To say that there were two conspicuous no-shows at last Thursday’s State Police Commission meeting would be an understatement, considering the names of the two absentee members.
To say their failure to attend the commission’s monthly meeting was tantamount to shirking their official duties, considering the controversy swirling around Louisiana State Police (LSP) is likewise belaboring the obvious.
Of course, the two members who missed the meeting, St. Tammany Parish’s Jared Caruso-Riecke and New Orleans police CAPT. SABRINA RICHARDSON are currently caught up in their own controversies, which may explain their empty seats.
“… Capt. Richardson is under an internal investigation within the police department and also allegedly under investigation by law enforcement external to the police department for possible criminal violations,” said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the New Orleans-based Metropolitan Crime Commission, on March 30. “I think that that should trigger her voluntary resignation.”
Riecke is involved in a spate of COURT FILINGS involving one former business partner, has been linked to the grandson of an associate of mafia boss Frank Costello – a grandson who operated a number of adult video stores at one time – and had another partner whose 2012 MURDER in New Orleans east remains unsolved. Riecke, by the way, had life insurance polices on his partner, Bruce Cucchiara, totaling $5 million.
Both Riecke and Richardson are appointees of Gov. John Bel Edwards. Riecke, his family members and his companies are major contributors to the campaigns of both Edwards and his brother, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards.
Granted, the State Police Commission’s function is not to investigate murders or municipal payroll fraud, but the absence of two high-profile members while new revelations are made almost daily about excessive force by state troopers and massive cheating by cadets at the State Police Academy is not a good look.
Speaking of which, it’s important that we realize that certain high-ranking personnel at LSP desperately wanted to downplay the extent of cheating by cadets at the State Police Academy in 2019. But the fact is, in the words of one retired state trooper, “[T]hey ignore the face that all of the [course] material was stolen. The cadets were not allowed to have it. It had been taken from our offices. IA (Internal Affairs) interviews …said Tia Laverdain, who is now a trooper, took the materials as an intern. Her mother was also over IA at the time.”
The interesting thing, he said, is that “when you go through the list of classes, it is all the subjects that cops get in trouble for: de-escalation, diversity, standards of conduct, use of force, taser, and legal.”
Yet, LSP command did everything it could to downplay the seriousness of the cheating. That could have been because Tia Laverdain’s mother, Treone Laverdain, was a supervisor in IA or that she was the niece of State Rep. Ed Laverdain (D-Alexandria).
Or it could have been the determination to conduct a thorough investigation of the cheating suddenly cooled when Capt. Mark Richards informed Superintendent Kevin Reeves that the cheating likely went back several years and may have even included the class in which Reeves’s son was a cadet.
No matter the reason, the cheating scandal, coming as it did on the heels of the Ronald Greene death at the hands of state troopers in Troop F has further tainted what was left of an already damaged LSP reputation.
All of which begs the question of why was SENATE BILL 239 pulled?
The bill, by State Sen. Cleo Fields (D-Baton Rouge), called for a constitutional amendment to abolish the State Police Commission and to move LSP back into state civil service. The bill made a lot of sense, given the administrative rubber stamp that the commission has become. But Field’s pulling the bill would indicate some proverbial smoke-filled, backroom dealing that sealed the bill’s fate before it could even get a committee hearing.
Was it pressure from the governor’s office? Or did the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association lobbyists apply their own pressure? The latter is certainly plausible, given the cozy relationship between the association and LSP, nurtured by all the “legacy” cadets that enter the academy on the urging of their sheriff fathers. Of course, LSP command staff could have seen the risk to their own siblings, sons, daughters, nieces and nephews in the academy, not to mention immediate family members of influential political figures.
Fields, who has been vocal in his criticism of LSP over the May 2019 killing of Greene by troopers who then attempted to conceal their actions by claiming Greene died from injuries suffered in an auto accident following a high-speed chase (a blatant lie, it turned out), would seem to be the last person to kill his own bill to abolish the toothless commission.
Unless extreme political pressure was applied from someone with some skin in the game and the wherewithal to shut the bill down before it ever gained any political momentum.
Louisiana Voice 
I’ll just add one fact. Everyone knows Fields’ goal is to return to Washington DC as a U. S. Representative. He was there in the early 90s briefly before the district he helped draw up (which stretched along the state from Baton Rouge to Shreveport forming a Z) was truck down by the courts: https://history.house.gov/People/Detail?id=13112.
Returning to Congress now would most certainly require the creating of a second minority district in Louisiana. John Bel Edwards, at a news conference about two months ago, indicated that Louisiana’s population is roughly one-third black. He then said, “Six divided by three is two, not one.”
With a veto of the maps drawn up by the Louisiana Legislature, Fields’ chances would seem likely to increase, so perhaps (just perhaps!) there was a quid pro quo. Fields retracts bill in exchange for Edwards agreeing to veto maps for Congress.
After all, it’s little secret that the life of Ronald Greene was utilized as a bargaining chip for an agreement by the Legislative Black Caucus to stand fully united against any impeachment effort of Gov. Edwards for that same veto promise.
Edwards fulfilled his end of the bargain, so now both Fields and the Legislative Black Caucus are left with the consequences, and those consequences are all the more magnified since the Legislature overrode Edwards’ veto.
Entirely speculative.
Well, I’d be careful using the word “entirely.” Further, when provided an excellent opportunity to refute (entailing the Legislative Black Caucus), no attempt was made to do so: https://www.soundoffla.com/louisiana-aclu-legal-director-nora-ahmed-life-of-ronald-greene-should-not-be-used-as-a-bargaining-chip-in-the-redistricting-process/