Imagine waking up on Christmas morning to find your stocking stuffed—not with candy canes or presents, but with excuses, redactions, and delays. That’s exactly how it feels when the government turns public records requests into a waiting game. This year, all we want for Christmas are answers to the questions the public deserves to have answered.
As the end of the year approaches, reflecting on successes and disappointments is common for many. When you are in the business of government transparency and accountability, that reflective period often focuses on the fish that got away. More truth could have been exposed if there had been more time, money, and resources. What were the most significant obstacles? What issues should have taken precedence?
Just because the truth hasn’t been told YET doesn’t mean we should give up. After all, these things can take a while. And while we prefer to wait on most occasions until we have source documents to back our research, the crafty and conniving bureaucrats and elected officials know this as well and will delay it as long as possible. But if we had to pick one thing we wanted for Christmas, it would be ANSWERS. Answers to the many outstanding and obstructed public records requests we made this year!
Let’s start in Lafayette
Sheriff Bobby Guidroz of St. Landry is one public official who doesn’t pop up on our radar often. While Sheriff Guidroz has been in the news recently concerning an ongoing dispute between himself and the Parish Government over jails and prisoners, similar to what we have been witnessing in Lafayette Parish for some time, it wasn’t anything he did that prompted our attention. In fact, the reason for our request to Sheriff Guidroz began here in Lafayette. Isn’t amazing how one bad apple can impact the rest.
In January of this year, we learned of an alleged incident that was a point of contention between Sheriff Guidroz of St. Landry Parish and Sheriff Mark Garber of Lafayette Parish. According to the information we received, it was alleged that Sheriff Garber’s SWAT team had entered St. Landry Parish, conducted a property search without a warrant, and arrested/detained subjects. To be clear, all of this occurred outside of the Lafayette Sheriff’s geographical jurisdiction. We sought to find out what happened.
We submitted a public records request to Sheriff Garber on January 29, 2024, seeking a report, body camera footage, and any memorandums concerning the alleged incident. It wasn’t until several months later that we received our response from Sheriff Garber. In it, Garber essentially said we have no reports, you can’t have the footage but did provide a one-page memorandum which read:
“Due to recent events [plural] crossing jurisdictions [plural], all LPSO Employees conducting official business will NOT enter St. Landry Parish unless Sheriff Mark T. Garber, Colonel Carlos Stout, and the Major over your division has been notified and cleared the same with St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office Command Staff”
It led to St. Landry Parish
Well, folks… something obviously happened here! But by the time we received that response from Sheriff Garber, consisting of a single-page document, two and a half months had passed. Looking back, we probably should have reached out to Sheriff Guidroz in January. We won’t make that mistake again. But we did submit a public records request to Sheriff Guidroz on April 22, 2024, seeking similar documents, reports, and body camera footage. That request was turned over to a legal team to respond the next day, but documents wouldn’t be forthcoming for several more months.
Despite regular attempts to follow up on the request, we increasingly began to suspect whether it was being intentionally sandbagged. What exactly did the records being withheld show? We contacted Sheriff Guidroz and his legal team once last time, while securing a lawyer and preparing for the next move. Then, on September 19, 2024, almost eight months after the incident, we were provided with a response and the body camera footage captured by the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Deputy on-scene.
You can watch the footage HERE! Like most of the information we receive and look into, there are credible allegations. While the video is mostly boring, the most interesting part is the end. That’s when other St. Landry Parish Deputies arrived on the scene and began to question what was going on and what authority the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office had outside their jurisdiction. At that point, the body camera recording is suddenly turned off. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent by multiple agencies every year on body cameras just for a person to be able to press the off button and sabotage the very reason they are in use.
Back to Garber…
Another interesting tip we received brings us back to Lafayette, and specifically to Sheriff Mark Garber. The funny thing is this tip also connected to St. Landry Parish, but we hope we don’t have to go back there for a while. The allegations are that the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office was involved in a vehicle pursuit with an individual who ended up wrecking. Once the suspect was out of the car and subdued on the ground, a Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Deputy came running up towards the subject and kicked him forcefully in the head. The subject was allegedly transported to a local hospital and treated for a concussion. However, he was not booked into jail despite having multiple warrants out of St. Landry Parish and the charges that gave rise to the pursuit.
On June 24, 2024, we asked for records related to any administrative investigations, complaints, and videos concerning allegations of excessive use of force. In possibly the fastest response ever from the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office, we were told the same day, “there are no documents responsive to this request.” Of course, by this time, we were hearing stories of the video we were seeking being circulated around the Sheriff’s Office. In one instance, the video reportedly even made the deputy turn visibly pale when he saw his own actions. Fact or fiction?
We submitted another round of records requests seeking reports, camera footage, and jail records for the subject on the same day, June 24, 2024. It just so happens that we didn’t get a response until this week. Those responses consisted of the standard obstructionist tactics with exactly 300 redactions on only 40 pages of documents. The Sheriff, using the broad brush of the law enforcement exemption, redacted the names of persons involved, the locations of the offenses, vehicle information, etc. Sheriff Garber also has completely withheld the video, claiming it is part of a pending investigation, and even attempted to charge $25 for viewing the suspect’s rap sheet.
Full Disclosure
Let’s face facts: we expected nothing less. We have witnessed Garber’s countless obstructions of public records, including withholding the identities of people with outstanding warrants. He’s also refused to release his “secret agreements” with federal authorities. Some have even speculated that his is among other local agencies working in conjunction with the ATF to create and hold warrants for paperwork violations involving the purchase of firearms, only to play that card when the feds issue the signal (order 66, anyone?). Perhaps this is why Garber has removed the warrant database that once appeared on his website. This is a developing story, so you should expect more to come.
What we do know is that the subject was arrested and booked into the LPCC on June 13, 2024. He was booked for thirty-four separate offenses, including eight for which he is wanted in St. Landry. Many of the offenses related to a rash of vehicle burglaries that occurred between June 19 – 20, 2023, and which resulted in multiple firearms being stolen. One of the burglaries involved a Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office unit where the suspects allegedly stole body armor and other tactical law enforcement equipment.
While reports seem to highlight a good job done by members of the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office and other surrounding agencies, the entire ordeal has been highlighted by the alleged misconduct of one Sheriff’s Deputy. Time will tell the outcome for the subject as the case meanders through our criminal justice system like driftwood on the Teche. It is certainly one worth watching.
Down the Teche
To wrap things up, let’s turn our focus to one more Sheriff, Tommy “the Tax Man” Romero. We have previously highlighted our issues with getting records from the Iberia Parish Sheriff. That was leading up to the election in which the uninformed voters of Iberia Parish approved a 1 percent tax measure, which they will have until the end of time.
At the same time, we began to receive information from multiple sources about the mismanagement of funds presently going at the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office. Those allegations ranged from money missing from the inmate trust account to Sheriff Romero’s failure to report theft within his office to the District Attorney’s Office, payroll fraud, and the mismanagement of federal funds.
On April 11, 2024, we requested records about the various aspects of the allegations we were informed of. Many, we were told, didn’t exist. Others, they said, were still under investigation. To this day, however, we have never been provided with the requested records. We are still seeking information regarding the accounting and disbursement of roughly $400,000 in federal funds received from FEMA as part of the Operation Stone Garden Maritime patrols in and around coastal Iberia Parish. This, too, shall be continued…
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Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.
Churchill’s rallying cry echoes today: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” Here's how you can help hold the line for Louisiana’s conservative values.
One historical figure I frequently look to for inspiration is Winston Churchill. With little more than grit and determination, he rallied his countrymen to overcome overwhelming odds and save the world. He had a plan and a team, but on February 9th, 1941, he needed resources to further stimey the evil forces bearing down on England.
He closed his radio broadcast on that fateful day, saying, "Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire... Give us the tools, and we will finish the job."
Here we are some eighty years later, and evil again bears down upon us. To be sure, Donald Trump will do his part in Washington, DC. However, Louisiana and her local communities are our jobs - yours and mine. It's up to us to hold the line against the Left's encroachment in Louisiana. That's the work Citizens for a New Louisiana has already been doing for nearly eight years. We've shored up our gains in Lafayette, Livingston, and St. Tammany parishes. However, many more parishes are currently undefended! Will you help us to expand more Conservative bulwarks into other parishes?
Churchill knew that success was only possible with additional resources. That remains true today. We can only continue this critical work with support from friends like you. We don't just think Louisiana is worth saving; we're doing our part to accomplish it, one little bit at a time. Are you on board? Here's your chance to prove it. Partner with our movement or chip in monthly so this critical work continues.
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