Louisiana Voice

As a rule, I have nothing but disdain for legislators who file bills because of a personal grudge or a bad experience.

Every so often, for example, some lawmaker will get a speeding ticket while driving through some small town on his way to or from Baton Rouge to conduct important state business. Whenever that happens, you can count on a bill being introduced to rein in or even outlaw those small-town speed traps.

Never mind the fact that speeding tickets provide the major source of revenue for some of those towns. And it never seems to occur to a legislator to curtail the speed trap activity until he becomes a victim.

And while on the subject of speed traps, if you ever head down to Grand Isle, you have to go through a little town called Golden Meadow. The speed limit in Golden Meadow, if I recall correctly, is 25 mph and if you do 26, you’ll get a ticket.

One man I talked to even made it a point to explain to his son that you have to be very careful in Golden Meadow. But he still got a speeding ticket – for going 38 and he swears he was going under 25. The officer showed him his radar gun and it showed 38 on the display. The victim suspects the officer got someone doing 38 earlier and never reset his radar gun so that it would register 38 on anyone he subsequently chose to stop.

“He told me I could come to court and contest it,” he said, “but I’m not going back down there just to go up against a stacked deck. I paid the damn ticket but I didn’t like it.

But like I said, I generally hold self-serving legislation by lawmakers in contempt and, to be honest, I ain’t too enamored with most legislation offered up by the Republicans these days even though I am a recovering Republican.

But Rep. Paul Hollis (R-Mandeville) has filed such a “personal” bill and I have to say I can see where he’s coming from and I hope his bill passes.

I know he doesn’t need my blessings on his legislation but when he tries to put a damper on the HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATION Nazis, I gotta pull for him.

And make no mistake, it’s personal. Hollis, it seems got into a squabble with a neighbor over the neighbor’s barking dog (dog do that, you know). Anyway, one thing led to another and the neighbor installed a surveillance camera and apparently aimed it in the Hollis home’s direction. So, he erected an 8-foot fence to block the video camera and to baffle the dog’s barking.

He did so only after complaining to the HOC about the barking dog and the HOC did nothing. Nothing, that is, until he erected that fence. Then the association swung into action, imposing a fine of $25 per day and threatening Hollis with a lien on his property. Why? Because the fence exceeded the allowable 6-foot height.

It’s on now.

Hollis has filed a bill that would nullify any prohibition that infringes on the constitutional rights of a lot owner. He’s also considering filing a companion bill that would allow homeowners to opt out of existing HOAs because of what he calls “the horror stories” that impose “selective enforcement on what is covered in the covenants” and which complaints will be ignored and which ones enforced.

We’ve all heard the stories of how HOA types stalk neighborhoods to see whose garage door is left open, whose grass is a quarter-inch too long, whose mail box doesn’t comply with the approved neighborhood motif, whose house is painted the wrong color, and whose kid is not allowed to operate a lemonade stand in her parents’ front yard. It just seems to me that some people have far too much time on their hands.

Give these people enough rope and they’ll be dictating what kind and what color vehicle you’re allowed to have.

NOLA.com published the story about Hollis’ predicament and quoted Robert Phillips, president of GNO Property Management, a New Orleans company that manages homeowner associations (you mean there’s someone all the way across Lake Pontchartrain that dictates what local HOAs say and do?).

Phillips said folks have a fondness for gates and rules as a means of protecting their property. “People who buy into HOAs and condos do it with the idea they aren’t going to have someone with a trailer next door or broken-down cars in the front yard,” he said, adding that if they didn’t want the restrictions, “they’d go to Folsom and buy five acres.”

As for keeping a mobile home from going in next door, I thought that was what local zoning laws were for.

Phillips continued: “The majority of the people appreciate the work we do. The ones who don’t appreciate it are the ones who et letters.”

Not subject to an HOA, I don’t have a dog in this hunt, but I know people who do and I’m hoping Hollis can bring some sort of uniformity – and sanity – with his personal vendetta bill.

How long does it take for a political body to make a decision on something as obvious as the VIDEO first aired by Baton Rouge TV station WBRZ and then on LOUISIANA VOICE  on Aug. 13, 2020 that clearly shows Hammond police officers hit, kick and tase a handcuffed prisoner who appeared to commit no more serious offense than reaching for a bottle of pills?

It all started back on Dec. 6, 2017, when Kentdrick Ratliff, 38, was arrested for the crime of blocking a sidewalk with his vehicle, certainly reason enough to consider him a threat to humanity. There remains a dispute as to whether or not he gave officers permission to search his car. Police say he gave consent, he says he did not.

But be that as it may, in the booking room he was handcuffed and seated at a desk. Officers had apparently either removed a couple of bottles of pills from his person or from his car (it’s unclear whether or not they were prescription medications). At one point, he reached for one of the bottles and that’s when officers, including Sgt. Edwin Bergeron pounced.

Officers can be seen on the video kicking Ratliff in the head while another officer kept his boot on the prisoner’s neck and another kneeled on his body. One officer, Sgt. Thomas Mushinsky took the opportunity to deliver a swift kick to what Ratliff later said was the most vulnerable area of a man’s body. Officers claim the kick was to his leg. But does it really matter? Kicking a handcuffed prisoner, weighing all of 154 pounds and who was offering no resistance, anywhere would appear to be somewhat excessive.

In fact, that’s just how an investigator hired by the city described that and other attacks on Ratliff’s person. More about that later.

For years, Ratliff’s attorney Ravi Shah, and the district attorney’s office were told that no video of the incident existed. If that sounds a bit familiar, I refer you to the story of Ronald Greene, killed by state troopers out of Monroe’s Troop F in May 2019. State Police also said there was no video of that incident. Both claims turned out to be lies when video of both attacks later surfaced.

WBRZ’s Chris Nakamoto provided LouisianaVoice with a copy of a report done by Use of Force Consultants of McKinney, Texas, that said Mushinsky’s kick was a “trained distraction technique,” adding that the force employed by Bergeron and another officer was “excessive and borderline criminal.”

The ARREST REPORT of the Hammond Police Department is almost comical were the offenses of police officers not so brutal. The report was initially arrested for obstructing a public passage, a 14:100 in Barney Fife parlance. Then, after his vehicle was searched (with or without his consent), he was charged with possession of a schedule IV drug with intent to distribute (40:969A) and possession of a schedule I drug (40:968), four counts of resisting a police officer with force or violence (the dreaded 14:108), though there’s little evidence to support those charges in the video. Then officers tacked on a charge of obstruction of justice by tampering with evidence (that’s a 14:130), parking the wrong way (14:143), and possession of legend drugs (40.971H), simple escape, aggravated escape (14:110), disarming of a police officer (14:34, and criminal damage to property (14.56).

Nowhere in the video does it show Ratliff “disarming” an officer, being guilty of “simple” or “aggravated” escape of any description and the only damage to property came when officers pinned him down and pummeled him. All property damage was inflicted by overzealous cops eager to get their punches in.

But the video and the report of Use of Force Consultants wasn’t enough for the Hammond City Council or Mayor Pete Panepinto who, during the interim, promoted Bergeron from sergeant to chief of police. So, Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and in the university’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, was retained to do yet another report.

Stoughton present his 158-page report to the council yesterday and the results did nothing to absolve officers of any blame for excessive uses of force.

Stoughton listed 10 separate uses of force and described them as either unreasonable, excessively unreasonable, or excessively egregious. He specifically described officer Craig Dunn’s kicking and stomping Ratliff while he was on the floor as “among the most abusive uses of force I’ve seen in…I don’t know how many cases.”

He noted that the video showed “several officers standing around” during the tag-team beating of Ratliff. “The department has no intervention policy. I would strongly recommend that such a policy be adopted.”

Following Stoughton’s presentation, council member Kip Andrews offered to add an agenda item calling for Panepinto to fire Bergeron but because the addition of agenda items requires a unanimous vote, his motion failed when it was opposed by Carlee White. White said she and the other council members had just received Stoughton’s report and she believed more time was needed to digest its contents before making a decision.

Well, it’s only been since December of 2017 that Ratliff was assaulted by Hammond police, so what’s another month or so?

Meanwhile, Bergeron keep drawing a paycheck.

And watch where you park your car there to be sure you don’t block a sidewalk.

The grave injustices heaped upon New Orleans attorney ASHTON O’DWYER by Louisiana State Police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the legal obstacles thrown in his path since then have been documented by LouisianaVoice and columnist JAMES GILL.

So, it’s understandable that O’Dwyer took issue with my claim that LSP legal counsel Fay Morrison was being served up as a sacrificial lamb by LSP in an effort at damage control in the Ronald Greene matter.

O’Dwyer’s protestations notwithstanding, LouisianaVoice said then that Morrison was being made a SCAPEGOAT in an effort to protect higher-ups in the LSP food chain who were responsible for the actual decision to conceal details of the beating death of Greene at the hands of LSP troopers from Troop F out of Monroe.

Coincidentally, it was Troop F personnel who physically abused O’Dwyer while he was being held prisoner for the horrendous act of refusing to leave his home during Hurricane Katrina despite the indisputable fact that his home was safe and that he provided accommodations for news reporters covering the hurricane.

Now, thanks to the diligence of Baton Rouge television reporter CHRIS NAKAMOTO who just won’t let the story of Greene’s death go away, and to the dogged investigation of LSP detective Albert Paxton, we learn that the second-in-command at LSP indeed played a major role in the cover-up and even received a promotion just as details of Greene’s death were becoming public – a year-and-a-half after the fact.

Doug Cain was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel upon the sudden retirement of LSP Superintendent Kevin Reeves who, ironically, previously served in Troop F.

But there is a twist in the plot previously not known: Cain harbored ambitions to move into Reeves’s slot and was even jockeying for the position only to be denied when Lamar Davis was appointed to the position.

Cain confided during a conversation with LouisianaVoice that he had aspirations to be named superintendent. During speculation about who would succeed Reeves, Cain, in an unguarded moment, said, “I would hope to be considered. I’d like to be superintendent one day.”

At the time of that exchange, we were speculating on who would succeed Reeves, who had just stepped down as the Greene investigation was just picking up steam.

Greene, a black man, was involved in a two-parish chase with State Police. The chase ended when Greene hit a tree, causing minor damage to his vehicle. Police indicated to Greene’s family that Greene had died in the collision, which was a lie. Greene was very much alive and pleading with officers as eventually proven by police body cam evidence that remained hidden for 16 months even as State Police denied the existence of any video of the incident.

LSP investigator Paxton, who is assigned to Troop F, has testified that he was blocked in his investigation by LSP administrators who wanted the matter to go away. Apparently, Cain was in the mix. Paxton’s notes say that Cain “blew off” his efforts and indicated to others at LSP that he didn’t trust Paxton.

Paxton’s notes further say that both he and Scott Brown wanted Trooper Chris Hollingsworth arrested a week after Greene died, but that that didn’t happen. It was more than a year before the case came to the public’s attention and Hollingsworth subsequently died in a single-vehicle accident only hours after he was finally terminated by State Police.

Paxton also communicated with Cain on Dec. 23, 2020, about his concerns over Trooper Kory York’s committing battery on Greene but his notes say that Cain told him, “York has already been punished and we are not going back.”

Paxton recently testified that he was issued a letter of reprimand for unauthorized dissemination of information for sending emails of his reports to his wife to proofread. Paxton said that had been a practice of his for 14 years with approval from his supervisor.

So, in effect, LSP gives tacit approval of actions so long as they do not cast the agency in a bad light but when the light is shone on misdeeds and malfeasance, it becomes grounds for disciplinary action. In terms easier to comprehend, the official policy is “kill the messenger.”

In seven-plus years of Louisianavoice’s coverage of Louisiana State Police, it has become obvious that it has become a runaway agency populated with rogue officers supported by administrators who were, at best, indifferent and/or incompetent or, at worst, corrupt.

And for now, at least, it would appear that, thanks to Paxton’s report and Nakamoto’s tenacity, at least one career track, Doug Cain’s ambition to lead LSP, has been derailed.

Theoretically, at least, if 500 prisoners can be moved from the overcrowded Harris County jail to private correctional facilities, they become someone’s problem other than Sheriff Ed Gonzalez’s.

Theoretically.

Harris County commissioners last month unanimously approved the REQUEST by Gonzalez to reduce jail crowding by outsourcing 500 pretrial defendants from Harris County to as then-unspecified locations – locations that ultimately ended up as LaSalle Corrections facilities in Louisiana hundreds of miles from prisoners’ families and legal representatives.

Gonzalez told commissioners that arrests were being made at a faster rate than prisoners were being processed out of the county jail which on a given day has 9000 prisoners. “There is no other facility in the entire state of Texas, no state prison and no county jail, that comes close to those kinds of numbers,” the sheriff said.

Gabriela Barahona, a program associate with the Texas Jail Project, agreed that the jail is overcrowded but disagreed with the proposed solution. She argued that the solution was to detain and prosecute fewer people on low-level offenses.

She apparently bruised the feelings of the Haris County District Attorney when she said, “We’re horrified by the county’s instinct to even consider outsourcing defendants rather than take responsibility for the front-end problem in the DA’s office. I cannot believe this court that claims to care about the indigent defense and court backlog crises would pay a Louisiana premium to exacerbate them.”

Dane Schiller, a spokesperson for the DA’s office was quick to respond via email:

“Criminals, not prosecutors, determine how many crimes are committed and it is up to judges to decide who should be held in jail or released pending trial,” he said. “While the Texas Jail Project may be about getting as many defendants as possible back into the streets no matter what, the District Attorney’s Office is about keeping the public safe, the system’s fair, and basing decisions on evidence.”

Apparently, the welfare of the prisoners, who haven’t even gone to trial yet, is of secondary importance, given the choice of where they’re being sent.

It’s not like there hasn’t been sufficient information available in recent months regarding LaSalle’s track record.

Things were so bad at its facility in Texarkana that LaSalle eventually TERMINATED its contract to run the Bowie County Jail following claims of inmate neglect, death of prisoners, charges of falsification of records, failure to complete training courses, lying about those courses, beatings of prisoners, denying medications, avoiding reporting in-custody deaths by releasing prisoners to hospitals or families prior to their deaths, filthy conditions, and, in the case of its Georgia facility, the performance of unwanted HYSERECTOMIES on female detainees.

Another inmate in the Texarkana facility, initially arrested for the heinous crime of jaywalking, was subsequently beaten while “absent – not assigned,” meaning he was just flat-out LOST and unaccounted for. It’s still undetermined if he was beaten by guards or by fellow prisoners.

LaSalle also got into legal trouble in Louisiana, paying out a $405,000 settlement to a former inmate at its Jackson Parish Correctional Center. Links to several LouisianaVoice stories about LaSalle can be accessed by going HERE.

President Joe Biden, if you recall, promised during his campaign that he would abolish the private prison system. So far, there has been no obvious effort to deliver on that promise.

Dumping 500 of Houston’s pretrial detainees into LaSalle facilities in Louisiana doesn’t seem like much of a move in the direction of abolishment of a bad system – bad for everyone, that is, but the private prisons and sheriffs who receive campaign contributions from them.

Opponents say the transfer will exacerbate root causes of the population crisis, inadequate indigent defense, and court backlogs. They also claim that defendants are being charged too frequently, saying that 67 percent of misdemeanor arrests and 34 percent of all felony arrests in 2019 resulted in dismissals.

The problem isn’t totally with LaSalle, however. Budgeted upgrades to Houston’s adult detention facilities was $185.7 million for fiscal year 2021-2022 with the TOTAL BUDGET for the Harris County Public Safety and Justice capital improvement program topping out at $301.4 million. That’s more than Harris County’s combined expenditures for pollution control, public health and mental health.

Still, opponents of the move say, LaSalle is “a notoriously abusive and deadly private prison company.”

Just thinking out loud, but it seems like a pretty good idea for someone to check Gonzalez’s campaign report for contributions from LaSalle or a certain Ruston family named McConnell.

Just sayin’.

It’s really disturbing when a sitting judge relies on the word of the sheriff’s department in determining whether or not an arrest warrant is constitutional.

And when the judge’s obliviousness results in a federal investigation, things can really get nasty.

But that’s exactly what has happened to what began as a strictly local matter that now has literally turned into a federal case.

When St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith had critic Jerry Rogers arrested in 2019, the sheriff’s office neglected to tell Judge Raymond Childress, who signed the arrest warrant, that the district attorney’s office had warned that the arrest might be unconstitutional.

Actually, there was no “might” to the whole episode. The state’s Criminal Defamation Statute was ruled UNCONSTITUTONAL more than half-a-century ago (1964, to be precise). And a prudent judge, if unaware of the law, could have done some cursory research to learn that a SIMILAR ACTION in Terrebonne Parish had resulted in a $250,000 settlement by then-Sheriff Jerry Larpenter.

You’d a-thunk a judge would be cognizant of that ruling. That might be something to consider at reelection time. You might also reasonably think the high sheriff would pull the reins in on seeking a warrant after being so-advised by the local DA.

So, after having been arrested, Rogers filed a lawsuit against the sheriff who sniffed that the suit was a “POLITICALLY-CHARGED STUNT” (as if the arrest itself was not).

So, what brought about all this legal bickering?

Well, for openers, it all goes back to the sheriff’s department’s rumbling, stumbling, bumbling investigation of the July 2017 murder of Nanette Krentel, wife of St. Tammany Fire Chief Steve Krentel.

Nanette Krentel was found in the burned wreckage of the couple’s Lacombe residence. It was later determined that she had died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Rogers had sent emails to her family critical of the failure of the sheriff’s department in general and Chief Deputy Danny Culpepper and Sgt. Keith Canizaro in particular to arrest a suspect in her murder. He said the lead detective in the case was “clueless” and a “stone-cold rookie.”

Smith took umbrage at any criticism of his department or his deputies and promptly had a warrant issued for Rogers’ arrest despite having been advised by the district attorney’s office that it would be unconstitutional to arrest anyone for the exercising of free speech, protected in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Now, recent court documents filed by Rogers (not to be confused with the Mr. Rogers of kids’ TV fame) argue that the sheriff’s actions are not protected by the qualified immunity used with increasing frequency by law enforcement, prosecutors and judges as protection against legal liability for their actions.

Moreover, the court documents indicate that Rogers’ arrest led to a call for an INVESTIGATION by an FBI agent who believes there may be a case for criminal conspiracy on the part of Sheriff Smith and some of his deputies. The agent made the call for the investigation after he interviewed Judge Childress.

Just another day in the life of residents of St. Tammany Parish, easily the most interesting parish in the gret stet of Looziana in terms of public scoundrels being given free housing by the courts.