Free Republic

Soft-on-crime Judge Trudy White is right in the middle of the tragic death of 41-year old Zachary police officer Christopher Lawton Monday night. Lawton’s alleged killer, 33-year-old Albert Franklin, has been the beneficiary of White’s well-established history of being lax with criminals. Franklin now sits in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, charged with first-degree murder of Lawton. Late Monday, East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux said Lawton was killed while working undercover with another Zachary police officer searching for Franklin, who was wanted on active warrants for aggravated second-degree battery, felon in possession of a firearm and aggravated assault with...

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - The man investigators say is responsible for the tragic ending of a birthday celebration has been booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison to face murder charges in the death of a 16-year-old boy. The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office identified the victim as Darius Plummer, 16, of Baton Rouge. Louisiana State Police identified the suspect as Octavio Bringas, 49. He is charged with second-degree murder. "I can't believe it; I can't believe it," said Derrick Ambrose, the victim's cousin. "I'm trying to grasp it right now." Ambrose added that Plummer left his...

A Louisiana sheriff has apologized for the arrests of as many as a dozen or more men in recent years on charges that they violated an anti-sodomy statute that has been ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. On Saturday, The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge reported that a community policing unit of the East Baton Rouge sheriff’s office had been arresting men who discussed or agreed to meet privately to have consensual sex with undercover officers. Some of the arrests went as far back as 2011 and some were as recent as this month.