New Orleans TV investigative reporter Lee Zurik cur to the heart of the problem of the State Police Commission when he questioned why a member was allowed to sit on the commission after an investigation found she had possibly committed criminal violations.
The commission has a serious public image problem in both its makeup and its history of being a rubber stamp for Louisiana State Police (LSP) administration.
In recent years:
- Commissioners have RESIGNED after having been outed for making illegal campaign contributions;
- Another resigned after saying the civil service body for state troopers had lost its MORAL COMPASS;
- Two members resigned after revelations of an inappropriate relationship between the two;
- A member resigned after NEWS REPORTS claimed he used his position in an attempt to intimidate a state trooper who had arrested his daughter for DWI;
- A political ally of Gov. John Bel Edwards was hired to conduct an INVESTIGATION into illegal campaign contributions by the Louisiana State Troopers Association at a cost of $75,000, but curiously, never issued a report and verbally recommended that “no action be taken” in the matter;
- A commission member who was a liquor distributor, was said to furnish alcohol to the Louisiana State Troopers Association at events held on LSP property;
- A director was FORCED OUT in a stormy episode that saw claims that she was being followed by a private detective, and
- Another has been LINKED to the grandson of a New Orleans mafia figure who owned several adult video stores in the New Orleans area and in 2012, his business partner, on whom he had $5 million in life insurance policies, was murdered in New Orleans east in a case that has never been solved.
That member, Jared Caruso-Riecke, was also identified in a video making a violent tackle on a speaker at a Mardi Gras event that has never been explained.
The State Police Commission is the special civil service agency created solely for the benefit of state troopers and has been tainted by its seemingly automatic approval of administrative actions and the necessity of putting out its own brush fires.
Caruso-Riecke, in a November 2020 deposition given in a lawsuit filed by former member Calvin Braxton, said under oath that the commission supervised state police concerning discipline “over what is appropriate and inappropriate, what they’re allowed to do …we make rules.”
The commission has been conspicuously quiet in the beating death of motorist Ronald Greene by state troopers in May 2019 and on a May 6 incident in which a motorcyclist was killed in a high-speed chase involving state police in Calcasieu Parish.
In the latter case, a veteran trooper was “low on speeding tickets,” according to a retired state trooper who said “They were messing with him over low stats.”
Officially, LSP denies the existence of ticket quotas, but LouisianaVoice had pretty much shot holes in that argument in stories published over the past five years. In this case, the trooper, a 20-year veteran, was being accompanied by his supervisor and in an effort to bump up his ticket count, he was instructed to pursue the cyclist, identified as 27-year-old John Blake Baldwin, who was clocked at 77 mph in a 55-mph speed zone on LA. 27 near U.S. 90.
The trooper would later say that traffic was heavy on the I-10 bridge in Lake Charles, particularly with 18-wheelers and that had he been alone, he would not have engaged in pursuit.
As the pursuit progressed, Baldwin accelerated to speeds in excess of 100 mph and while traveling through the intersection of Enterprise Boulevard, struck a raised concrete curb and was ejected from the motorcycle. He died 10 days later, on Monday of this week.
Question for Channels 2, 9 and others: Have you asked Senator Fields why he withdrew his bill abolishing the State Police Commission? If not, why not?
Couldn’t agree more! The question needs to be posed. For what it’s worth, Gerod Stevens of WBOK radio (on which I’ve been a guest after the last five or so LSPC meetings for an hour and a half each) has committed to having Sen. Fields on his show soon to pose that question of him.
Maybe you have to live in a different state, but when you do you can see the state of Louisiana has mobsters on their state police commission. Stealing and murdering for $.
And nobody will do anything about the corruption because if you do, you’ll have a life insurance policy written and called in for you by the police commission or legislators.