Police work to break ‘us vs. them’ mindset

This story was published on page A1 of The Advocate on July 29, 2012. It was the sixth part in the paper’s series ‘A Community at Risk’ which looks at why Baton Rouge is one of the nation’s most violent cities. This story examines the role law enforcement plays in the crime rate and how the community’s distrust of police hampers murder investigations. 

Fear of retaliation, distrust of police widespread

President Obama visits Baton Rouge shooting victim in Colorado

This story was published on page A1 of The Advocate on July 24, 2012.  Here is the sidebar that details how the two Baton Rouge women ended up in Aurora on that fateful night. 

After a long day of surgery followed by visits from doctors, detectives and journalists, shooting victim Bonnie Kate Pourciau, of Baton Rouge, was recovering Sunday in her Colorado hospital bed when an unexpected visitor popped his head around her door.

It was President Barack Obama.

“Can I come in?” he asked her.

“I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s the president!’ ” Pourciau said. “It was really cool. I felt so honored. I got to shake his hand and give him a hug. He was very friendly.”

While standing next to Pourciau’s hospital bed, Obama told her the hardest part of his job is visiting Americans who have been wounded, both in wars and in tragedies.

The president had just come from visiting others who were in worse shape than Pourciau, she said.

“It has been traumatic. I still haven’t begun to process all that happened,” Pourciau said of the shooting. “And thinking about everything, it’s a terrible, terrible, awful thing, but God is holding us and he has us in control and we’re gonna be okay.”

Obama told Pourciau she was an inspiration to him and he loved seeing her smile. He told her she was going to bounce back.

“It was so special to be encouraged by him like that,” she said.

Pourciau, 18, was shot in the knee early Friday during one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history. Read more of this post

Juvenile fugitives caught — police baffled by Jetson director’s claimed ‘chase’

This story was published in The Advocate on July 9, 2012. 

Authorities found and arrested two juvenile fugitives late Saturday, hours after the facility’s director was placed on administrative leave for engaging in a chase “on his own,” said a spokeswoman Sunday.

Director Daron Brown

The administrator left law enforcement agencies from Baton Rouge to New Orleans confused Sunday after he claimed to have chased an SUV Friday night thought to be carrying two juvenile escapees. Some authorities, however, questioned whether the two-hour, high-speed pursuit even happened.

“Everything was unfounded,” said State Police spokesman Sgt. Len Marie. “We had units set up all over the interstate ready to intercept this vehicle as it came through, but it never came through. We don’t even know for a fact that this guy was ever actually involved in a chase.” Read more of this post

Jurors moved by horrific 911 tape

This story was published in The Advocate on May 21, 2012. 

Prosecutors played a tape recording Saturday of the horrific 911 call that ended with the screams of Patricia Aldridge being shot 13 times by an AK-47, while multiple jurors burst into tears and the defendant, Derrick Gordy, leaned back in his chair and stared straight ahead.

The five-minute tape, recorded on Sept. 30, 2009, started with Aldridge calmly telling the dispatcher that four black male assailants had threatened her son’s life outside their South Sunderland Avenue home. A few minutes later, Aldridge could be heard goading the subjects.

“C’mon, try to hit me … uh huh … c’mon … here they come, here they come,” Aldridge said just before the call suddenly erupted into chilling screams and a barrage of gunfire that lasted between 10 and 30 seconds.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?” the dispatcher asked.

“I’m dead,” Aldridge said, before the sounds of gunfire took over the recording. Read more of this post

Police arrest man during rapper’s trial accused of tweeting threats to DA

This story was published on page A1 of The Advocate on May 9, 2012. 

East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested a 21-year-old man Monday for threatening on Twitter to shoot District Attorney Hillar Moore III outside the trial of rapper Torence “Lil Boosie” Hatch, authorities said.

Deputies said they found Dedrick Deandre Green, 14004 Longvue Drive, Baker, sitting in the courtroom Monday afternoon, watching Hatch’s first-degree murder trial.

Green was booked into Parish Prison on felony counts of public intimidation and terrorizing, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

“I got a sniper rifle for Hillar Moore when he walk out the courthouse,” Green posted on Twitter at about 3:40 p.m. Saturday, the affidavit says. Read more of this post

Police link St. Gabriel man to burned gay hairdresser’s corpse through victim’s social media account

This story was published in The Advocate on May 6, 2012. 

East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux announced Thursday the arrest of a suspect in the slaying of a Baton

Rouge hairdresser whose burned body was discovered in the trunk of a car abandoned on the Mississippi River levee.

Gautreaux said events leading up to the murder began Sunday evening when the hairdresser, Roderick White, 33, drove himself to a mobile home in St. Gabriel to meet for the first time with Jason Mascarella, 34, a man he had been chatting with online.

The men had met on either Twitter or Facebook, said Todd Morris, a sheriff’s detective and lead investigator on the case. Read more of this post

After early morning crime spree, robbery suspects arrested

This story was published in The Advocate on April 19, 2012. 

By Adam Lau, The Advocate

Three men were left begging for their lives this week after an armed duo confronted them at gunpoint in separate incidents in the dark, early morning hours outside their Shenandoah homes.

“I was frightened out of my mind,” said Sidney Deloach, 72, who was pistol-whipped and knocked to the ground by the men as he returned home from buying a newspaper about 4:30 a.m. Thursday.

“They both had their guns pointed straight at my head, no more than four or five inches from my head, saying, ‘I’m gonna shoot you,’ ” Deloach said. Read more of this post