Citizen Crime Watch Blog

Cop’s arrest taints drug cases
DA drops charges in 37 prosecutions
Friday, May 30, 2008
By Laura Maggi
Staff writer
The Times-Picayune

As a member of the New Orleans Police Department’s 4th District task force, officer Joseph Lusk was involved in a plethora of Algiers drug busts, arresting people for dealing or using illegal drugs.

Lusk’s own arrest last month on suspicion of malfeasance in office means 37 of those cases have been dropped so far by the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office — whose prosecutors can’t press forward on cases with an allegedly corrupt cop as a main witness.

Each case needed to be evaluated to determine whether Lusk was an “essential witness,” or whether prosecutors could go forward without his testimony, relying on other NOPD officers, said District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson. Almost all of the cases involve drugs — save for the battery of a police officer charge in which Lusk was the alleged victim, an office spokesman said. “Once an officer is under investigation of any sort, we wouldn’t want to call him to testify for us,” Landrum-Johnson said.

— Arrested April 16 —

Lusk was arrested by his department’s Public Integrity Bureau on April 16 amid allegations he tipped off a woman about a drug location under surveillance on the West Bank.

This female acquaintance, Inger Hurst, allegedly told 4th District officers about the text-messaged tip-off — which Hurst said was meant to help her evade arrest for her drug purchases — when she was picked up the next day on suspicion of crack possession.

Lusk, who resigned from the NOPD the week of Hurst’s arrest, was booked the following week with malfeasance. The DA’s office expects to present his case to a grand jury next month, said Robert White, the assistant district attorney in charge of the office’s public corruption unit.

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N.O. cop killer’s execution canceled
Antoinette Frank gets more time to appeal
Saturday, May 17, 2008
By Gwen Filosa

The Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday canceled the July 15 execution of cop killer Antoinette Frank, ordering a local judge to allow more time for her lawyers to file a post-conviction appeal of her 1995 sentence for three first-degree murders.

Instead of a July execution, Frank will receive an additional 90 days in which to file her appeals, six justices ruled Friday, granting the defense team’s application.

The 90-day clock begins on June 10 — the deadline that a local court had given Frank to file her appeal at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.

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2 deputies fired after woman says she had to expose herself
by Allen Powell II, The Times-Picayune
Thursday April 24, 2008, 8:55 PM

Two Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies have been fired and one faces criminal charges after authorities say one of them forced a female motorist to expose herself and the other deputy did not report it.

Clyde A. Clarke, 45, of 438 Holy Cross Place, Kenner, was booked with malfeasance in office after authorities claimed he forced an unidentified 26-year-old woman to expose herself to avoid arrest on two occasions. Demond T. Ferguson, 24, 1740 Hampton Drive, Harvey, was fired by the Sheriff’s Office but was not arrested.

Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, said that on Saturday, Clarke and Ferguson were traveling separately when they stopped the woman and her boyfriend on Ames Boulevard. During the traffic stop, the deputies determined that both were wanted on other traffic violations and arrested only the unidentified man.

The deputies allowed the woman to leave, but not before asking her to provide personal information, including a telephone number, Fortunato said. After Clarke took her boyfriend to jail, he telephoned the woman and told her to meet him outside her home.

When Clarke met the woman, he made her move into a dimly lit area and then demanded that she raise her skirt, Fortunato said. Clarke did not touch the woman, but when she returned to her home, he told her that the next time he called, she should not be wearing underwear.

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NOPD officer arrested for pandering, resigns job
by Daniel Monteverde and Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Times-Picayune
Thursday April 24, 2008, 9:40 PM

A veteran New Orleans police officer resigned his position with the department after Kenner police arrested him during an undercover prostitution sting on Thursday afternoon.

Raynard Lyons, a 17-year veteran of the department, was booked with pandering after officers watched him drop off a prostitute at an undisclosed Kenner apartment building, Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said.

Caraway said Lyons had driven the woman to the spot after undercover detectives agreed to exchange sex for money. The connection was made through Craigslist.org, a popular advertising Web site.

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EDITORIAL: Officer as perpetrator
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
The Times-Picayune

The man did nothing to provoke him, but still New Orleans police officer Donald Battiste struck him hard in the back with his elbow. The blow, described by those who saw it as “karate-like,” dropped the man to his knees. Officer Battiste then handcuffed the man, led him to the police cruiser where he stole $251 of the $510 the man carried in his pockets.

Such behavior from the city’s police officers makes everyone afraid. When a person is attacked by another civilian, there’s always the expectation that the police can be summoned. But when a police officer is the perpetrator, the crime is worse because the victim rightly feels that the law isn’t working for him.

Last week in federal court Mr. Battiste pleaded guilty to using unreasonable force against the man he arrested and to illegally taking his money. The man had committed no crime, but was a decoy taking orders from the Police Department’s Public Integrity Bureau.

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