Louisiana Voice

The City of Jennings has quietly settled two federal discrimination lawsuits against the city police department while a federal court judge has refused to dismiss a third discrimination lawsuit by yet another former police officer.

So, what, exactly, is going on in Jennings?

For openers, the subject of the first two of those lawsuits, former Police Chief Todd D’Albor who, when the going got tough, got going to nearby New Iberia where currently serves as that city’s chief of police.

Former officers Debbie Breaux and Priscilla Goodwin, in separate actions, obtained settlements, confidential, of course, of their complaints. The gist of Breaux’s complaint included allegations that D’Albor and Deputy Chief Daniel Semmes:

• Repeatedly refused to send her to a Police Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) within a year of her employment as a police officer as required by state law;
• Instructed her to write a negative statement about fellow officers;
• Intimidated her in front of co-workers;
• Threatened her with the loss of overtime hours, and
• Reduced her work-hours.

Breaux, now 64, began her career with the JPD in January 1986.

Goodwin, whose age was not provided, began working for JPD in June 1988 and also served on the city’s Civil Service Board.

Among Goodwin’s claims were:

• D’Albor demonstrated “a pattern of discriminating” against the older and more experienced employees;
• D’Albor, through Semmes, launched an illegal investigation against her;
• The chief paid younger dispatchers with less experience higher salaries and that two other dispatchers with less than a year’s experience each were paid the same as Goodwin, who had 28 years’ experience.

But the most significant charge that Goodwin was singled out for punishment and harassment because she had voted against a D’Albor proposal while sitting as a member of the civil service board. She did not specify what the specific issue was that she voted against.

“Deputy Chief Semmes has even gone so far as to contact my part-time job in Elton to glean information that employer in order to use same against me in my full-time position at the Jennings Police Department.

The Breaux and Goodwin settlements were the culmination of years of problems within the Jennings Police Department and a third former officer, CHRISTOPHER LEHMAN, has been at the center of the ongoing controversy.

Lehman’s pedigree carries considerable weight. He is a retired Navy veteran as well as a retired federal government civilian employee whose problems began when, as a community services coordinator for JPD, began as far back as 2011, giving too much attention to suspicious activity on his street – too much, that is, for someone’s comfort zone.

In 2019, he reached another of those ”CONFIDENTIALSETTLEMENTS” with the city for wrongful termination. While the details of the settlement were sealed, it is believed to have been in the SIX-FIGURE RANGE.

Now, as a result of that lawsuit and subsequent settlement, Lehman has filed yet another lawsuit against current mayor Henry Guinn, who tweeted as recently as Feb. 19:

“We are successful as a city because we’re small enough to be nimble, we employee [sic] department heads that take pride in their work, and we’re financially capable to implement proactive practices. If you don’t believe me study the past 12 months.”

Lehman’s most recent litigation is based on what he perceives to be violations of the 1st and 14^th Amendments that stem from retaliation on the city’s part for his win from his initial lawsuit, first filed in 2016.

Despite the city’s continued refusal to address concerns in Lehman’s neighborhood, he claims that demolition and cleanup of a home in a “predominately white” neighborhood was justified by the city because of the negative impact on the value of other real estate in the surrounding area.

The city’s defense, if one can actually call it a defense, is that Lehman’s case had prescribed, meaning he did not file suit within the legal time limits, under Louisiana law, a year, an argument the court rejected because of a May 2020 email that Guinn sent Lehman which U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen Kay wrote constituted “the first notice [Lehman} had of the potential discrimination against him for his 2016 lawsuit against the city.”

The series of events in places like Jennings, Welsh, New Iberia, Abbeville and Monroe, among others, tend to demonstrate that the further from Baton Rouge one gets, the more likely small-town administrations, parish councils/police juries, school boards and sheriffs’ offices are to test the legal limits of state law and to try and restrict citizens’ rights.

This attempt to keep government operating in the darkened corners, out of sight from the public underscores the words in the masthead of this blog:

“It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark – but unforgivable when a man fears the light.”

I received the following comment today from a LouisianaVoice reader who calls herself Ananna:

I will not get the vaccine. I am a 58-year-old female and am very healthy. I am responsible for my own health only; I am not responsible for anybody else’s health. I wear the mask only if a store manager asks me to. Some stores don’t bother me if I don’t mask up. Even the mask package says the mask will not prevent the spread of coronavirus. I do not judge others if they choose to wear a mask and if others judge me when I don’t wear a mask, well that’s fine too. Asymptomatic transmission is rare according to the WHO. My husband and I adopted a healthy lifestyle years ago and started exercising and eating healthy. In addition, we take daily Vitamin D3, Zinc and Vitamin C. This is how we choose to fight this virus and others. We know we will survive if we do catch it.

Normally, I wouldn’t take the trouble to single out one reader’s comments as the basis for a new post. In this case, I make an exception.

So, how best to respond in the most delicate and succinct way possible while remaining sensitive to her feelings?

I’ll try this way:

Lady, you’re not only a damned fool, but you’re also selfish, arrogant and narrow-minded, not to mention just plain belligerent.

Now I’m not judging, mind you, just stating a pretty obvious fact and that is that you have no medical background, do not trust science and you probably watch Fox and miss Donald Trump’s tweets.

So what if you’re healthy? A lot of “healthy” people have died from coronavirus – some most likely healthier than you at age 58. The fact is, you are not immune, not invincible unless you wear a cape and fight crime. Claiming good health as justification for not wearing a mask is about as silly as it gets.

Sorry, lady, but you are incorrect in avowing that you are responsible only for your own health and no one else’s. That is inconsiderate and grossly ignorant. If you have any ailment, be it the flu, a common cold, Covid, or Ebola and you, maskless, sneeze on me and infect me, you damn-well are responsible. Where the hell do you come off thinking you get a pass on that?

I’m not sure what mask package you read but mine says simply that the mask is not a medical-grade device. That does not mean that it doesn’t help prevent the spread of infection of any description, including coronavirus. You think surgeons and nurses wear masks in OR for the fun of it? There’s a reason – to prevent infection.

Here are a few links about masks for you to read – not that I think for a minute you’ll take the trouble to do so:

PolitiFact | No, a CDC-WHO study does not prove that masks do not prevent spread of COVID-19

Still Confused About Masks? Here’s the Science Behind How Face Masks Prevent Coronavirus | UC San Francisco (ucsf.edu)

COVID-19: Considerations for Wearing Masks | CDC

Asymptomatic transmission may indeed be rare but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur.

Congratulations on your “healthy lifestyle.” Josh Fiske is a urologist from New Jersey who jogged five miles a day as of last March. A week later he was fighting for his life as Covid sapped his energy and his oxygen levels plummeted.

Von Miller is a linebacker for the Denver Broncos who was brought down by Covid. His take on his own healthy lifestyle? “No matter how great of shape you are in physically, no matter what your age is, you’re not immune from things like this.”

Andrew Boselli, 22, an offensive lineman at Florida State says, “I was young and healthy. I play Division One football and I’ve been training my butt off all winter and spring. I thought I had no worries. IU wasn’t going to get it.” In March, he fell ill. He felt sluggish and had shortness of breath as his temperature shot to 104. “It was the sickest I’ve ever felt,” he said.

They were lucky. They survived. Here are a few others:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/14/covid-19-effects-on-athletes-keyontae-johnson-basketball

https://www.city-journal.org/covid-story-sports-media-wont-tell

A telling sentence from the last link above said, “Professional athletes are among the healthiest and best-cared for people on the planet, with few of the health problems that produce the worst outcomes from the disease.”

Yet they contracted the virus. Fortunately, they survived but the question of whether or not they really recovered has yet to be answered.

Many didn’t survive. Here is a list of athletes who died from coronavirus:

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/sports-news-covid-19-complete-list-of-sports-deaths-due-to-coronavirus-pandemic/349879

So, Ananna, you continue with your exercising and health diet, supplemented by Vitamin D2, Zinc and Vitamin C. But as for your certainty that you’ll survive if you do catch Covid? That’s a risk I wouldn’t be willing to take.

As for me, you’ll just have excuse me if I judge you just a little.

It’s really curious how some quotes never seem to go out of style.

It’s been a full decade since former Lt. Gov. candidate Caroline Fayard said Republicans eat their own.

Okay, that isn’t the precise quote. Her verbatim OBSERVATION was, “I hate Republicans. They are cruel and destructive. They eat their young. They don’t think. They don’t allow people to think. They are bullies.”

Okay, a tad strong even if, as Fayard later claimed, the quote was taken out of context. It probably came back to bite her three years later when she ran a poor fourth in the 2016 jungle primary for U.S. Senate with only 12 percent of the vote. (The race ultimately went to that Foghorn Leghorn hybrid John Kennedy. But more on him presently.)

Fayard’s observation came home in spades Saturday when the Louisiana Repugnantcan Party, intolerant of any pretense of allowing its members to think, CENSURED one of their own, Sen. Bill Cassidy, on Saturday only hours after he joined six other Repugnantcan senators in voting to convict impeached Donald Trump.

So much for devouring their own. And so much for allowing their members, no matter how loyal they’ve been in the past in toeing the party line, to dare to think for themselves, to put the nation’s interests ahead of the party’s, to even jeopardize their own political future by voting their conscience.

There is little doubt that Cassidy has put his own reelection in peril. Never mind he still has six years to mend political fences before he again goes before the voters. Never mind that his single overriding reason for voting for conviction was that Trump was guilty – something that even minority leader Mitch McConnell who, other than Mike Pence and Lindsey Graham, was undoubtedly the most loyal of Trump loyalists for four years, maintained in his strongly-worded epilog to the impeachment trial fiasco.

The fact is the Louisiana Repugnantcan Party, like the newly-branded Repugnantcan on the national level, is a bully. They did it in Arizona with Cindy McCain, Gov. Doug Ducey and former Sen. Jeff Flake and the Wyoming Repugnantcans did it with Liz Cheney although the national party chose not to strip her as the number 3 Repugnantcan in the House.

McCain and Flake endorsed Biden over Trump in the presidential election. Okay, it’s pretty easy to see why the Repugnantcans might get their panties in a wad over that but Ducey? All he did was sign the certification of Biden’s victory. Well, he did place restrictions on individuals and businesses in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus.

But back to Cassidy. On Jan. 6, the day that motley throng of insurrectionists descended upon the U.S. Capitol at Donald Trump’s urging, it was Cassidy who, alone among Louisiana’s Repugnantcan delegation, refused to vote to challenge the election by objecting to the certification of a state’s electors.

Let that sink in. Every other Louisiana Repugnantcan congressman took it upon himself to challenge the results of another state’s election results that had already been challenged dozens of times in the courts and those challenges rejected every single time.

Why?

Because the party deemed that they do so. Never mind what the courts, presided over in many cases by Trump appointees, ruled. Never mind what the voters in that state wanted. Never mind what vote recounts had affirmed. Trump wants you to challenge the results, so you’d damned well better do it.

That’s the kind of dictatorial edict one might expect in a totalitarian, one-party-rule country like…oh, say, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, or Nazi Germany.

Cassidy also stood alone among his fellow Repugnantcans from this state in voting that the impeachment trial was legal and constitutional, that great constitutional scholar Jeff Landry’s opinion notwithstanding. But then, remember that Landry played a MAJOR ROLE in the Republican Attorneys General Association’s promotion of that Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Where was the State Repugnantcan Party in condemning that action? Strangely quiet, that’s where.

Cassidy assuredly knew there would be backlash from those three actions, but he voted his conscience nevertheless.

John F. Kennedy (certainly not John N. Kennedy, make no mistake about that), had several quotes in his book Profiles in Courage that come to mind:

• “A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or reward that quality in its chosen leaders today.”
• “What is now important is the courage he displayed in support of his convictions.”
• “In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”
• “Today the challenge of political courage looms larger than ever before.”
• “When his regard for himself is so high that his own self-respect demands he follow the path of courage and conscience that all benefit.”

In Act II, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, it is Caesar who says, “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”

Contrasting Cassidy’s decision to answer to his conscience as it dictated to him the right course to follow in the wake of deliberate insurrection and treason with the Repugnantcan Party’s response to his decision, it’s a simple task to accurately assign the labels of courage and cowardice here.

Suffice it to say the Repugnantcan Party has doomed itself to many such metaphoric deaths.

Reports from a source with knowledge of the situation has described to LouisianaVoice what he describes as “serious problems” with the Louisiana State Police (LSP) Crime Lab, specifically the DNA Unit within the confines of the crime lab.

The “serious problems” he cited involve low morale, employee turnover and work backlog, all brought about by what he termed discriminatory practices on the part of the department’s new unit manager.

The source also described what he termed as a “hostile workplace and blatant racial discrimination, which is rampant all over State Police.”

His complaints have taken on new meaning with the filing of a federal discrimination LAWSUIT.

against LSP by two retired African American troopers who say they “and other similarly-situated black and minority employees” were repeatedly denied promotions that went to lesser-qualified white fellow troopers.

John Edward Childers and Anthony Pitts said they and other minority LSP employees in past years were provided “little or no reasons” for their promotion denials.

Childers retired at the rank of Master Trooper on May 15, 2020, and Pitts, a Captain in the Recruiting and Public Affairs Division, retired from LSP on Feb. 15, 2019.

Pitts began his LSP career in 1990 and Childers started in 1992.

Throughout their combined careers of nearly 60 years, Childers and Pitts “have been victims of employment discrimination and have observed that Black troopers receive harsher discipline and are denied more promotions than” their white counterparts,” their petition, filed in U.S. District Court’s Middle District in Baton Rouge, says.

Childers were promoted to Sergeant in the Indian Gaming Section of LSP in September 2001 but five years later was demoted back to Master Trooper and transferred to the Detectives Division with the Bureau of Investigation after being accused of an inappropriate relationship with a casino employee during business hours, though he has denied he was working at the time.

He subsequently applied for five different sergeant positions in various departments but each time, a white applicant, who he said in each case possessed lesser qualifications, was promoted ahead of him. “Some of those employees had significant disciplinary histories and/or had fewer years of law enforcement experience,” the lawsuit said.

When he inquired into the reason he was being passed over, he was told by Troop I Commander Capt. (now Major) Wayne Vidrine that it was because Childers had a “prior disciplinary history” that would be required to be disclosed pursuant to Brady v. Maryland should he ever be asked to testify at trial. The lawsuit says Vidrine told him his disciplinary history could implicate his credibility and reliability as a witness.

One of those promoted over him, Lt. John Cannon, a white trooper who while still holding the rank of trooper, was disciplined “at least once” for having sexual intercourse with a woman in the backseat of his patrol car and was also involved in the theft of internet or cable services, the suit claims. “Unlike Childers, Lt. Cannon’s discipline did not include a demotion,” it added.

Actually, a Oct. 4, 2015, STORY by LouisianaVoice indicates that Cannon twice had sex with the woman on two occasions. The woman told West Feliciana Parish sheriff’s deputies that she had exchanged sex for money with Cannon. The only discrepancy in Childers’ claim was that Cannon held the rank of trooper at the time. In reality, he had been promoted to lieutenant in August 2010.

But Childers were correct in asserting that Cannon was not demoted, though he did get a 36-hour suspension without pay and a $904.96 per pay period reduction in pay for nine two-week pay periods.

Other white troopers promoted over Childers, the lawsuit says, include:

Lt. Jude Matthews, disciplined for “the same and/or similar infractions” as that of Childers;

Lt. Shannon Lavergne, while holding the rank of trooper, was arrested for driving while intoxicated and was subsequently promoted first to sergeant, then to lieutenant.

Lt. Lanny Bergeron, while a trooper, was arrested for domestic batter and subsequently promoted first to sergeant, then to lieutenant.

Sgt. Travis Colombel, while still a trooper, was arrested in March 2010 for malfeasance in office but in October 2018, was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

“Childers has never been arrested and did not have disciplinary histories as extensive as Matthews, Lavergne, Bergeron or Colombel,” the lawsuit said. “Nevertheless (he) was denied 24 promotions.”

Moreover, he said his placement on the so-called “Brady List” was used as a device to deny him promotions for 14 years.

Pitts likewise applied twice for the position of Major but was passed over in favor of what the lawsuit says were “less-qualified white LSP employees, namely Darrin Naquin and Vidrine.

Pitts had 16 years of supervisory experience and was a graduate of the prestigious Northwestern University Center for Public Safety, Staff and Command School in Evanston, Illinois. “It is believed that Maj. Vidrine had not attended any such schools at the time,” the suit says, adding, “It is further believed that Maj. Darrin Naquin (now retired) was once the captain/commander of Troop C and was subsequently involuntarily transferred to Troop N as the commander for disciplinary reasons.”

Pitts also applied for a third major position in LSP’s Gaming Division as well as an office at LSP headquarters but was again passed over in favor of white applicants. “Some of these [white] employees [who were promoted over Pitts] had significant disciplinary histories and/or fewer years of law enforcement experience than Pitts.”

Both men, represented by Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith, III, say that their denials of promotions cost them considerable money in potential salary increases that would’ve gone with promotions.

The individual who lodged his informal complaint with LouisianaVoice said, “The Crime Lab is considered the crown jewel of the State Police operation and the DNA Unit is the crown jewel of the crime lab.”

The current manager is Erica Sparacino, the former training officer. “She was the least experienced of the candidates for the position,” he said, “which was vacated when former manager Joanie Brocato was forced out (on February 24, 2019), in part due to a pending lawsuit.  Brocato made a soft landing into another position (first at the Louisiana Department of Hospital’s Office of Public Health on February 25, 2019, and on Jan. 14, 2020, as a professor at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans) and helped choose her replacement, as she is connected to a high-level lieutenant colonel from the previous administration. It seems that during the time that Erica Sparacino (a former crime lab analysist) was the training officer, no minority employees made it through training and probation.  So, there are few, if any, Blacks working in the DNA lab.”

He said it is “very hard to find people to work in the DNA Lab, who are qualified and who can pass the background check. It’s very expensive to train new staff, and the turnover is high. The DNA unit once had a huge backlog and worked hard to eliminate it. There is now a big backlog of cases once again, in large part due to being understaffed.”  

Like Childers and Pitts, the LouisianaVoice source cited several Sparacino promotions of individuals who were appointed over better-qualified and longer-tenured employees. Erica’s trainees who work in the DNA Lab are neurotic and unable to cope with the demands of the job, both men and women,” he said. “There has been a huge turnover since she became the manager. The technical leader recently left after 15 years in the lab, and several other highly experienced people have also left.” 

Apparently, there is no herd immunity for nearly a third of the US population.

Research data provided by the Associated Press National Opinion Research Center (NORC) for Public Affairs indicate that 32 PERCENT of the overall population either “probably will not” (17 percent) or “definitely will not” (15 percent) receive a Covid-19 vaccination whenever it becomes available.

For Republicans, Independents, non-college graduates and the 30-44-age group, the responses were even more negative.

The numbers offered up by NORC must make one wonder what it would take to get through to a certain segment of the population.

Perhaps experience that only comes with age. It was comedian Richard Pryor, after all, who once said, “You don’t get old being (a) fool.”

Of those age 60 and over, 20 percent (the largest number of any group) have already had their shots while 50 percent (again, the biggest number of any segment polled) say they “definitely will” receive the vaccination and 11 percent said they “probably will.” Another 11 percent said they “probably will not,” and only 7 percent said they “definitely will not.”

Likewise, the numbers for college graduates were 17 percent already have, 50 percent “definitely will,” 15 percent “probably will,” 10 percent “probably will not,” and 7 percent “definitely will not.”

The numbers are similar for Democrats: 16, 48, 15, 11 and 7.

Conversely, for non-college-graduates, 12 percent have been vaccinated, 27 percent say they “definitely will,” and 21 percent say they “probably will.” Incredulously, 40 percent in this group say they either “probably will not” (21 percent) or “definitely will not” (19 percent).

Among Republicans, the numbers are 12, 24, 20, 21 and 23. That’s is nearly half (44 percent) who either said they “probably will not” or “definitely will not.”

Independents: 10, 26, 20, 26 and 16.

For ages 30-44, those questioned appeared to feel they had an aura of invincibility with 42 percent (21 percent each) said they either “probably will not” or “definitely will not” take the vaccination.

Some skeptics hold to the absurd belief that with the vaccinations, the government would be injecting a monitoring device by which the government would be able to track our movements.

Others cling to their assertions that the coronavirus was never more than a regular case of the flu. That, too, is ludicrous. In 2019, the year before coronavirus struck, 34,200 Americans died from influenza. Thus far, coronavirus has killed 450,000 Americans.

In two years (1918-19), before the invention of penicillin and with substantially fewer weapons to fight the spread, 675,000 Americans died of the Spanish Flu.

If Americans in 2021 cannot be convinced of the sanity of wearing masks and getting vaccinated, we are almost certain to surpass the 675,000 of 1918 and 1919.

In retrospect, all it would have taken was for Donald Trump to plead with his Republican and non-college-education devotees to wear the damn masks, to get off his Big Mac eating, twitter-sending, Fox-watching ass and have a decent and efficient system of vaccine distribution in place and ready to go when the vaccines became available.

But he just couldn’t do that. Instead, he placed JARED KUSHNER in charge of developing a vaccine – after he’d already botched an earlier assignment of overseeing the availability of personal protection equipment for front line workers and ventilators for patients. Meanwhile, Jared and daughter Ivanka were busy raking in $640 million while working in Daddy’s administration.

And let’s be perfectly clear: Jared Kushner did not develop a vaccine. In fact, he had nothing to do with developing a vaccine. He is no a scientist. Researches extensively trained in immunology, who have spent their entire careers in research, are the ones who developed the vaccines. Jared Kushner’s background is that of a slumlord.

If Trump had only not downplayed the coronavirus (“it’s like the flu,” “it’ll disappear by Easter,” “it’s a Democratic hoax”) and told his base to mask up and take the vaccinations when they became available, you’d see pro-Trump anti-vaxxers who slept through civics classes in high school signing up for their shots.

But that’s the reality in which we live today – a reality where, thanks to social media, up is down, black is white, wrong is right and those who can shout the loudest prevail.