Trouble with officers nothing new

 

The horror stories about law officers who committed crimes while also charged with upholding the law are plentiful in St. Landry Parish.

The vast majority of officers “understand what their uniform means,” as Opelousas Police Chief Perry Gallow puts it, but a few bad apples can spoil people’s perception of law enforcement.

“There is always someone watching you. If you do anything contrary to what you are enforcing, it affects the public’s trust in law enforcement,” he said.
Still, the instances of rogue cops are plentiful, and makes one question — why here?

There was the Eunice Police Department officer who was arrested on suspicion of intent to distribute drugs last summer and again last month, after he quit the force.

There was the former Opelousas police officer and St. Landry Parish sheriff deputy who was indicted last week for allegedly murdering his wife in Rapides Parish.

This year, there was an officer in Opelousas and another in Ville Platte who were charged with allegedly trying to get witnesses to cover up a crime.

And then, there was the former-St. Landry Parish sheriff deputy who was arrested on charges of theft of a firearm and malfeasance in office in 2006, went on to work at several small police forces and, this year, found himself at the Washington Police Department and the target of citizen complaints.

That case has been the most disturbing to some, who question why that officer, Lt. Travis Guillot, is allowed to work in law enforcement at all.

In 2006, Guillot, then a deputy with the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office, was arrested on charges of theft of a firearm and malfeasance in office.

Those charges came about after he was video-taped allegedly stealing a weapon from a home after responding to a report of a burglar alarm activated at the residence.
Those charges were dropped after he resigned.

St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz wasn’t in office at the time and knew nothing about the case, but he still found officers who break the law — and are hired elsewhere — disturbing.

“Some cases are dismissed, but that person should still never be hired,” said Guidroz, who listed violent offenses, thefts or drugs among unforgivable sins.

But with pay that barely rivals minimum wage at times, small-town police departments get a mixture of officers who will use the position as a
stepping stone or officers who should not be in public service, Arnaudville Police Chief Richard Mizzi said.

“I’ve gotten rid of many corrupt officers. Nobody wants them, and if they do want them, and then when they do take them, they find out they’re bad when they show up in the newspaper,” Mizzi said.

Two Arnaudville Police officers were accused of drug violations a few years ago, and another was investigated after he shot a suspect in both legs after the suspect took the officer’s taser and attempted to use it. He was later cleared of wrongdoing.
Not every department may have these stories, but most have less dramatic instances of small-town officers whose actions, or inactions, do not warrant arrest, but threaten the credibility of a police force and possibly put the public at risk.

“I had some officers before that I had to terminate that weren’t doing their job, and I just can’t sleep at night if officers aren’t doing their job right,” Mizzi said. "There’ll be a place being broken into and they won’t show up and I ask what they are doing and they’re playing on their phones and wi-fi all night.”

So what is going on?

Laura Balthazar puts the blame primarily on low pay.
She spent 26 years in the sheriff’s office, retiring as interim sheriff in 2006.
Balthazar interviewed hundreds of officer candidates over the years and saw her share of bad cops in that time.

But she said many of the problems at the sheriff’s office disappeared in 2004, when voters approved a new tax that allowed pay to increase more than 50 percent.
“It helped morale considerably,” said Balthazar, who now works for the city of Opelousas. “Our guys were having to work a lot of overtime just to make it.”
And with the higher pay came more and better applicants. “We had our pick of who we wanted to work with,” Balthazar said.

Low pay also brings with it two major concerns for area chiefs. The best officer candidates, even long-term serving officers, can be lured away by better paying jobs at other departments.

It also means the candidates you do get are occasionally officers with a checkered background.

“You end up with people that you don’t want in a police car,” Mizzi said. Starting salary for Mizzi’s officers is $9 an hour, compared to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. He cannot offer them much, because he has been there for 12 years and is paid $14 an hour.

Especially if an officer is hired already POST, or Peace Officers Standards and Training, certified, it is hard for a financially-strapped department to turn them down.
To be allowed to carry a gun, all Louisiana law enforcement officers must complete 12 to 16 weeks of training to earn their POST certificate.

But the POST academy classes cost their departments about $1,200.

Port Barre Police Chief Deon Boudreaux said training up an officer is always a challenge.

“You have to pay for the academy, you have to pay their salary and for their equipment during training and then you have to pay someone overtime while they are at the academy. It is very costly for a small town,” Boudreaux said.

Avoiding all that cost is a tremendous temptation, but Boudreaux said it is one he tries to avoid.

“It is an untold story in law enforcement. If you get a POST-certified officer, you are either getting the leftovers or someone who had to leave a larger department for some reason. There is always some baggage,” said Boudreaux, who prefers to hire locals who are more inclined to stay around.

Locals are hard to find, Mizzi said, who added that the last local he hired “didn’t even stay for a few weeks.”

Still, it is a temptation that Balthazar said is hard to resist, especially for smaller departments.

“If an officer is already POST-certified, you are going to grab them,” Balthazar said.
“That is why you have to do your research.”

Finding the good

Balthazar interviewed hundreds of applicants over the years and said there are some instant alarm bells, such as an abrasive personality and a need to dominate others.

“Those types of individuals I stayed away from, especially if they came from other departments,” Balthazar said.

“It is common for bad apples to keep seeking jobs in law enforcement,” Balthazar said.
Krotz Springs Chief of Police Norman Mouille agreed.

“They will jump from department to department, which is not a good thing. If I see that on a résumé, I usually won’t even consider them,” Mouille said.
Weeding out the potential problems is hard. Balthazar said law enforcement leaders cannot always rely on former agencies.

“Sometimes, when you are looking at a bad apple, their former boss won’t tell you the full story. They are hoping (that problematic officer) will hurry up and leave,” Balthazar said. “They would sugar coat it a bit.”

Also, as in the case of Guillot, the records may not exist.
Broussard said he always does a background check on any officer before hiring him or her and Guillot came back without a mark against him.

“As far as I know, this never happened,” he said of Guillot’s earlier incident.
In this case, Guillot had agreed to go into the St. Landry Parish District Attorney’s diversion program. After completing that program, his arrest records were sealed, according to documents released to The Daily World.

Still, Broussard had only praise for Guillot, calling him one of his best and most dedicated officers.

Guidroz said weeding out bad officers isn’t as big a problem as it once was. For instance, his department now has a voice stress analyzer, a sort of lie detector test.
“There are ways to get at the truth,” said Guidroz, who said he is happy to share the equipment with any department that might need it. “We can certainly accommodate them at no charge.”

Especially in law enforcement, finding the right man or woman is critical.
Guidroz said the job of law enforcement is rapidly changing and a smarter and better-educated officer is required.

  Anyone we hire must have computer skills,” said Guidroz, who added that even a task as simple as good, complete report writing is a must. “If you can’t write a decent report, you have no future here.”

Balthazar agreed that finding a good officer is important, not just for the department, but for the citizens it is pledge to protect.

“Officers need to be trained in diversity and communication’s skills. If you can’t communicate with the public, you might as well go home,” Balthazar said.

It’s a tough job and a demanding job, yet many, especially smaller departments in the parish, can’t offer much.

A starting officer in Arnaudville, for instance, is paid $9.15 an hour and Chief Richard Mizzi said his officers also have to pay much of their own health and retirement benefits.

“I have lost many officers over the years to departments with better salaries and benefits. A family man can’t work here,” Mizzi said.

Former Eunice Police Chief Gary Fontenot, who retired in 2010, still remembers the day a number of years back when the national minimum wage was raised and his starting officers discovered they could make almost as much working at a fast-food restaurant.

Despite the low pay, Fontenot said he never had a problem finding officers.
“You got a bad apple now and then, but you just got rid of those. Hiring good people wasn’t the problem — it was keeping them,” said Fontenot, who had officers leave his department for the U.S. Marshal’s Service, State Police and other larger departments.
“They would come here to advance their careers.”

“You are not going to get good quality if the pay isn’t right. It is as simple as that,” agreed Broussard, who has just pushed through a roughly one-dollar an hour raise for his officers.

Broussard’s officers were literally starting at minimum wage when he took office last year.

“A lot of city governments are trying to stay within their budgets. But to serve your citizens, you have to make adjustments,” Balthazar said. “It is about making a difference in your community.”

“We need to focus on what we are paying our law enforcement officers, so they can not only protect and serve us but be able to support their families,” Balthazar said.