Two Louisiana sheriff’s deputies have been arrested for manslaughter and fired after officers say they shot and killed an unarmed man in...
Two Louisiana sheriff’s deputies have been arrested for manslaughter and fired after officers say they shot and killed an unarmed man inside a parked vehicle last week.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph P. Lopinto III said officers’ use of force ‘was not justified’ after shooting the man, Daniel Vallée, in a confrontation with police early Wednesday in Marrero, Louisiana, just south of New Orleans.
The shooting happened around 2 a.m. when police, responding to a noise complaint in the neighborhood, found Mr Vallée inside a vehicle parked outside a “known crack house”, according to the sheriff. said at a press conference on Monday evening.
Officers repeatedly ordered Mr. Vallée, 34, out of the vehicle, but he refused, the sheriff said. During the standoff, which lasted about 12 minutes, Mr. Vallée locked the doors and eventually started the vehicle’s engine, according to Sheriff Lopinto.
“That, of course, made the situation worse,” he said. “A lot of my deputies drew their guns at the time, expecting him to try to take off.”
During the encounter, Mr. Vallée had his hands up, but at one point dropped them, hitting the vehicle’s horn, Sheriff Lopinto said.
“My opinion, that horn, whether it scares my deputy or my deputy reacts to the honk, ends up firing his gun,” the sheriff said. “The second deputy fired his weapons in response to these shots.”
Both officers fired multiple times, Sheriff Lopinto said. The three other officers present at the scene did not fire their weapons.
The Sheriff identified the licensed agents like Isaac Hughes, 29, and Johnathan Louis, 35. Mr. Hughes had worked for the department since 2013 and Mr. Louis since 2020. Each faces one count of manslaughter.
“Unfortunately, the use of force in this situation was not warranted,” Sheriff Lopinto said, while adding that he believed the shooting was “definitely unintentional.”
Officers were cooperating with an investigation and a video of the clash, which has yet to be released, “confirmed” what officers told investigators about the shooting, Sheriff Lopinto said.
Sheriff Lopinto said the shooting was the first to be recorded by police body cameras since the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office began using them last year. The office embraced the technology after a video showed one of its deputies assaulting a woman grabbed national news Warning.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has filed several lawsuits over the past two years against the sheriff’s office, following what the ACLU says are incidents of violent blows and racial profiling.
Last week, Glenn McGovern, a civil rights lawyer hired by Mr. Vallée’s family, told a New Orleans news stationWWL-TV, that Mr. Vallée’s constitutional rights had been violated and questioned why the police did not use other tactics to get him out of the vehicle.
Mr. McGovern did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
In an interview last week with NOLA.comrelatives of Mr Vallée said he had long struggled with drug addiction but was not a violent person.
“He’s a struggling drug addict. That doesn’t mean he should have been shot and killed like he was,” his aunt, Tara Phillips, told the outlet.
Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed report.
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