Louisiana Voice

When State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson (D-New Orleans) announced her immediate resignation from the legislature last week, she attributed her decision to depression and a chronic gambling addiction.

While the reasons for her decision were rooted in facts, the truth may be a bit more complicated, it now seems.

Political writers Gordon Russell and Tyler Bridges wrote on Saturday that Carter-Peterson was the subject of a federal investigation and hinted that the probe might well be tied to her tenure as head of Louisiana’s Democratic Party from 2012 to 2020.

Carter-Peterson has been a lightning rod of sorts, having used her veto power to squelch the reappointment of Ronnie Jones as head of Louisiana’s Gaming Board and former House Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger, who was bumped from his appointment as chairman of the Ernest M. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

She invoked an obscure rule that allowed her to personally torpedo five of 11 gubernatorial appointments, including Jones and Leger, because each of the five had managed to piss her off by some perceived slight. And Karen Carter Peterson was not the type to forgive and forget.

She offered her full-throated support for Mike Noel to succeed Jones because, she said, Jones had been there too long (seven years) despite the fact that Noel had been involved in gaming regulation for more than 15 years. Moreover, she was in full support of the guy who was in charge of the day-to-day operations of LSP during the time of the Ronald Greene cover-up.   

Funny how things sort of have a way of working out.  

LouisianaVoice, in June 2020, ran a story about her stormy tenure as head of the state Democratic Party. Following is an excerpt from that story:

“One of her first acts as the new Democratic State Chairperson in 2012 was to nullify all parish executive committee appointments made during her predecessor Buddy Leach’s term.

“Once the Democratic Executive Committee was stacked with Peterson appointees, the committee awarded her an annual stipend of $36,000, plus expenses. This was done without the approval of the Democratic State Central Committee, most of whom were unaware of the stipend. [Wonder if some her mileage expense payments correspond to travel for which she is paid by the Senate?]

“Peterson’s sister, Eileen Carter of Houma, was paid $13,000 during October and November 2015 for “organizational/grassroots consultation,” according to figures provided by the Louisiana Ethics Commission. That’s a per-annum rate of $78,000.”

And there’s this from a Nov. 7, 2017 LouisianaVoice STORY:

“…[T]he biggest concern to several Democratic Parish Executive Committee (DPEC) members is the lack of membership on no fewer than 29 parish executive committees, a condition critics attribute to Peterson’s lack of timely appointments.”

“There are 29 parishes which have five or fewer members on their committee,” one DPEC member said. “There should be at least 15 members of each parish executive committee. That’s nearly half the state that has non-existent or non-functioning DPECs. Livingston Parish has only seven of 15 seats filled. One member of the Livingston DPEC has been working since February to get the seats filled but that still hasn’t been done even though names have been submitted.”

And nearly two years into Peterson’s second term as state chairperson, there are 33 DSCC vacancies. “If she fills positions at all, it’s usually with her minions,” another DSCC member said.

Parishes with one or more vacancies in DSCC representation include Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Sabine, Lincoln, Union, Ouachita, Iberville, Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge, West Feliciana, Caldwell, Catahoula, Franklin, LaSalle, Tensas, Concordia, East Carroll, Madison, Tensas, Rapides, Lafayette, Vermilion, Calcasieu, Acadia, Iberia, St. Martin, East Baton Rouge, Livingston, Tangipahoa, Washington, St. Tammany, and Jefferson.

“Karen Carter Peterson is an ambitious politician of questionable loyalties who has used her chairmanship of DSCC to build a fiefdom and to launch a national career, all at the expense of the organization she was elected to build and serve,” a DSCC member said.

In case you’re not predisposed to cough up a contribution for Louisiana State Police (see post immediately below this one), LouisianaVoice can certainly put your generosity to good use by pursuing more state investigative stories.

We are into our semi-annual fundraising campaign. We do this every April and October, though last October I suggested that you give to your local food bank because of the destruction brought about by Hurricane Ida.

LouisianaVoice is currently investigating several key stories, including, of course, the ongoing probe of Louisiana State Police and the killing of Ronald Greene in May 2019. But we’re not a one trick pony. There are other stories that merit exposure and we’re doing all we can to bring the details to light. One of those is a study of the jury selection process in a Louisiana judicial district which potentially could negate hundreds of criminal convictions.

But to be honest, we need your support. Gas prices are up, meaning travel costs more. State law calls for a charge of 25 cents per page for copies, but the last two requests I’ve made of the Secretary of State, I’ve been hit for $20 per page. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal as hell, but I’m having trouble getting straight answers. Legal fees aren’t cheap, either.

So, if you can do so, please click on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post and contribute by credit card. Or you can send a check payable to CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE to P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

Those contributing $100 or more will get a signed copy of my new book, It’s All TheIRS, a novel about a man who is wrongfully assessed a huge penalty by the IRS and decides to fight back.

The same day that this nice solicitation letter arrived from the Louisiana State Police Association, it was learned that the second in command at Louisiana State Police (LSP) headquarters had finally been put on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into how it came about that his work cell phone was wiped just as an investigation into the beating death of Ronald Greene was heating up.

At the same time, it was announced just over five weeks after LouisianaVoice first RAISED THE ISSUE, that a 19-year LSP veteran had been arrested on counts of malfeasance and injuring public records after falsely claiming to have been a hit-and-run victim in New Orleans when in fact, he had struck another vehicle the day before in St. Tammany Parish and fled the scene.

LouisianaVoice had also RAISED QUESTIONS as early as February about why the phones of several LSP higher ups, including Kevin Reeves, who had resigned as LSP superintendent, Mike Noel, who also resigned rather than undergo questions about the Greene matter during his confirmation hearings to head up the State Gaming Board.

The reason given for sanitizing those phones was that Reeves and Noel had left LSP employ and the phones needed to be restored to factory settings for re-issue.

The only problem was the phones of Doug Cain, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel by Reeves’ successor, Col. Lamar Davis, and former LSP executive counsel Faye Dysart Morrison were also sanitized and they are still employed, though Morrison has been reassigned to a lowed-salaried position.

This, even as LSP was being instructed not to destroy evidence in the Greene matter. Text messages about the beating and subsequent death of Greene, are considered evidence in any court jurisdiction in the country, something law enforcement personnel should know instinctively.

So, finally, on Friday, came the announcement that Cain, who once confided to LouisianaVoice his desire that he might one day be named LSP superintendent, had been placed on administrative leave, albeit paid leave, pending an internal investigation into what we will call, for lack of a better term, Phonegate.

“The decision to place him on leave was made in the best interest of the department to eliminate any questions into the integrity of the investigation,” Davis said. Integrity of the investigation? Seriously? State troopers beat, tased and kicked Greene to death, then lied that he died in an auto accident at the end of a police chase on May 10, 2019.

State police tried to say there was no body cam video. There was, but it didn’t surface for more than two years. Even then, detectives were thwarted in their efforts to get to the bottom of this act of pure brutality (it wasn’t the only one in LSP’s F-Troop). They (investigators) were told that a real investigation would bring trouble for LSP. They (those same investigators) were instructed to withhold evidence, including the belatedly-discovered body cam video from the district attorney.

And now Davis wants to allude to the “integrity of the investigation.”

Forgive me if I’m a tad jaded when Davis talks about “integrity of the investigation.”

As New Orleans Advocate columnist James Gill pointed out on Friday, if there had been even a half-assed investigation into the brutalization of New Orleans attorney Ashton O’Dwyer by “several of the same troopers” in the hours after Hurricane Katrina, then the sordid events up in Monroe’s F-Troop may well have been avoided.

So, after all that, in Friday’s mail was a letter addressed to me from the State Troopers Association that tried to appeal to the “difficult times” law enforcement is going through. “The men and women in the Louisiana State Police know our only mission is to protect, serve, and enforce the law,” read the third sentence in the letter.

Apparently, they forgot to include beatings and then texting about how much fun it was.

The letter said the LSTA was “grateful” to its supporters and wants to recognize supporters with LSP’s “official window decal and other gifts.”

For $35, a donor will receive two “official” 2022 LSTA window stickers, two 2022 LSTA Silver Member ID card, and a chance to win a vacation for two.

Bump that up to $50 and you get four window stickers, a 2022 Gold Member ID card, a new 2022 LSTA logo magnet and two chances to win that vacation.

Go all in with a hundred bucks and you’ll get four window stickers (don’t know where you’d put that many), a Gold Member ID card, the LSTA logo magnet, and four chances for that vacation, plus special recognition on the LSTA donation link.

Keep in mind this is the same LSTA that gave the boot to members who questioned the association’s practice of making illegal political campaign contributions – and then sent letters of solicitation to those same former members, seeking monetary donations.

I think I’ll pass my letter along to some of the victims of beatings up in F-Troop. Or maybe to Ashton O’Dwyer.

The bank threw us a slight curve regarding your contributions to LouisianaVoice. It seems our checking account was set up under the name Capital News Service, which was the company through which I previously covered state government for several Louisiana newspapers before newspapers discovered they could no longer afford even that small expense.

I’ve been using that account all this time but today, the bank balked at accepting a deposit to that account for a check made to LouisianaVoice. They finally accepted the deposit asked asked that future contribution checks be made payable to Capital News Service. Our April fundraiser is currently underway, so you may mail those checks to: Tom Aswell or LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727 – just make them payable to Capital News Service. (At least the mailing address hasn’t changed.)

Or you can click on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post and pay by credit card.

And remember, contributions of $100 or more get a signed copy of my new book, It’s All TheIRS, the story of a man who is wrongfully assessed a huge penalty by the IRS and decides to fight back. While fiction, the book contains actual IRS abuses that will infuriate you and make you want to fight back, too.

Either way, please know your support is greatly appreciated.

Read daily news stories in the New Orleans Advocate, and you’d be hard-pressed to come up with another city with the record of violence as New Orleans where carjackings have surged to the number-one contact sport.

Same for the Baton Rouge Advocate, where drive-by shootings are as common as gumbo at the Chimes Restaurant.

But, according to 24/7 Wall Street, that publications that produces surveys and rankings on just about any subject you can imagine, neither New Orleans nor Baton Rouge are even among the top 50 cities in the nation in terms of aggravated assault or violent crimes.

In fact, the city with the highest rate of violent crimes out of 1,122 cities surveyed (2,969.1 per 100,000 population) in 2020 is Monroe, which also just happens to be the number one city in the one-year change in the rate of aggravated assault (an increase of 1,271.7 percent).

Monroe’s rate of aggravated assaults (2,582.8 per 100,000 population) is the highest of 1,123 cities surveyed and the one-year change in all violent crime (an increase of 1,203.5 percent from 2019 to 2020) is also highest of 1,119 cities included in the survey.

All that for a city of 48,241 people.

And lest Alexandria feels smug, Louisiana’s hub city ranks 22^nd in the nation in the change in its aggravated assault rate (an increase of 158.7 percent) and seventh-highest in both the rate of aggravated assault cases (1,459.1 per 100,000 population) and in the rate of all violent crimes (1,848.4 per 100,000).

The 278.6 percent increase in all violent crimes was 12^th highest of 1,119 cities included in the survey.

Alexandria’s population of 47,012 is comparable to that of Monroe.

Granted, statistics can be influenced to a much greater extent in smaller cities like Monroe and Alexandria because any change at all has greater impact on the numbers.

But Shreveport, a city of 192,035, has a population comparable to Baton Rouge’s 227,470 and Shreveport’s change in aggravated assault cases from 2019 to 2020 showed an increase of 158.7 percent, which was 50^th highest in the nation.

Shreveport’s 1,284 aggravated assault cases in 2020 was 59^th highest and the rate of aggravated assaults per 100,000 population (691.9) was 68^th highest of 1,123 cities surveyed. The city also was 68^th highest in the one-year increase in all violent crime (143.5 percent). Shreveport’s violent crime rate (923 per 100,000) was 74^th highest of 1,122 cities surveyed.

The figures for the survey were taken from the FBI’s 2019 and 2020 Uniform Crime Reports. In order to concentrate the survey on urban areas, cities with fewer than 25,000 people were excluded.

The majority of cities on the list are from South.