Louisiana Voice

What’s with these sheriffs’ departments in Louisiana? It appears that they really believe that, like a certain POTUS, they can just ignore laws they don’t like and enforce whatever they think the law should be, the hell with appearances.

That’s because they can—and do. Sheriffs answer to no one but the voters and as long as they can con the citizens of a parish, their jobs are secure. To give you some idea as to just how powerful they are, no candidate for governor of Louisiana can hope to win without the endorsement of the Louisiana Sheriffs Association. Sheriffs’ departments are one of the last vestige of pure political patronage: Supporters get jobs, opponents get shown the door.

I saw abuses so bad that I wrote a book about Louisiana sheriffs: Louisiana Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption. Lately, it seems that new scandals have justified a comprehensive update of that book. The sordid stories pop up so fast that when I dropped off the final manuscript for publication, I returned home to find a breaking story about the arrest of then-St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain on charges of child molestation and incest. I had to call my publisher to instruct him that another chapter was on its way.

In recent days, I’ve published stories about sheriffs in Jackson and Tangipahoa parishes. Immediately following the Jackson Parish story, Sheriff Andy Brown and his third in command, deputy Donovan Shultz, abruptly announced their retirements. Now, we have sheriffs’ officers in Rapides and Caldwell parishes. None of the sheriffs of these four parishes were mentioned in my book so you see, it’s an ever-developing subject.

Yesterday, Chris Nakamoto, an investigative reporter for WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge had a story about a former State Trooper who, while driving drunk, crashed her state vehicle into a Baton Rouge police officer. Belinda Murphy retired in February 2025 following the incident, ending a 23-year career with State Police.

Not to worry, though. Even as two counts of negligent injury, and one count each of DWI, disregarding traffic signals and crashing into the police car remain pending (she was never even booked after the crash the way any other driver would be), she appears to have landed on her feet.

She joined the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office two months ago at a salary of $45,000 per year (in addition to her state retirement) even though a sheriff’s office spokesperson confirmed that the agency was fully aware of her arrest at the time of her hiring.

Now, LouisianaVoice is receiving word of yet another sheriff’s department that may warrant a closer look. The Caldwell Parish Sheriff’s Office has a deputy in its employ whom we’ve had difficulty in contacting.

We wanted to talk to Deputy Jared Graham and his boss, Sheriff Clay Bennett but Graham has not returned our phone calls and Bennett has apparently ignored our email requesting information about several incidents involving his deputies.

The northwest corner of Caldwell, by the way, abuts the southeast corner of Jackson. All three—Jackson, Rapides and Caldwell—are situated in the central and north-central areas of the state, only a short drive apart.

On September 7, 2017, a Jared L. Graham, then age 29 and a resident of West Monroe, traveled with two other men to a residence in Downsville in nearby Union Parish to confront a man who was visiting the estranged wife of one of the men. One of three men (unspecified by name) kicked in the door and two (again unidentified) entered the house. The victim was beaten inside the house, then dragged outside where the beating continued. He suffered two skull fractures, two sinus fractures and displacement of both sides of his jaw, according to a NEWS STORY about the incident.

The story quoted Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates as saying all three men wee charged with felony second degree battery and that Graham was also charged with misdemeanor simple battery. He was not arrested for nearly a month, on Oct. 2.

Fast forward to March 26, 2021, and arrest records for the website LOUISIANA.ARRESTS.ORG indicate that a Jared Lance Graham of West Monroe was arrested for possession of a controlled dangerous substance and simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling. A search of Ouachita Sheriff’s Office website of bookings yielded no records of Graham’s arrest but a local observer said he knows of several who were arrested during the same time frame but their names no longer appear, either. “A lot of arrest records had been removed entirely,” he said. This was four years after the Downsville incident and Graham was listed as being 33 years of age. Today, he would be 38.

Today, there also is a Jared Graham employed as a deputy for the Caldwell Parish Sheriff’s Office. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office confirmed that he resides outside Caldwell Parish but was unable to confirm if he lived in West Monroe. But the same source cited in the previous paragraph said he drove past the West Monroe Rogers Road address of Jared Lance Graham and observed a Caldwell Parish Sheriff’s Office patrol unit bearing deputy Graham’s number (42) parked in front of the residence.

Less than a year later, on Jan. 17, 2022, we have the Wayne Spicer incident in which deputies beat Spicer in the head and back with their flashlights and tased him repeatedly – including the insertion of laser prongs into his spine, according to a LAWSUIT filed by Spicer against the department, three of its deputies and a Grayson police officer. In his lawsuit, Spicer contends that he was not in possession of a weapon of any kind, and did not present a risk of injury or bodily harm to deputies before or during the arrest. He contends that he was struck in the face with one or more flashlights, sustaining fractures to his skull and eye socket. He contends that after undergoing facial reconstruction surgery at Ochsner LSU Shreveport and being returned to the Caldwell Correctional Center (CCC), he was placed in a restraint chair in retaliation for requesting pain medication. He also contends that only two of the four officers had functioning bodycams, the two officers (not specified by name) who made initial contact did not have functioning bodycams, and only a portion of the incident was captured on bodycam.

Significantly, it was jail personnel, not the arresting deputies, who transferred Spicer to the hospital.

So, what, exactly, did Spicer do that warranted such a reaction from six deputies?

It seems he’d missed a court date for an unspecified charge. Wow. Call in the SWAT team.

One of Spicer’s arresting officers was Piper Barton, an officer with the Grayson Police Department. Barton himself was arrested in a domestic dispute over child support just three months later, in April 2022, during which Barton told Taylor Barton, “I am gonna f**king kill you.” Both individuals were arrested for domestic abuse battery and Piper was also charged with simple assault.

Sheriff Bennett, in November 2022, posted on Facebook, “Right now, it’s a fad to hate the police” and described news reporters as being on the “hate police bandwagon.”

But he still ignored our email inquiry.