United States
When Joe Buttross was selected to fill an assistant warden position at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel a couple years ago, he had no experience working in prisons. But he did have close connections to the Louisiana Department of Corrections secretary.
In the months leading up to a corruption probe into the Baton Rouge Police Department narcotics division, seven of its detectives later accused of wrongdoing were clocking on average over 60 hours a week. Some more than doubled their base salaries at the expense of local taxpayers.
When a friend texted Christopher Gregoire asking for some weed, he agreed to smoke with her and arrived at her Baton Rouge hotel room about 20 minutes later. He knocked on the door, but instead of his friend welcoming him inside, Gregoire found himself confronted with undercover detectives.
After a Baton Rouge police officer was accused of purchasing stolen electronics several weeks ago, he sat down and drafted a memo alleging widespread corruption and rampant misconduct throughout the narcotics division, including among his superiors.
Duong "Calvin" Cao had served 17 years in prison on an attempted murder conviction when he went before the Louisiana pardon board in 2015 and received a favorable recommendation for early release because officials considered him rehabilitated.
2020 was a year of monumental losses. While the coronavirus death toll climbed steadily, the East Baton Rouge Parish homicide rate rose to an unprecedented level, making 2020 the most murderous year in known history. Other communities are seeing similar trends.
When police questioned Carolyn Moore about two insurance salesmen killed during an armed robbery, she confessed without hesitation, confident the officers would understand her predicament. She described her unwilling participation in the crime.
The neighbors share similar stories: LSU students drunkenly urinating outside their windows, making out on their patio furniture, stealing street signs and destroying Halloween decorations. Many residents of Baton Rouge's Lake Villas subdivision have had enough.
After a female prison guard at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel accused an inmate of raping her at knifepoint last summer, detectives reviewed surveillance video that supported her account and the St. Gabriel police chief said she "clearly was raped."
When Blane Salamoni applied to become a Baton Rouge police officer, department officials determined he had been intentionally dishonest during the hiring process — a disqualifier flagged on at least three other applications submitted around the same time.
Long before his death made headlines, Danny Buckley spent decades building a life in Baton Rouge. Those 61 years were filled with ups and downs, fluctuating at times from one extreme to the other — years when he supported his family as a truck driver and celebrated his son's success.
It was a common occurrence: two good friends chatting on the front porch. There was a lot to talk about. Both were devoted fathers and hardworking chefs. They had cooked at various Baton Rouge restaurants and most recently in the kitchens of LSU fraternities, keeping the students fed.
When Michael Conish left the hospital Wednesday morning, he had good reason to be hopeful. He envisioned a future in which his pregnant fiance would once again start breathing on her own and return home to regain her strength with their beautiful daughter still growing inside her.
Marcus Simmons was released from prison almost two decades ago, but says he's still chasing freedom. He was among a crowd of about 100 protesters who commemorated the Juneteenth holiday with a march to Louisiana's massive Angola prison.
In one massive room filled with rows of metal bunk beds about an arm's length apart, 70 women share three toilets and four sinks. There's no such thing as social distancing inside the female prison dorms that have become inundated with coronavirus cases.
Brandon Hayes had come unmoored again. For weeks, he wandered around Baton Rouge during a mental health crisis, spray-painting nonsensical messages along the way before finally checking himself into the hospital for treatment. His mother breathed a sigh of relief.
Months after an enormous explosion on Christmas Eve 1989 that killed two workers at ExxonMobil's north Baton Rouge refinery, the company started offering buyouts to people living in neighborhoods closest to the plant. Now more than 30 years later, only a few houses remain.
Baton Rouge's first homicide of 2020 almost went undiscovered and unreported after detectives and death investigators made an incorrect assumption while processing the scene, overlooking the victim's gunshot wound and declaring his death an accidental drug overdose.
Hayward Jones stands before his students and writes two words on the chalkboard: self development. "This is what we do," he tells the roomful of men. "Build, grow, mature, change, improve — transition. Yes, we're moving from one mindset to another. We're here for change."
Sawyer Reed was an LSU senior — an enthusiastic member of Sigma Chi with impressive grades and law school aspirations — when he overdosed on heroin at his apartment just off campus and died in October 2015. An announcement two months later said Sigma Chi's LSU chapter would close.
Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul apologized Thursday to communities of color in Louisiana's capital city for his department's contributions to the climate of mistrust between residents and police that reached a boiling point in the aftermath of a controversial 2016 officer shooting.
Garry and Mary Ellen Jordan were planning an unannounced visit to LSU. They would show up and tell their son he had no choice but to withdraw from school. He needed help and he wasn't getting it there. The couple attended Sunday morning Mass at their church in Covington.
It was late one morning in December 1982 when a Baton Rouge housewife saw someone approaching her home in the city's Hundred Oaks neighborhood. She opened the door a crack, unsure if it was a carpenter or plumber returning from their lunch break.
First it was a plaster cast extending from shoulder to wrist. Now it's a removable plastic brace and compression sleeve. First there was no movement. Now Lt. Bruce Simmons has a habit of opening and closing the fingers on his left hand — for no particular reason, just because he can.
Denise Lee never wanted this job. But over the past several months, she has spent hundreds of hours combing through social media, interrogating her own family members and pleading with potential witnesses — hoping her words will resonate enough.
After several years in the manufacturing sector, Heidi Snide dreamed of becoming a teacher. She took out student loans and earned additional degrees, then dived into her second career: teaching science in the Reading School District. Her classroom became a sanctuary.
Ed Walter used to sit on his front porch and watch deer wander out of the woods surrounding his yard. Now he spends more time inside and tries not to listen as backhoes and wood chippers cut a swath 75 feet across through roughly two acres of forest on his South Heidelberg Township property.
Like generations of Randolph residents before him, Rabern Vawter uses his legal name only for legal purposes. For everything else, he goes by "Possie." The fact that many people don’t even know his real name is a sign he was born and raised in old Randolph.
In 2008, Fort Riley received some unexpected good news. After years of lobbying to replace the Army’s oldest hospital, Congress slipped money for a new facility into a bill that financed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, funding was in place to bring Fort Riley a new hospital.