Southern Gothic as a documentary, from the Washington Post:
For years, people in the tiny Louisiana town of Marksville watched the feud between their mayor and local judge like some kind of daytime soap opera, with varying degrees of frustration and bemusement.
Then came the Nov. 3 shooting that killed a 6-year-old boy. Suddenly, the petty small-town bickering began looking more tragically sinister.
Why in the world, residents ask, were deputy marshals — whose main job is serving court papers for the judge — out there chasing cars and shooting up suspects? How did one of the deputies — who had been charged twice for aggravated rape and racked up a string of lawsuits for excessive force — even get hired? And how did a speck of a town like Marksville wind up with a shadow police force on its streets?…
Jeremy Mardis was the youngest person shot and killed by law officers so far this year, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings. Amid a national debate over police use of deadly force, the killing of an autistic 6-year-old sent shock waves nationwide.
Louisana State Police said they’re still trying to figure out why deputies were chasing an SUV driven by Jeremy’s father, Chris Few. Few was not armed and was not the subject of any arrest warrant…
According to several current and former city officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of violating the gag order, Marksville’s marshal began issuing traffic tickets to generate money for the city court. The court’s funding has been the focus of a furious battle between the mayor and City Judge Angelo Piazza III since last year.
Piazza, 57, has reigned over the Marksville city court for more than two decades. A Civil War buff known for hauling authentic cannons to reenactments, Piazza sued the city in 1997 over funding. When Lemoine, 63, a mechanic and auto parts shop owner, was elected mayor in 2010, he announced plans to tighten up Marksville’s budget, and war fully bloomed…
Then this summer, Lemoine sharply cut the court’s budget — including the judge’s salary. Piazza filed suit. Piazza declined to comment for this story. Lemoine and Voinche did not return repeated calls for comment.
The feud polarized the town’s law enforcement community. “You have officers siding with the judge and marshal, and others with the mayor,” said one longtime elected official…
rikyrah
@A guy:
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
of course they are.
we see how little that Wall of Blue will protect them.
Uh huh
Uh huh
Ruckus
Did we have a deleted comment? Otherwise ???
ruemara
The news I heard was that the officer was harassing the mother of the boy, the father told him to back off, so retaliation ensued and escalated. Whatever the situation was, it’s horrific that it had to come to this for the citizens to demand that the law follow the law, if we’re even sure they’re demanding it and not just sitting there, scratching their bits. Terrible.
catclub
The marshals arrested for second degree murder are black. The child killed was white.
Scott
How is this not organized crime?
Roger Moore
I notice that the issue of local government agencies trying to fund themselves by issuing fines crops up again in this story. I’m convinced that the only solution to this problem- and to all the oppression of poor people attendant with it- is for all revenue from fines to go to the state general fund in exchange for the state providing a guaranteed level of funding for local public health and safety functions. State governments are already required to do this for education; now it’s time to extend it to other functions of local government.
Schlemazel
The gun fight at the OK Corral was a shoot out between the Sheriff and the county Marshals. This is not a new thing. BTW – the proximate cause was the city sheriff telling the county marshals they could not wear their guns in town.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@catclub:
It would be nice if those facts would wake people up to the realization that the problem is poorly trained, poorly supervised cops with hair-trigger tempers who shouldn’t be anywhere near public service. Unfortunately, there will instead be a large number of people who say, See, this just proves that racism in policing doesn’t exist, so Black Lives Matter needs to shut up!
catclub
Those guys ( the marshals) were not even cops. But they could arrest people.
Jon
Cracked had an article earlier this year talking about small town police shenannigans. Basically Chief Wiggum on the Simpsons looks like a reasonably accurate depicture.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@catclub:
They appear to be cops from neighboring towns who were moonlighting as marshals in this town:
I’m also wondering what kind of connections that one asshole had to get out of multiple charges of sex with 15-year-old girls. Is the age of consent lower than I thought in Louisiana, or does statutory rape not count for anything?
Ruckus
@catclub:
They can arrest people, shoot people, they wear a uniform and a badge. They are cops. They may have different duties than the local police or sheriff, but they are cops. No matter what that the law may say that they are not police. Semantics doesn’t make them not cops when their actions do.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Some parts of the south had/have pretty low age of consent.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Ruckus:
I had to check on a break — it looks like age of consent is 17 in LA with a Romeo & Juliet clause. So unless the dude was himself between the ages of 13 and 17 at the time, I still don’t see how he got the charges dropped short of corruption.
NCSteve
Louisiana under Jindal: a failed state descending into warlordism in the face of a state government exsanguinated by tax cuts and incompetence that’s incapable of exerting authority outside the immediate areas of the capital.
Brownbackistan cannot be far behind.