together. Outside the family, he probably has as much right to ask questions as anyone.
So very sad. Your article was informative and accurate, and needed to let the family know we all care. The facts will be very helpful in healing for the Trooper’s family and as we always do in the military, solve the problem and improve, do not pass judgment too quickly. thanks ron thompson